What are your craziest tenant stories?

[Joaquin Camarasa]

I house hacked by the room for 4 years. As a landlord I’ve had some situations I never thought I would experience.

I would like to know the crazy stories of others. I definitely have improved a lot my screening process I feel like if I had got a doctorate in tenant screening.

My property is in a C area. So I had some interesting characters I decided to go with due to other tenants leaving in hard to fill months (November through January I found is where there is less tenant supply by far.)

I’ll be brief and share a quick overview of two of them.

1.- I’ll start with Mr. high, month of November hard to fill the room (low season).

The dude was on weed 24/7. Why I picked him you might ask? I gotta say he was hilarious and it brought a showtime to the house where I just had to sit back and eat the popcorn. Always a good payer, clean and a good guy overall. Everything was alright even though he was high, until the day he got a new girlfriend. You could see she could manipulate him easily. At some point he almost begged me if the girlfriend could stay with us for two weeks and he would pay extra rent. It was really tough to say no, so I accepted.

After two weeks, I was already fed up with her, she was dirty plus they had crazy arguments all the time. He requested some extra time for her. I would chat a lot with him about if it was good for him to continue the relationship. Of course I told him no, she can’t stay any longer, you need to find a solution.

Eventually they ended up breaking up with a whole discussion accompanied by some punching and scratching.

Mr. High ended up staying for a year and a half. He left afterwards, we still have a really good relationship to this day.

2.- Same pattern month of November, the year after, you would think I learned, but no 🤣.

We will call this character mr. Myths, the guy claimed he could speak several languages, be a professional tango and salsa dancer and that was a music producer that had his own company. I dance salsa and speak several languages. I could see his BS by far, but still I went ahead and pick him to make some cashflow on top of living rent free.) In addition to that, he claimed he was dating a model. I knew he was exaggerating all the way but still I saw he seemed like a good guy and I did not find much on social media about him. Also, the popcorn time was promising.

One week after moving in I went to chat with him and knocked on his door, he opened the door and that is when I saw the wall full of skulls and a couple of swords. I asked him right away what’s all of that. Then he told me all about being a juggalo. I had no clue what that was (Myself coming from Spain I had never heard it before, not sure if it is popular among other people) apparently they are the supporters of a peculiar band from Detroit. I didn’t know much about that culture so that worried me a little, I am not gonna lie. However, he was a nice guy, clean and respectful.

I was still waiting to meet the “model”. After some days she came visiting but they went straight to the room and I did not get the chance to see her. So I waited in the living room area just out of curiosity. I could hear the voice and I was thinking she’s got an attractive voice maybe after all the guy has game, about 40 minutes later they came out and I was right there ready with the popcorn. Man, maybe she was a model but that could have been 30 years ago, she was around her 60’s and on drugs. I noticed right away it would be still pretty interesting to see the way Mr. Myths would act around her like if she was a celebrity.

Mr. Myths ended up leaving after 6 months and he did not want to pay last month rent. I still keep some of the skulls as a souvenir. We did not end in good terms and I am not sure if he is still with the model.

Please, share yours I would love to know other tenant/landlord stories. I sometimes miss the popcorn days...

[Account Closed]

Originally posted by @Joaquin Camarasa:

@Sue K. No way! 😂 One thing I learned is that is ok to help but it is also very important to draw the line. Otherwise, there is some people that will call for the smallest thing.

 Amen to that!  I learned so much the hard way.  Being a property manager is the best training for learning how to say no and set boundaries.  You have to have rules or people will walk all over you.  Even if they're doing it in a nice way, you need to have hard and fast rules.

Being an on-site manager is rough.  I would never want to do it again - unless I was the owner.  Then, every time the phone rang and I saw it was a tenant I would say out loud, "Cha-ching!" before answering.  But only during working hours.

You learn that if you just don't answer, and their voicemail says there's a big bug or they locked themselves out of their car, and you don't come running, they'll figure it out. 

I had tenants who would say, "I tried knocking on your door and calling you because I locked myself out of my apartment (we only had deadbolts that required keys from the outside to open them - so this only happens when they lock their keys in their car), and you didn't answer!  I had to call a locksmith, or I had to call a friend to come get me and stay at their house until I could call a locksmith this morning!"

To which I would say, "Oh man, you should get AAA.  It's way cheaper than a locksmith!"

Crickets.

[Account Closed]

I've got a ton of good ones, but a friend just reminded me of this one the other day.  I rented a house to two sisters who ran a small party planning business.   Good credit, good references, etc.  Turned out their party planning business was a call center for prostitutes.  They decked the house out with desks, computers, and phones.  Guys would call some number and they would answer, set up a "party" at a hotel somewhere, and coordinate a girl to arrive at the same time to meet the guy.  The tenants weren't even sleeping there, and no other furniture was moved in.  

[Jerry W.]

OK I will dig out one or 2 for fun.  I nearly always answer the phone, for one reason because my job for many years had a lot of REAL emergencies, however I missed one call at about 12:30 a.m.  When I listened to it the next morning it was basically that there was a huge life threatening emergency in the house next to mine that I owned.  It was a matter of life and death.  Apparently her son had been stung by a bee.  The tree in front of her yard was in full bloom, it was a crab apple bee.  It was gorgeous, and smelled really nice.  By far the prettiest tree in the neighborhood.  The tree needed to be cut down or all the flowers removed she told me.  I had vetted this gal before renting to her and her family.  She was different but ok, and had rented for 7 years at her prior residence out of state.  Her prior landlord said she was strange, but paid on time was polite etc.  there were a few other weird things from her, like another life threatening danger, a string on one of the window shades was apparently long enough that her 7 year old might be able to walk by and entangle himself and die from it choking him.  Then the call asking me how to make the dishwasher work, as she had never had one before, I finally told her to google it.  I told her that the tree was there before she arrived and would be there long after she left.  As to the string I showed her how she could put a knot in it and make it so tall her son could not get hung in it unless he climbed a ladder to get to it.
She apparently had gotten off her meds and within 2 weeks was removed from the home and sent away to be helped.  I did keep half her deposit after helping the father of her children load their stuff and depart because she had taken every curtain blind in the basement and threw them outside and they got wet and ruined.  they were really nice.  She did a 40 minute Utube video and on facebook of my rental where she went from room to room and explained the death trap it was.  I had just remodeled it and it look very nice.  I got a lot of calls from friends telling about the video and commenting on how nice the place looked.
As a very sad note about 6 months after she left the new tenant told me they couldn't get the dishwasher to work.  Turns out the power was disconnected from the outlet to it when someone installed a GFI.  No idea how it happened, but I felt bad that I never checked it out, I was convinced she was crazy and never looked into it.  She never mentioned the dishwasher in the video.

[Jim K.]

@Joaquin Camarasa

I'm going to pass on this as many of my "crazy tenant" experiences clearly involve underlying mental illness. I'm not big on laughing at the afflicted for making the mistake of being born less fortunate than I was.

[Joaquin Camarasa]

@Jim K. I respect that and I totally agree with you. It is important to empathize with people that have mental illnesses. Thanks for bringing it up.

I am curious about the situations you have had people with mental illnesses in your properties. Do you partner with any organization?

[Joaquin Camarasa]

@Jerry W. It is a sad story but I think is good you shared it so we can think how we would have reacted as landlords. I think this is the magic of this post being able to put yourself in the situation and see the decisions you would take.

The average investor might not run ever into situations like this but if it happens is good have some prior knowledge handling different situations.

[Account Closed]

Well, we could turn it into a funniest tenant story thread.  Some of the funniest stories are the reasons why tenants can't pay the rent.  I'll give a couple of mine.  These were a couple of tenants I inherited.  One straightened up, the other ended up being kicked out under an amiable agreement without taking her to court.  

So, guess which one of these tenants ended up getting her act together and which one got kicked out...

Tenant #1) "I'm sorry, I can't afford to pay the rent on time.  I'll try to pay by the end of the month.  Hey, do you like my new eye tattoos?!!!  I'll never have to wear makeup again.  How cool is that??  What do you think???"

Tenant #2) "I'm sorry, I can't afford to pay the rent on time.  I'll try to pay by the end of the month.  I'm on vacation on the other coast and I forgot to bring my checkbook with me."

Can you spell p-r-i-o-r-i-t-i-e-s?

[Adam Hunt]

@Zachary Bellinghausen as Wedding Gifts my wife and I always gift a plunger to the newlyweds. In recent years, Squatty Potty has been an additional gift 😎

[Alf Holst]

@Joaquin Camarasa

Had a tenant that had a hard time paying rent after his boyfriend moved out. The tenant caught his boyfriend using the house to bang other dudes while he was at work. He told me he walked in on them.

So he was trying to get new roommates so he could afford rent. Three months of late payments later and late fees, I decide to ask him to save everyone the headache and move out. He agrees and begins to pack up and move out. Some of his new roommates do the same. The new roommates ended up leaving a bed. So during the turnover, I had the bed sitting in the carport. The day I was going to take it to the dump, a Rent A Center truck pulls up. I thought he was at the wrong property, but sure enough, he was coming for the bed! Lol

I didn’t know you can rent mattresses! Anyway, they haul it off. 2 weeks later the roommates that left the bed contact me and ask me if they could pick up their bed. I let them know the bed got repoed!

[Joaquin Camarasa]

@Alf Holst I did not know that either 😂 good one.

[Account Closed]

Okay, the Squatty Potty and the Rent-A-Matresses are really gross lol.  I had to Google Squatty Potty.  Kind of you to be so concerned about your tenants' bowel movements.

Speaking of mattresses and tenants... I had an older law student sign a rental agreement long-distance and I Fed-Exed him his key, so he wouldn't have to disturb me when his flight arrived late at night from Seattle.  I mention he was older, just to let you know this was a grown man around 40 years old, so not a kid.

So, he knocks on my door around 11pm, and I answer the door because I figure it's maybe this new tenant and I want to make sure everything's okay.  So, I open the door and we say hello and he asks me if I have a mattress he can use.

I had by this time learned to perfect a non-emotional bland face and to not give my initial Irish reaction when someone was ridiculous, but rather to take time to compose my response.

So, pause, pause, pause, pause....."No, I don't have a spare mattress you can use.  You might Google to see if there's a Walmart store that's open 24 hours that might have a blow-up one, but I doubt any store will be open right now that has a mattress you can buy."

Trying to say it nicely and not with the "you idiot" tacked on the end of it, even with a tone of voice.

I think I may have gone ahead and given him a couple of spare blankets.

Never a dull moment.  I just got the weirdest requests.  Stuff you just can't make up.

I used to have secret names for my tenants that I shared with my daughter and friends.  He became Mattress Man.

[Account Closed]

Oh, I thought of another funny story.

So, I had this tenant who was in her 50's and very emotional.  She moved into a unit and complained about the noise from the student who lived above her.  When I questioned her about the kind of noise, it was just him walking around that drove her nuts.  No loud music or crazy sex or computer games or people over - just him walking around in his apartment.

So, I told her that that's normal apartment type noise and I'll ask him to be mindful, but that's all I am going to do, because he has the right to walk around, and if she decides she wants to move, I'll work with her on a move-out date, and wouldn't require a full 30 days notice.

So, I talk to the young man and he swears he's not stomping around, but he will be mindful.  Super nice, quiet engineering student.

I will also say that this was a really solid older building with really high ceilings.  So, the sound of him walking around was on a 10 foot ceiling.  But, it drove her nuts.

So, one night she's pounding on my door hysterical.  Her ceiling fell in!!!!  And she was hurt!!!!!  And what are we going to do about it!!?????

I put her in a vacant apartment and the owner even helped move her stuff in there, and she insisted on her carpet being replaced because the plaster had stained it.  The owner did, because he was petrified of court.  I love going to court, but he would always rather just keep them happy.

So, how did the ceiling fall in?  Funny thing, there was a broom covered in plaster on the floor next to her bed.  Apparently she got in a rage and pounded so severely on the ceiling that it fell in on her LOLOLOL!!!!!!  We never told her we figured it out, and just let it go.  She was happy in the other apartment because the guy above that one was never home.

She then proceeded to smoke in her apartment constantly, even though that was against the rules.  She was still there when I retired, which was shortly after that.

She did make really cool artwork.

[Steve Babiak]

Originally posted by @Joaquin Camarasa:

It started 7 years ago and last post was about 5 months ago. Trying to bring some new fresh stories. Thanks for sharing it though.

One good reason to keep adding to those many years old threads is that LOTS more members are following that thread, having seen it over the years. So that way your stories will be seen by more members IMO. 

[Pat L.]

Best one last year was our 90lb Vegan Millennial asking why the heat would not work in the middle of August on a very warm day. She was stunned to find out that it doesn't go on until Oct 1st.

The next was the newly arrived refugee couple complaining about the smell of marijuana permeating into their unit. No one living below them BUT it was very strong in their teenage son's bedroom, who in turn swore it was the cat litter odor.

[Steve Babiak]

Originally posted by @Account Closed:

...

So, how did the ceiling fall in?  Funny thing, there was a broom covered in plaster on the floor next to her bed.  Apparently she got in a rage and pounded so severely on the ceiling that it fell in on her LOLOLOL!!!!!!  We never told her we figured it out, and just let it go.  She was happy in the other apartment because the guy above that one was never home.

....

That tenant might have had this theme music:

https://youtu.be/wT5ms2Nvpco

[Jennifer T.]

We inherited a tenant on my first non-owner occupied duplex (needed a lot of rehab).  Not exactly a tenant.  He was the prior owner's brother who had been living in for free in one of the units.  This house is in a landlord-friendly state and it was an exceedingly good deal, so I didn't require him to be out by closing.  He moves out and we change the locks, but he leaves his couch.  He begs us to let him keep it there while he tries to sell it.  We tell him he has one week to sell it and that someone will usually be there working, during the day, Mon.-Fri.

So then I get a frantic call from him at around 5:15 pm a few days after he moved out.  He has people coming over to see the couch.  He needs me to get over there and unlock the door for him.  I tell him that, while I'm not happy about the short notice and now I have to make a special trip, I will be there in about one hour.  He responds with, "No, no!  I need you to come now.  They may not wait that long!"  Me:  "Well, that's too bad.  I don't live or work near that house.  It's rush hour.  I'm Downtown.  I'm finishing up some work and will be leaving in 15-20 minutes.  And then it will take me 30-40 to get to that house.  I don't know why you made an appointment without checking my availability."

----------------------------------

Ironically, that same unit.  My first set of actual tenants there.  ALWAYS late with rent, but hung in there for about 15 months.  Until they couldn't.  Couldn't pay, but wouldn't leave.  Eviction filed, court scheduled for a Monday.  He doesn't want an eviction on his record.  We tell him that, if he's moved out by the Fri. before so we have time to pick up his key and see the unit has been vacated, we'll drop the eviction because there would be no reason to keep it if he has turned over possession.  He says he'll do that.  Then he actually has the audacity to ask about his security deposit?!?!  Dude, I don't know if that is your usual 1-2 cases of beer talking, but please come back to the reality that the rest of us live in.