Should We Rent to Them? There is One Misdemeanor 3 Years Ago

[Jackie Sladky]

Two young men interested in renting our two bedroom apartment.  Everything about them is fine: education and job.  They lived with each other before as roommates.  Now one of them told us that he has a misdemeanor in 2013 for drug possession.  The other person is clean.  We have not done the background check and don't know what will it report, but he said that he was in a car with three other friends in North Dakota (very conservative state, according to him) and all got caught because they had marijuana pipes.  If this is the whole story, I don't think it's that bad, and I am tempted to rent to them, but I don't know what else. And I don't know if there is any in dept background check that we can do.

[Jackie Sladky]

I'd like to thank everyone for the advises/suggestions and wanted to give an update.  We ended up did not rent to this young man.  We really wanted to give him a chance, as he truly was open, sending us everything that we need to know, but the more we dig, the more bad news came up.  There were DUI and DWI, besides marijuana possession and a few other misdemeanors, totaling up to six.  One previous landlord reported that he paid rent late four times and that they asked that either he moved or they'd proceed with eviction.   He has a good job now, and I hope that he'd stay clean, but when a person is under the influence of drug and alcohol, he's not himself.   We decided not to take the risk.