My Pacific Height story-- What can we learn from this

[Bob Jones]

We just experienced our "pacific height" and completed the eviction process. I want to share my experience with you to see what we can learn from this.

1) A Brother and sister came and rented our house. They paid the rent. They were always late but they paid late fee so we got used to the late payment.

2) The sister told my wife his brother found another job. His brother would move out. She would stay and she found a couple to share the expense.

First Lesson Learned: My wife told them it is OK as long as they pay the rent on time. Note this turned out to be a big mistake. My wife also asked them to send a formal application form but they never did.

First Question: What would you do under this situation? if the existing tenant want to move out and find a people to sublease?

Second Question: Can we say no for this kind of request? If we say Yes, then I am afraid we will have a nightmare like this again.

3) The "couple" moved in who are actually two woman with 2 kids. One woman is the husband and another woman is the wife. Two kids are three and four years old. Our nightmare began. The didn't pay rent.

Second lesson learned: Don't get used to late fees. We were get used to the late fees so we though the Sister and the couple would pay. So we didn't evict them until the end of the month.

Third question: What can we do here? Note they didn't fill any application as my wife asked. Is this legal for them to move in?

4) The "couple" started to cause troubles. They had different people come and go. They constantly fight with different people. Police were called to the house all the time. The neighbor called us everyday. The dig a big hole in the backyard to burn file. They told us to file eviction so they can have another 30 days to leave.

At the same time, the brother stopped the gas and water. MUD automatically transferred the bill to us and start to charge us. We tried to talk to the couple and they told us to terminate the water and gas.

Fourth Question: Can we stop the gas and water? I heard as landlord, we can't terminate the water and gas under any circumstance. What can we do next time? This is a loophole in the system. The tenant can call MUD to cancel the the service anytime they want and the landlord need to pay the bill. We can't terminate the service. What can we do legally?

5) We finally evicted them out of our house. They took the window out so we had to install new windows. They left dog and cat **** around the house. The house is full of garbage. They made a huge mass just like what you would see in pacific height. We end up paying a lot of money to fix it. We didn't make any money. If we are lucky, the rent we will collect next year can even our expense for this accident.

Final Lessons Learned: Be careful there are evil guys in the world.

Final question, what would you do if you were us to deal with the sublease? what can we to do deal with the MUD loophole?