Seeking advice on a tenant

[Toni Annis]

I have a tenant that has been in place since April 2018. After his year lease was up his lease agreement switched to a month to month lease. Up until very recently he has been an excellent tenant. I never had to worry about late rent, he was very communicative, fixed things around the house when issues arose, and was always very respectful. A few months ago however I started to notice a change in him. He was late on rent a couple of times but messaged me in advance to let me know he would be and paid his late fee. Then a couple of months ago my water bill on the property sky rocketed. He assured me he checked everywhere and could find no leaks or any reason for the excessive water bill. Then I called the city to see if there was a meter issue (it's happened before with this property) but they couldn't find anything. I finally called a plumber who said that my tenant had actually called them to the property a few months back and stiffed them on a repair bill. The plumber thought my tenant was the owner of the property and had no idea it was a rental. They did go back to the property for me and discovered that the hose to the tenants swamp cooler was left running and water was going everywhere. They wound up disconnecting the swamp cooler hose so that this couldn't happen again. Then the month before last I got notice that the natural gas company was switching the gas bill over to us because the tenant isn't paying the bill. I immediately got in touch with the tenant, he took care of the gas bill and got the account switched back over to his name. Now yesterday I just got notice that is has happened again. I messaged the tenant about the issue but he is now not responding to me. According to the lease agreement I know that I could in fact charge my tenant for the last couple of months of excessive water bills. Although I'm not even sure it's worth the hassle. Obviously there are some money issues going on and he probably doesn't have the money to pay for it. On the gas bill I'm thinking I need to issue him a lease violation notice. I'm beginning to wonder if I should continue with his lease or if I should consider issuing a notice of lease non-renewal and look for a new tenant. Thought I would post in here and see if any more seasoned landlords could offer me some advice or insight. Thank you all!

[Toni Annis]

@Jacob Laird and @Michele Fischer thank you both for your insights and recommendations. I did reach out to the tenant and asked that we meet and see if we could work something out. He actually told me that he was planning to let me know when he paid March's rent that he would be moving out the end of the month. He tried starting his own business last summer and it has been a rough start. He has been struggling to pay the rent and his pickup payments etc. so he has decided to move back in with his parents until he can get his pickup caught up and the business going strong enough to support him.

I really appreciate both of your input and I'm very glad that I followed your recommendations and talked to him. I feel like we are ending the lease on good terms for both of us. Whereas if I had just issued notices of violations and fees it could have resulted in bad feelings. He was so grateful that we reached out and actually cared that he promised that he would have the carpets cleaned and the house completely move in ready before turning the keys to me. Whether he does or not doesn't really matter, but at least he isn't likely to trash the house or leave a complete mess because he is upset. For that I am very thankful!

I love having this community to help guide me and help me grow so that I can become a better person and landlord!