MY FIRST TENANT HORROR STORY!! NEED ADVICE/HELP PLEASE

[Joshua Boyce]

I have a Section 8 tenant that has been a great tenant for 2 years.

Recently she's let the house go to crap and the final straw was a basement flood from her flushing tampons. It's caused what will be thousands in cleanup from the sewage and water backup. I had 2 cleanup companies come look at it already. 

Where do I go from here? Start the eviction process? File insurance claim and while evicting? Evict her then rehab the inside?

Did I mention I need a good property manager?

I'm annoyed but excited. I feel like I'm earning my landlord stripes with this one.

I'd really appreciate any ideas on how to handle this. Thank you

[Jennifer Donley]

@Joshua Boyce, it's interesting to me that a good tenant went to bad in 2 years.  I haven't had this experience.  Good tenants stay good and bad ones never get better.  

Unfortunately, what you're dealing with isn't uncommon because unless you told her not to flush tampons down the toilet, tons of women do it even though they shouldn't.  

We put in our lease and rules not to flush anything but tp down the toilet.

I would file an insurance claim to get the clean up & rehab started and if you want to evict, start that process too at the same time.  Utilizing her renters insurance (if she has it) to cover the claim will require going against her liability and that will require the insurance company to investigate, which will take a long time.  So use your insurance to get it done ASAP cause you don't want that stuff sitting around.  Your insurance company can then subrogate against hers if she has it. 

Regarding getting her out - It may be easier to just have a conversation with her that she needs to move out so that you can fix the property.  Evicting her will take a long time and is tough to do in some places.  She may or may not go in which case you'll need to decide next steps but I promise you it's much less drama and money if you can just get her to leave without a court ordering it.