So my tenant's house got shot up...

[Andrew Syrios]

So we just had a fun situation... we inherited a tenant on a house we bought and after they moved out we fixed it up and rented it out. Well, turns out these previous tenants weren't any good. Someone with a grudge against them came back and shot the house up thinking the old tenants we inherited were still there. (The police told us they were pretty sure this is what had happened as they had had run ins with our inherited tenants before.) Thank God our new tenants weren't home, but they are, not surprisingly, scarred ****less.

We let them out of their lease and I think they are going to move to another house of ours. So that part is fine. It also won't be too much of a hassle to fix up the house. The problem is, how long do I wait to release it? I was thinking we wait a bit before fixing it up, and  make it real obvious the house is vacant (with an alarm of course) and then make it real obvious it's for rent (like three signs in the yard or something), so if the shooters come back, they'll know the people they were after are gone. I don't think they'll come back anyways and hopefully the cops will catch them, but I also don't want to put any potential tenants at any risk whatsoever. 

I'm curious how the rest of you would approach this? Please let me know your feedback. Thanks!

[Matthew Olszak]

@Andrew Syrios I'd put a big 4x8 sign in front with something like, "COMING SOON 3BR/2BA RENTAL - UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT". Like the shooting scared the targets so much that they left and now management (you) is rehabbing. Let it sit a month max if that. Someone who shot up a house isn't going to just do so then "check in" 6 months later to see if they taught their target a lesson, they are there passing by frequently, or at least will get word of what's happening there. Make the vacancy factor as obvious as you can to the general public so word gets out that the previous problem tenant "ran".