Finished two painful eviction/move out. Yes it hurts, but DO IT!

[Michael Ablan]

Hey guys!

Just wanted to write up a quick post about the most recent tenant related happenings in my life as a landlord.  In the past month I've gone through the process of getting rid of my two troublesome (inherited) tenants.  They both paid on time, however they created a lot of drama in my multi-unit buildings.  It was getting to the point where I dreaded going anywhere near those houses because I knew I'd have to interact with their craziness (Let alone my poor tenants who shared the buildings with them).  

One was a section 8 woman who left all of her garbage in the basement, or burned it in the backyard.  My tenants in the other side are the nicest people in the world, and were barely able to deal with her.  I had recently found out she was allowing 3 other people (heroine junkies) to rent the house, so I threatened to report her for DSS fraud if they all didn't move out.  It hurt a financially (a lot).  I went from having a paying tenant to a full gut/remodel job. However, I was finally able to go in and fix all of the cob job patches the old landlord did.  We are just finishing it up now, and it cost me roughly $8k to do it.  But now I have a brand new apartment, an awesome new tenant, and my tenants next door absolutely adore me.

The other was a paranoid schizophrenic hoarder who seemed to make it her job to make the building look like garbage.  She would also do all sorts of insane things (like wander around the town with giant 12" shears, saying she will slaughter anyone who rapes her daughter).  I would get concerned calls from cops, psych ward profs, concerned neighborhood citizens, ect.  I one time had to call 911 because I thought she shot my plumber.  But she always paid in cash, on time, no hassles.  However, she made the other tenants in the building very uncomfortable and would let random homeless men in to sleep in the hallway.  Again, it hurt financially to evict her, but I had to dispel the dark cloud looming over my head anytime I thought about that building.  I spent two whole days moving all of her stuff to her storage locker, and 2 full truck and trailer dump runs to clear out all the garbage.  We should be finished cleaning today and I have a young PA ready to rent it.  

All in all, it has been a stressful and costly month.  At times I would wonder to myself "should I have just ignored them for 6 more months and continued collecting the check?  Deal with them in the spring?".  But in my heart I knew that wasn't the correct answer.  And now that it's over, I couldn't be happier.  I'm now proud to say I own these buildings again.  

So if you guys find yourselves in a similar situation, please heed my advise.  Just do it.  It hurts financially, and it's a lot of work, but it feels SO GOOD when it's all over.  Don't let troublesome tenants cast dark clouds over your days.  We work too hard and deserve tenants who will treat us and our properties with respect.