Tennants being rude/unreasonable during move out

[Stephen Sun]

Hello All,

I have a question to ask the landlords out here: Would you inform the next landlord of rude, unreasonable behavior during moveout if you gave them a glowing reference before?

- Background -

I have a tennant who was good (kept to themselves, was fairly clean, respectful, etc) but had a pet who caused alot of damages to the property. Once the tenant realized that they could not handle the pet, they gave the pet away to another home and started to look for another location to live in. I had provided a solid and glowing reference to the new landlord.

Things were cordial until we were doing a pre-walkthrough of the damages, and I provided estimated costs (based on contractor quotes for work, and based on homedepot.com for items needing replacement). This is when the tennant started sending nasty emails with namecalling, sarcastic/snide remarks, etc saying i'm trying to rip them off, I'm being unreasonable, etc. Written quotes for everything, and I said if they could find the same quality of work for cheaper, please refer me. Furthermore, there were temper tantrums thrown when i tried to speak to them in person. I've done my best to remain polite and professional - but they're really pushing my buttons.

They move out this weekend. The deposit will cover the damages and quoted contractor work so I'm not out money by any means. I'm thinking about letting the next landlord know about such behavior after the tennants have moved out and surrendered the keys and changed the locks. I wanted to get thoughts of people on this forum.

Let me know. Thanks!

-sunfire4jc

[Samantha Lunzer]

I definitely think you should inform the landlord. I would want to be informed/forewarned of tenant behavior like that. While that's the only incident where you experienced this person being rude it only goes to show that the minute this person doesn't get their way they become awful so it's good to know that in case something goes wrong for this landlord before the tenant decides to move out.