PM & Landlords, What's your craziest experience you have had?

Question

What's your craziest experience you have had? I have heard a number of horror stories with tenants. What's been yours?

Steve K. · Answer

We had a tenant who was running an illegal sports gambling ring, who got busted by the feds. In order to avoid an extended visit in Club Fed, he ratted out his partners. In retaliation for that, his partners kidnapped him, brought him out to the desert and put him in a big wooden box. Then they threw an angry rattlesnake in the box with him, and nailed shut the lid. Somehow, he avoided getting bitten, broke himself out of the box and walked many miles through the desert without food or water back to civilization. He eventually made it back home. He was late on rent and hadn't returned my calls, so I had already filed the eviction paperwork. Best excuse for late rent that I've ever heard! If he hadn't backed it up with police reports and an article on the whole story printed that day in the Denver Post, I wouldn't have believed it. But it was actually true. The tenant found God while breaking out of the box with the rattlesnake in it and escaping through the desert. He dedicated the rest of his life to illustrating and animating each and every story from the bible and spent his free time carrying around a big heavy cross while wearing a real crown of thorns and flagellating himself with branches, to emulate Christ's suffering. He stayed for a few years after that and was a good tenant, other than freaking out a few neighbors.  Sometimes the craziest stories are the true ones.

Scott Mac · Answer

I was looking at some apartments, and while walking the outside area I noticed 2 holes in the wall of one of the buildings (around shoulder height) about the size of my thumb.

I looked in the holes, (like a binoculars) and could see inside the unit (fresh holes I thought), then I noticed a lower hole about waist high.

So I went to the managers office (which had a posh 1970 decor) to inform her she had what appeared to be bullet holes in a unit.

She said, oh yes she knew about them, the previous renters had for some reason drawn gunfire one Saturday and then moved the next week--location unknown.

There was no problem now though because the unit had new renters in it.

I said "and the holes are not patched why?"

She said, maintenance did not know how to patch Hardie board (the siding appeared to be wood), and the new renters did not care about them, so they just left them (Caulk and Spackle did not exist for this maintenance person I guess).

She said a couple of other units were the same way (I thought WOW--Dodge City).

I asked her to come and finish my outside walk with me and point out the other bullet hole units--she declined, and said she was afraid of some of the renters.

So I went back out, (there were two of us, and we looked a lot more like Five-oh then she did, so we expected they would not try anything with us).

About three minuted into our walk we spotted another apartment with bullet holes, and it looked like someone had taken a bic lighter and held it against one of the holes (char marks) to burn the building down, but was unsuccessful.)

We were standing there talking about this char mark situation, when a couple of buildings away we heard two shots, and then another two--real fast--bang-bang, bang bang.

We just left and texted her on the way out, we were off the property, and thanks....

And both agreed this was not a property we wanted to get involved with.

We thought it was class C but it was class D (Dangerous).

I didn't feel safe until we were inside a Wendy's many miles away having Chili.

James Hamling · Answer

@Harrison Jones

I was doing an inspection on a property, tenants were acting a bit off, nervous, but thought little of it.

As I got into the basement I was very confused because it was a fraction of main floor size and I was racking my brain, I was certain it had a standard basement, but, here it's this tiny space. Until I notice a wall area seems a bit odd, scratches on the floor, tenants just starring at me and I depress an area, hear a click and the whole dang wall comes sweeping back opening up too a hallway. The hallway opens to cages upon cages and now I am thinking what in the hell..... And then opens to a large area, a pit area caged in, blood stained floor, arena style seating flanking around.

NOPE, I was done, time to leave! Lol. It was a MASSIVE rooster-fighting operation. Countless cages. I knew right away anything like that was not a hobby or a 1-off thing some tenant did, I knew to get going.

Best part, tenants who had very poor English, were then trying to put on best act they could of "oh, what is this, how long has this been here" acting as if they had no idea all this was in there basement. Remember, fresh blood on floor, dozens upon dozens of roosters in cages.

I thought I had seen everything, up until that day.

Chris Seveney · Answer

Here is one that thankfully was not me but someone i know. We invest as does this person in distressed mortgages. This person was the lender on foreclosed on a borrower as they had not paid in years. After foreclosure they evicted the borrower and renovated the property over the course of two months and listed it on the market for sale (Feb 2020).

The agent goes to show the property one day and the lockbox does not work the locks were chnaged. The former borrower had moved back into the house and changed the locks. The agent called the police and when the police came the individual yelled from a second floor window "I have COVID and I will spit on you". The police left and it took close to a year to evict the person - they also damaged the property which fortunately was covered by insurance.

Henry T. · Answer

Craziest, communistic, most unamerican thing I've ever heard? Watching the government tell landlords they can't evict someone for not paying rent.

Robert T. · Answer

You left out "while holding YOU , the landlord, strictly to the letter of your lease with the tenant (s)" i.e. 24 hours notice to enter, timely repairs, any maintenance/pest control agreements you had in place, etc.

Alan Asriants · Answer

One of father's tenants tried to sue him after they had a party and one of the guests broke their arm. She claimed that her heel got stuck in the carpet and she fell. Turns out, they went too hard on the arm wrestling and snapped it then.

Kevin Coco-Senyszyn · Answer

You know how people say, "They took everything but the kitchen sink"? Well, wouldn't you know it, these tenants took the kitchen sink! Thankfully, this was not a tenant we had placed, but an owner who came to us after they had stopped paying rent.

Henry T. · Answer

Yes, I may have left out those horrible details, but I will never forget that, and those that implemented that nonsense. They are forever on my "get out of office" list.

PM & Landlords, What's your craziest experience you have had?

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