Not Renewing Month to Month Lease?

[Jeff Owens]

I recently bought a 20 unit building and closed on the 10th of December. On the 11th I started dealing with the complaints of one tenant on almost a daily basis. All of the complaints are noise related and all have been unreasonable and impossible for me to resolve in my opinion. Some of the complaints I can prove don't even exist. Skip to the last paragraph if you don't want to read in detail all the complaints I am getting, if you are bored and want a laugh read through.

The tenant is complaining about noise he hears from the people above him. We aren't talking about having people over, loud parties, music, TV, or anything like that. I am talking about stuff like the tenant below wants me to make the upstairs tenants not take showers before work because they work "Ridiculous hours". The upstairs tenants get up at 5:00-5:30am for work, and the tenant below feels it's unreasonable for them to walk around at that hour, or shower before work. He also complains about hearing thier washer and dryer run. One of the upstairs tenants has a respiratory problem and coughs a lot, the complaining tenant can hear it and wants me to make that stop.

He has even told me that people are breaking into the vacant apartment next to his in the middle of the night to use the washer and dryer as he hears the washer and dryer in the vacant unit running late at night. I know this is completly made up as while there is a washer and dryer in the unit, I haven't had it installed yet. It's sitting in there not even hooked up, still with the protective plastic on it, so it's impossible for anyone to use it.

He is also upset that one of the tenants goes out on the balcony and according to the complaining tenant goes out on the balcony every time he does. He has even asked me to "Come hide in the bushes and I will call you right before I go outside on my balcony so you can catch them going out on thier balcony when I go out". Another balcony complaint is apparently the people upstairs have spit off the balcony and the downstairs tenant finds it gross and wants me to make them stop.

Christmas mornings complaint was that the upstairs tenants are now following him around the apartment upstairs and banging on the floor. They somehow know when he goes from one room to the next in his apartment and follow him around and bang on the floor of whatever room he's in.

Before I took possession of the building he had the previous owner send the upstairs tenants a letter asking them not to use thier exercise bike in the morning as it disturbs him. The people upstairs don't own an exercise bike.

The complaining tenant has only been there 3 months, and the upstairs tenants have been there almost 4 years, they never had a complaint against them about noise before the complaining tenant moved in.

I offered to allow the complaining tenant to move into one of the vacant units I have in a different building, and he wasn't interested. I explained there isn't much of anything I can do as I can't prevent the upstairs tenants from reasonable use of thier apartment. He still wants to call almost daily to complain, when he does he keeps me on the phone for 30-45 minutes. Truth be told I think he isn't "all there", and I feel bad for him, but I don't have the time to deal with silly and or made up complaints every day. He is on a month to month lease and I decided yesterday to not renew it, and told him that I was ending his lease, and mailed out a letter for the required 30 day notice to end the lease. When talking to a friend who is also a landlord he told me to be careful as it may be considered retaliation to not renew a lease after he has been complaining about noise. I don't see how it would be retaliation, I am not trying to get even with the guy or anything, he hasn't harmed me other than just being a pest. I just don't want to continue to deal with silly wastes of time and would rather find a tenant who isn't going to be a constant hassle all the time. He clearly isn't happy, I can't make him happy, and I am not happy to deal with all his drama and BS. Seemed the best solution is to part ways.

Is there anything I need to be concerned about with "retaliation" in this situation?