Drug dealing adopted tenants

[Mike Fontaine]

Hello everyone, I am looking for advice on how some of you have addressed problems of drug dealing in your apartment. I am a property manager in MA and we brought on a client that adopted tenants that he wanted to keep. We advised against it or to at least screen them before. He was new and decided against our advice. It has come to our attention that the tenant not only may not be living there any longer but has subleased the apartment (against lease) to people who are drug dealing out of the apartment. The cops are aware of the situation and have informed me they need proof. MA evictions as my attorney has informed me are a complete stand still. Does anyone have any idea of how to remove these tenants and/or collect evidence where the police can make a solid case? 

My attorney has informed me that we can give a vacate notice to the "new" tenants  because they are not under lease with us but, I would need their names. I've gone twice and have only met one. 

[Jill F.]

We have a letter we send to drug dealers when we buy properties where they are operating or if one sneaks through our screening process (usually by moving in with a young gf). We don't accuse anyone of drug dealing, we describe behaviors that we see, give them a move out date, offer to let them out of their lease without penatiles and fees, and to return the deposit if the leave the place reasonably clean. We then give them a week to let us know if they want to accept our offer, and if they don't we let them know we'll be sharing our observations with the local PD. They have all been, thus far, very cooperative.  I can dig up our letter if you want. We got one out in March.