Screening tenants with good credit and income

[Ragnar Lothbrok]

I messed up. First rental and first tenants, I screened for 3X income to monthly rent, above 600 credit score, passed criminal history, no evictions, landlord references, proof of income etc. etc.

The only issue is, THIS DID NOT WORK. I just paid cash for keys to a tenant that took "liberties" with the property costing me hundreds of dollars in damage. That along with a series of pretentious trashy insults leaves me picking up their mess and trying to find a new renter in the Fall with no luck yet. This is entirely my fault and I deserve to deal with this for naive screening practices and piss poor management. The only question is, what EXACTLY am I supposed to do now to fix this from ever happening again.

Question for you all, what extra steps, additional to the basic screening mentioned above, do you employ to ensure you get good tenants? Would they be questions like "has a landlord ever treated you unfairly, if so please describe" or something to that effect? Of course there is the legal constraints as well.

Thanks.

[Bjorn Ahlblad]

@Ragnar Lothbrok if you really took all those steps and called LL and employers, there are still a couple of more things that you could do. Scrutinize social media and a current address visit. Tenant screening is not an exact science but you will get better at it.