Tenant Woes!

References to language ahead and some serious venting going on. Precede with caution!

When Jon and I purchased those four townhouses last month we knew we might have tenant problems. But I'd been a property manager before and knew what I might be getting into.

Three of the four units were already rented and we'd heard horror stories about the management company that was handling them. One of the renters was long term and had been there long before this management company had taken over. But we weren't sure about the other two tenants. 

I knew as soon as I knocked on the door of "apartment A" that there was a problem.

"What the F* do you want" a male voice yelled through the door.

He opened the door with a baby in his arms and a cell phone attached to his ear. 

He angrily snatched the paperwork from my hands and slammed the door in my face.

Problem #1 - A woman with 1 child had signed the lease agreement less than a year ago. Who was the man and baby?

A week later we return to begin laying floor in the vacant townhouse. Tenant A is needy and whiny. There are things wrong with her house. She has ants. Want, want, want! I make sure she's seen the letter that I gave to her boyfriend. She has. She also tells me I'm crazy for not wanting as many kids as I can have. She now has three. And apparently has plans for more.

How do you tell a tenant that if they'd clean up their house, they might not have bugs in their kitchen?!

Problem #2 - She waits until a day after the cut off to hand my husband her rent money while he happens to be down there working on another unit. He tells her that he normally doesn't handle rent money, but he'll make sure I get it. He reminds her that the rent is late and writes her a receipt with the date on it.

So I sent her a past due notice with her late fee.

I'm in the hospital waiting on my friend to have surgery when I receive a very irate phone call from her. She's furious! The other rental company let her pay whenever she wanted to pay. She tried to get me to believe that my husband had been there two days earlier so her rent wasn't late. I told her to look at the receipt he had given her. Lots of cussing and yelling later she informs me -

"I'll never F* pay you any late fees!"

and hangs up on me.

One week later - Problem #3.

I get another angry phone call. She has found out that she has to mow her lawn. The other rental agency had put in the lease that it was the tenants responsibility to take care of their lawn. But if a unit was vacant they had been coming by and mowing everything. Since they didn't screen any of the applicants the turn over rate was high. So the entire time she'd lived there, someone had mowed the lawn once a month. She refused to mow her lawn.

She was so mouthy and angry that I eventually put the phone on speaker so Jon could laugh with me. She had gone beyond mad to plain out senseless. Once I was finally able to get a word in I informed her of what her lease said and told her I would mail her a copy.

I made sure to highlight the sections about lawn care and late payment fees just in case.

Problem #4

I receive a call today. Her voice is slightly defensive as she tells me she has a maintenance emergency. Turns out someone in the house has put something into the tub and it's not draining. She demands that we come down immediately and unclog it.

I told her I'd call the maintenance man and get back to her. Sigh! Her lease states that tenants are responsible for any problems relating to use of the home or any problems that are from normal wear and tear on the unit. Because of a previous leak we hired a plumber to come check everything out last month before we purchased the place. The drains didn't leak and weren't clogged one month ago.

Not a pleasant call to return. She used words I'd never heard before and I thought I'd heard them all. 

I'm remembering a teacher friend of mine who asked a question a while back.

"Do the parents not think things through when they yell and cuss out the teacher who will be teaching their child all day tomorrow?"

I'm very glad that her lease ends in June. Crazy lady needs to go.