Past Tenants Claiming Harassment

[Shawna Hilton]

Just wanting to see if we have any kind of liability here if tenants wanted to try to sue us? I'll try to make this short, it's a little bit of a complicated story. We had tenants move in August 2019. We accepted them against our better judgement, there were a few red flags including, low credit, criminal history from years ago, and having 4 animals where our original maximum was 2. We thought they seemed like they were really trying to do well for their kids and wanted them to be in a good school district, which we are in. So we accepted them and hoped everything would be okay. Our property is a single family with an ADU in the basement, we had remodeled the upstairs so they moved in up there, and we moved into the basement so we could start a slow remodel.

Almost immediately, there were issues. We found out a month in that they actually had 6 animals (3 dogs, 1 cat, 2 guinea pigs). We knew about the dogs and cat, but they didn't tell us anything about having guinea pigs and we were not comfortable with 6 animals. We gave them time to rehome the guinea pigs, and after 2 months they were still not gone. We finally gave them a hard deadline in November, and said that if the guinea pigs were not gone we would revoke permission for any pets. They were gone a few days later and that was dropped. 

At the same time, we realized that we could hear absolutely everything they were doing upstairs. We expected that it was going to be at least a little noisy with them being a family with pets and 2 kids, and we knew our basement ceiling was old and not insulated so we tried to be patient with it. It seemed to get progressively worse with us hearing their conversations, kids and dogs running around all day and night, TV blasting so loud we knew exactly what they were watching, dogs barking until 3am when they were gone, and even hearing them being intimate way more loudly than we should have been able to hear. By December, we knew something had to change. We thought that the biggest problem was that we still needed a major remodel, so we talked to the tenants and told them that we would be temporarily moving out so we could get it done all at once. They suggested that if the sound was still a problem after the remodel, they'd switch with us and move to the basement. With this in mind, we ended up remodeling the bathroom, redoing the electrical, finishing a storage room into a bedroom, moving around the ventilation, and insulating the ceiling as well as adding soundproofing material and two layers of drywall. This took about 2 and a half months, and we moved back in toward the end of February. We tried it for a month, but the noise was still a huge issue so we decided to switch. 

At the end of March, we switched units with them. When we got upstairs, it was so dirty I almost hired a cleaner because every inch of the unit was covered in dog hair, including the inside of the fridge. I didn't want them to have to pay for a cleaner, so I just did it myself. However, we did have to hire someone to do a pet treatment on the carpet because there were stains and the odor was so strong we couldn't handle it. We did charge them for that and they paid for it. Very quickly it was apparent that the noise was still going to be a problem. We could still hear their conversations, running and yelling, TV, playing music for hours on end late at night, etc. We knew this should not be happening as we had other tenants in the basement before (even one with a newborn baby that cried all the time) and we couldn't hear anyone else as much as we heard these tenants. We tried to be patient by only asking them to quiet down if it was really late and loud enough to keep us awake. This is when they started getting annoyed with us asking them to be quiet, and at this point we were at the end of our rope. They were also not picking up their dog's waste in the yard, and would leave things like toys and plywood all over the yard and driveway.

In about March or April, they came to us and said that they were working on a rent to own situation with a family member that was purchasing a home and that they might need to break their lease early to move in there. We told them that we would be willing to work with them with breaking their lease early, and that we'd reduce the fees we normally charge. At the beginning of May, we presented them with the options to break their lease early. We had no idea when they planned to move, so we gave them multiple options depending on when they decided to leave. We also went over their lease agreement and said that we would no longer be lenient with the lease violations, specifically noise after the stated quiet hours, and not picking up after their dogs. We let them know that we would be giving them a fine for future infractions, and ended up giving them two fines (for $25 each) for not picking up after their dogs. 

They left on May 23rd, moved pretty quickly and just left their keys on the counter. We went down to check it out and it was absolutely disgusting. Once again covered in dirt and dog hair, holes in the walls and ceiling, and stains and dog waste smashed into the carpet. They did not pay their lease break fee (which like I said we had already reduced), and did not fill out any kind of move out paperwork. We reached out to them and asked for their forwarding address so we could send the remainder of their deposit to them. Fortunately, we got them to fill out a move in condition form when they got to the basement, and have proof that we did not charge them for any kind of defect that was there when they moved downstairs. We took detailed pictures of all the damage done and have invoices for all the repairs and cleaning. When they responded, they refused to give us their forwarding address and said that they would not be paying their lease break fee until we had gone through their deposit. 

We emailed them all of the work that was done and told them that there was around $300 left of their deposit, and that because of the lease they signed we could not apply their deposit for owed fees. They claimed that the damage they left was "normal wear and tear" and that we should not have used as much of their deposit as we did. This is also where they claimed that we had harassed them and made it a hostile living environment when we asked them to be quiet. They suggested that they would reach out to a lawyer. We ended up being able to find their new address from public records and mailed them the remainder of their deposit. We felt legally obligated because we said we were going to do it. 

My husband and I felt that it was not worth our time or money to pursue them legally, so we have not reached out to them since emailing to let them know we sent their deposit. That was about a month ago, and they still have not deposited the check we sent. They have not reached out to us, and I'm starting to get worried that they are going to try for some kind of claim. Does anyone have any experience with this? Or does it sound like we did anything wrong? Like I said, we are not pursuing them, but if they try to come after us I want to be aware of anything we may have done.