Dealing with a 'Slick' tenant smoking in the house

[Walter Chou]

Hey all,

How do you deal with tenants that obviously are breaking the contract but you can't prove it?   i.e. I smell weed in my house with 2 roommates, I know who it is.  The contract states no smoking on premise.

Full story:

I recently purchased my first home and decided to rent out 2 of the rooms to 2 different individuals.  Everything started fine for the first month. Then the second month, one of the tenants asked for extensions on the rent. Ok fine, I'll let you off this time.  He also borrowed cash from me which he returned after a few days to a week.  Fast forward a few months, rents have been on time and all.  However, I've had the feeling that he was smoking weed as well as cigarettes in his room.  Then last night, he made the smoke alarms in the house go off.  I knew it was him since as soon as it went off, he ran downstairs to my room to "confirm that there's no fire upstairs". 

This morning I heard the low battery churp from the alarm upstairs so I came home after work with fresh batteries.  I texted them that I'm swapping out batteries and he said don't go into my room I'll swap it myself.  By that time, I had already peeked in to find my alarm hanging from the ceiling with the battery nowhere to be found.  I later confronted him and he came prepared for all of my questions, telling me that I can't prove he smoked.  Why did I go into his room.  Telling me the BS reasons for running down and taking the battery out.  Trying to my riled up by raising his volume and swearing.  Another thing is my GF comes over sometimes and she has hyper sensitive lungs (start coughing due to smoke I can't smell after entering the house). 

How do you deal with tenants like this?

[Account Closed]

Wow @Dennis M. dropping some truth bombs with fury. 

But all joking aside, always have an 'out' in your lease agreements. I.E. "It is understood and agreed that a single violation shall be good cause for termination of the residential lease. Unless otherwise provided by law, proof of violations shall not require criminal conviction, but shall be by the preponderance of the evidence." I am not a lawyer, but in my opinion, a strong odor of Marijuana is preponderance enough, even better if you have a witness smell it too.