Tenants did property damage in a short period of time and lied on rental application

[Amber Dyer]

I rented to a couple on 11/1. When I first met them they said they were renting a room and were looking for more space. 

They later admitted they were illegally subletting a room, the guy that they were subletting to was being evicted, and extensive damage was done to the home. So I never actually talked to the actual landlord of the property. Just some random dude who was being evicted for violating the lease. 

Within six weeks of them being at my property they caused some pretty significant damage to the front yard with a motorcycle and refuse to let me view the inside of the rental. And they're refusing to pay to fix the damage. 

One of the background checks I did came back with absolutely nothing with the SSN that was used. I just chalked it up to her being a new citizen and not having anything established yet. But upon looking at the SSN she provided on the application, I found out it's not a valid SSN. Her boyfriend checked out on paper which is why I rented to them. 

I know an ITIN can be used but it requires a different screening process and I was never told it was an ITIN when she filled out the application and put it in the SSN field. And I have no idea if it's an actual ITIN as they have no intention of talking to me about after I asked in writing. 

I only do month to month agreements so they've already been served with a 30 day notice to vacate due to the damage and refusal to pay up fix it. 

My question is, when an applicant is putting their ITIN instead of a SSN are they required to tell you? 

[Greg M.]

Quote from @Amber Dyer:

I guess my main question is, 

Is putting a  ITIN in place of a SSN number and then not telling me so I can find a different company that does background checks without an SSN basically lying on the application? 

What state requires a court order to enter if they refuse? Never heard of this before.

Is listing an ITIN in the SSN box lying? Possibly, but it's extremely inconsequential to the point of being meaningless. Given they listed the only government number they had and they put it in the box that was used for government identification numbers, it's not blatant fraud.

Your main question should be, how come when I used a SSN to screen and it came back with nothing, I didn't investigate further rather than "chalking it up"? Not trying to kick you when you're down, but your screening process caused this.