Tenant Screening ?

[Joe Pitrolo]

I have a one bedroom apt. part of a house. I pay all utilities.
A middle aged guy on disability who draws roughly six times my rent, so I'm pretty sure affordability is not a problem.
Having just got burnt on this unit by not doing a criminal check, I told the guy, right before he tried to hand me cash for the depsoit, that I needed to check his references. Needless to say, his pastor of a huge church couldn't remember him and his criminal check showed several charges over a seven year period.
Almost all the charges ranging from worthless checks to burglarly, petit larceny, suspended license,assault, destruction of property,DUI, possession of controlled subtance, etc. have already been dismissed with the exception of the last two.
I went back and asked him about the charges and he had some reasonable explanations for at least half of the charges. One was breaking and entering into his own home that his in laws had recently moved out of. His daughter brought the deed to the court and the charges were dismissed. The controlled substace was under 15 mg and he says it was his prescrpts. Worthless checks- his daughter who is in prision now was on the acct. and wrote some bad checks. All the checks except one were eventually paid. His son said that they got in an argument several years ago and the police came by and charged his dad, but they dropped the charges.
This is a difficult apartment to rent being a basement apt and the guy really likes it. My inclination is that there is too much smoke and I should probably forget about it, but I am considering a month to month lease with a very strict agreement.
I also told the guy I wouldn't rule him out, but I had to further check his references, do an additional bg check, etc.
Another issue is that the place could use an extra two the three hundred to fix up and he is willing to move in as is.