My first eviction!

[Brie Schmidt]

I have my first eviction in Milwaukee and was hoping to get some insight on what to expect

• Previous tenant vacated 12/1 
• New tenant moved in 12/20 - paid Dec prorated rent and a deposit
• Tenant paid January rent
• Mid January tenant complained of bed bugs.  Her lease says she is responsible for extermination costs but we had pest control come out twice to deal with the issue and were going to take it from her SD.  The entire apartment is hardwood, no carpet or cloth material was left behind from previous tenant.  Previous tenant moved into another unit of ours and has never complained of bed bugs.  This building has never been serviced for bed bugs since we bought it in July
• February - she did not send it rent or notify us that she wasn't sending in rent.  When we asked where rent was she said she was withholding it because of the laundry and storage costs associated with the bed bugs.  We gave her a 5 day notice, and then she asked for a few extra days to find a shelter.  We gave her another 5 days, then she says apparently she is handicapped, and she lost her job, and she just had surgery and wants more time. We say no 
• We gave her proper 12 hour notice to show her unit and she refused.  We gave her proper 12 hour notice again and we legally entered her apartment and showed it to a prospective tenant.  We then informed her that we have rented the unit for March 1 and she says she is going to pay us Feb rent with her tax return.  We said we need all of February rent by the 25th and March rent is due by the 5th or we will give another 5 day and start eviction.  She does not pay.
• We inform her that the unit is rented and she needs to vacate, if she stays past February 28th she will be responsible for Feb and March rent plus the costs of extermination and court costs.  She refused to leave so we are going to court

Besides her lease and extermination bills, what sort of documentation do I need to bring?

What questions will they ask me?

Anything else I need to do?

Luckily, Milwaukee is landlord friendly.  The rent is only $600 and the extermination was $220 so I might be out $820 (I have a SD for 1 month) but I really want to do this myself as I have never had an eviction. So I see it as worst case scenario it is a $820 learning experience.  

[Marcia Maynard]

No experience related to evictions in Milwaukee, but from my experience in court in our landlord friendly jurisdiction, judges are only interested in facts as they pertain to law, specifically... landlord-tenant law. They will ask the tenant if rent was paid or not. They will review the documents related to the service of the legal notices to make sure notice was properly served. Dates and events. Not interested in the background stories. Less is more; document and show facts, be truthful and concise. Court is quick, judgement in quick. Have your documents in order. Most tenants don't show up... they lose, you win. If you get a money judgement, take it to collections as soon as you can. Hard to collect, but will add more to the tenant record to be found by the next landlord... if they look.