Problem Tenant - Utilities

[Brandon Johnson]

I'll state a bunch of facts and then ask my questions:

-  Tenant lives on the 2nd floor of a 3 floor house that is a legal duplex

-  My father occupies the 3rd-floor space of the duplex, which is basically an efficiency

-  The electricity for the 2nd and 3rd floor are on the same meter

-  After moving in, the tenant could not put electricity in her own name due to credit issues

-  I setup the electric account in my name and added to the lease that the tenant is responsible for anything over 50.00, which my           father  pays as part of the electric and is more than his fair share of the bill

-  The tenant lied on her rental application about having an eviction, which I did not know was underway when she moved in.  Yes, my     screening process failed!

-  The tenant has done nothing but cause problems since she moved in, damaging the garage door, leaving trash on her balcony, refusing to keep home clean, verbally abusing my property manager, refusing to allow for repairs to be done, late rent payments

-  The tenant recently raised concern that my father's water comes from the water heater that she pays the gas bill on

-  This concern never came up in the last 10 months, but now that she does not have the money to pay her rent she has sent my property manager her gas bill, which shows a $900+ balance.  She hasn't paid a gas bill since she moved into the place

-  Because she cannot pay her rent she is threatening (or has called) the gas company to investigate (not sure what they will find, other than that she has not paid her bill) and has called the housing inspector because my father is living on the 3rd floor-

Looking for advice here, what should I do?  

[John Warren]

@Brandon Johnson you need to get the tenant out asap. Don't become more emotionally involved than you have too! Focus on the unpaid rent, and get the tenant out asap. For the next tenant, don't trust the reports that come through the screening sites, but also do your own local eviction search in the counties where the tenant has lived (verify this off the credit report). That way, you have the national search but also you can catch local cases that haven't closed yet (like this person's pending eviction). 

As an aside, this is always the issue with non conforming apartments that aren't set up the right way. They leave issues that a bad tenant can lean into at your most vulnerable time.