On the Fence about my tenant...

[Andrew Briggs]

My tenant has been with me for 3 years.  He's single, he pays regularly and he is not "high maintenance."  In fact, I've had very little maintenance requests from him.  Sometimes he pays late, but that is very infrequent.  Maybe 3 times this has happened.  Also he's a landscaper so his yard is pretty cluttered with his business stuff, i.e., equipment, plants, etc.  So...

Yesterday I had my termite guy do an annual inspection.  We went inside the house and saw that my tenant now has 2 dogs in the property.  My lease clearly states only 1 pet, AND I'm supposed to be charging pet rent for that one dog but I've waived it up until this point.  On top of this, it appears that there is bedding for a 2nd person in the house.  This is a one person lease in a 600 sq ft cabin.  Looks like my tenant has someone else living him.  Lastly, the house is dingy.  Dirty, needs some major cleaning on the inside.

I'm happy with collecting passive income and having a steady paying tenant.  In prior years I've had to do major rehab, spent a lot of time and $ on this property.  This year has been relatively "quite" and I'm enjoying it.  I'm starting to recoup my initial investment.

So what would you do?  Confront the situation?  Enforce the lease?  Leave it alone?