Advice needed trying to evict problem tenants

[Christine McKinnon]

Hi All!

I'll start by saying. we have never gone through an evection before.  We inherited some difficult very tenants.  We have tried to work with them to the best of our ability but they are just extremely difficult.  Always late with rent (for months on end) and extremely rude to us, even thought we have bent over backwards trying to help them get assistance.  They are on a month to month lease.  So our initial thought is that we just wont renew and tell them we don't plan to and they need to vacate, in which we did.  This has proven to be unsuccessful.  We have even offered cash for keys to no avail.  We did just file for evection because they are 2.5 months late (we didn't file sooner because we felt bad doing that to someone on the holidays).  They just informed us that they have the money and will be sending it.  Because we started this evection process, the tenant is sending my husband deplorable texts, swearing, calling us names but no threats.  This is not the first time we have received text messages like this from them.  This feels like harassment.   Additionally in our lease agreement we outline that they need to communicate through Email unless its an emergency, then they can call or text.  So this is going against the rules outlined in our lease.  So my questions:

1) can we refuse the payment and still evict them or do we need to still stop the proceedings?  They have already been served by the chief so a court date is coming.

2) Regarding the text messages, can we evict them for harassment?  

3) Can we evict for them constantly texting for non emergencies which is a breach of our contract?

Thanks for any advice!

Christine

[Nathan Gesner]

Quote from @Christine McKinnon:

You are not doing yourself any favors by being nice.

Your attempt to evict is based on non-payment of rent. If the Tenant has the money to pay, then you should accept it. That's probably what the court would tell you, as well. Wait until you have money in hand, then terminate the eviction process.

Once that is done, cut off communication with the Tenant except for emergencies. Keep documentation of everything they've done, take it to an attorney, and work with them to remove the tenant for harassing, repetitive late payments, etc. It's time to play hardball and get rid of this problem.

Being a kind human being means abiding by the terms of the agreement. It doesn't mean you have to be a door mat or punching bag for your renters. You should never accept abusive behavior, repetitive non-payment, and other blatant violations of the contract.