Renting to a felon

[Wade Sikkink]

A guy called me yesterday and asked about an apartment we have for rent. I gave him the info then he asked, "Do you rent to felons?"

I was a little surprised and responded, "What do you mean?"

He explained that he just got out of jail 2 months ago and he and his wife are looking to move closer to her work and were interested in the apartment. I asked what he was in jail for and he said selling pot. I asked if he was done with that and of course he said yes.

I personally feel that a person is not defined by one bad thing they have done in their past and people need second chances. However, zebra's don't change their stripes to quote the saying. It would probably be easy to reject them based on credit history, etc. He didn't call back and we have several other good applicants for the apartment, so I won't have to deal with it this time. I'm just interested in how other landlords feel about something like this in a tenants background.