Need help to evict trouble Tenants

[Toan Le]

Hi Bigerpocket comunity,

I've bought the SFR house six months ago that had made two separate units ,one is upper floor unit and the other is basement unit and rent them both .The people who've rent the upper unit are currently behind in rent of two months. After the 72 hours notice has been sent, they text me the message said that due to the electrical bill too high (about $1,000 in two months) that made them encounter financial hardship and blamed that they had to pay electrical bill for the entire property (meaning the basement unit included) The property ,actually has two electrical meters and paid separately .I called the Electricity Company and have them confirmed that.The only problem is there is a dryer has been hooked on the electrical panel that belong to the upper unit .After received their complaint I had the Electrician to check the two panels to find out the problem and will have him fix it right away.I want to evict them ,but they threatened to sue me about renting the property illegally,because the basement unit does not have the egress windows, it has two non conforming bed rooms. I did not know that it is illegal to rent it under that condition. The previous owner had rented it like that for a long time.

Please give me your advice how to deal with this issue, and will I be able to evict them ? They are bad tenants and they always paid rent late from the first month they have moved in.I really want to get rid of them.Any advice will be appreciated. Thank you.

Toan Le.

[Marian Smith]

You may want to look into why the electric bill is so high. Is there insulation? Really old window units? If they set the thermostat at 70 then its their choice, but I have never had even close to that high a bill winter or summer 2800 sq ft.