General Landlording & Rental Properties
Market News & Data
General Info
Real Estate Strategies
Landlording & Rental Properties
Real Estate Professionals
Financial, Tax, & Legal
Real Estate Classifieds
Reviews & Feedback
Tattoo studio and difficult renter in my first investment
About a year ago I took over a lease on a 5 bdr house in hollywood. I put about $8K into the deposit and turned the dining room into a room and am now making $700 month in income from this situation in addition to not having to pay rent of my own. Shady yes, but I feel like it's a great start to my investing. Now i've got a problem with a tenant.
The tenant is running a tattoo studio in the main area of the house and is very vindictive towards the other roomates, causing the roomates to mostly stay in their rooms. In addition to this, he is a mechanic and consistently has car parts and junk laying around that he refuses to clean on his own.
As a result of all this, I gave him a 30 day notice that he needs to leave, which he immediately took to the landlord, who said it's not valid and that i'm essentially stuck with this guy. He then began stealing from me, starting with an $1100 item of mine. At this point I've also sat him down and tried asking him to leave, cleanup, move the tattoo stuff, etc. which he will not do. He did, however, return my item by saying I should "look around again" which I did, and magically my item returned.
Although I am the sole person who has signed the lease, the landlord asks that as roomates change that I keep him notified of their names and phone numbers, which I do. The landlord claims there is really nothing he can do about getting this guy out, and the landlord likes this guy because he has rented him from him for 10+ years.
So basically I have a lease, it's grey whether this guy does or doesn't, and I can't seem to kick him out or get him to leave. I really don't want to leave myself because I think this is a great start to my investing, so what should I do? Please help me!