Seven Years since First Eviction in Massachusetts - Deadbeat tenant found

[Rob Beland]

As some quick background, this was my first ever eviction and it happened about 7 years ago. It was a SFR and my tenant got behind on rent. I gave him some time, worked with him, took partial payments and broke most of the rules out there on dealing with this type of tenant. I finally hired an attorney and served the 14 day notice. Within days I had a letter from the BOH listing all of the problems with my property that I had to fix.

I now realized I had a problem.

I attempted to schedule a time to start fixing things and the tenant wouldn't let me in the house. I called the BOH, explained, and they explained to him that he had to let me in and she would be there with me the next day to go into the house. 

Long story short, I got everything fixed within a few days and moved on with my Summary Process as planned. He then counter sued me stating mold in the house, according to his doctor, gave his kid asthma. He was still not paying rent and as a side note, a leaking toilet he didn't tell me about rotted the entire bathroom floor and created mold all over the laundry area below. I took care of that too....on my dime. 

I got to court and he was there with his head down and no attorney. He dropped his claim, gave up basically, and we negotiated a deal where he moves out and I garnished his wages to attempt to get the money I was owed (over $7K at this point). He lost his job with in a few months and the garnishment stopped. I found him to be living in a house in the next town over and going through a similar situation with that landlord. 

I couldn't get to him unfortunately to go after him for the money he still owes me. Here we are seven years later and I happened to be searching through the state court records online and I see his name pop up from an eviction two years ago in the next town over. This guy really gets around.

I contacted his most recent landlord from that eviction and she happens to also be a collection agency. Guess who finally found their deadbeat tenant living in the next town over that still owes me over $7K?

I realize I may never see any money from him but I know one thing. He probably never expected in a million years to hear from me again after all this time. 

As a rule, I keep all old tenant files forever. I still have all the paper work from his eviction and the collection agency will be all over him even if just to harass him and let him know I know where he is and he can't hide. 

Moral of the story, don't give up on deadbeat tenants that owe you money. Keep after them. Remind them whenever possible that you are still there looking for your money. 

Happy Saturday BPers. I'm off to work....