The Tenants from Hell - How to Deal? Help Me.

[Joyce Y.]

I am a total newbie in this forum so sorry if i'm writing about a subject that sounds like a broken record but i need some advice (and comfort!). My husband has been landlording for about 2 years and he recently asked me to be more active in the business, starting with tenant relations. I work in corporate marketing for a Fortune 500 and am good with people so i thought, sure, no problem.

We currently have a tenant who is a complete monster. He doesn't abuse the property, but he does verbally abuse us. When his lease is up in August, he wants to move out and let his brother move in. The advantage for the tenant is that he gets to leave his furniture in the house, he's basically just packing up his clothes and moving in with someone else, and his brother wants to move in right afterwards, with the furniture already there. Our response to that is, Ok, but that means the security deposit has to be surrendered b/c there's no way for us to do an inspection while their belongings are still there.

The tenant called me and verbally harassed me. He called me a motherf***, said he was going to sue our company, wanted me to burn in hell, and other threats that i cannot type here.

How do you handle the tenant from hell b/c i honestly feel like that's where he came from. For those of you who landlord over 50+ properties, how do you emotionally handle these kinds of situations b/c it tore me apart.

As a side note, we'll be sending him a notice that we're terminating his lease and that all future communication needs to be through email. Forget the brother, there is no way we're going to rent to him.

Another question - For those of you who run a husband and wife operation, do you hide that fact from your tenants - if they ask, are you honest? If so, does that hurt the credibility of your landlording?

[Aly W.]

Welcome to BP, Joyce. You've gotten great advice from folks already. And as Jon K. pointed out, the corporate and landlording worlds are very different. I have a corporate background, and when my very first tenant cursed me out over the phone for something I can't even remember, I was shaking and shocked. I actually felt physically ill, since this was behavior I'd never experienced in an office environment.

Jon is right, you'll learn to let it roll off after you've dealt with it more than once. After 4 years of this, I don't take it personally when a tenant trashes a place or doesn't pay the water bill and threatens to sue when they don't get their deposit back. I stick to the facts and the law, and let my attorney handle what they're best at.

I hope you have an attorney who specializes in landlord/tenant law, that's a very important person to have on your team. Not an attorney who specialized in divorces or adoptions. Let them write your leases, since they'll be defending them in court.