A tenant from hell story. I feel really bad for this landlord

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I’m not a landlord and usually have quite a degree of distaste for the entire feudal system of renting and landlords, and I am an eviction court observer so I watch hearings and read through the documents filed for our county. I recently witnessed one of the hearings for this situation which made me go through all the filings and documents and it was shocking.  I am 100% on the landlords’ side here.

This guy owns a house in a quiet subdivision here in Houston. He’s a firefighter/emt and often travels to work in other places for a few weeks/months at a time. Recently he went to California and his wife went with him this time. They were staying in an extended stay hotel there and rented their house to this lady while they were gone. It was supposed to only be for a few months so they did a month to month lease. They inform her they’re coming home and give her the required 30 days notice. She doesn’t leave. Meanwhile when they return they find out from neighbors that she has two other people staying, that they are running a prostitution ring out of the house and that there have been multiple police incidents. So he checks with HPD who tell him they were planning a sting on the house and did not know who owned it. He works with the police and she is arrested for prostitution. The neighbors tell him over the previous months there have been fights, strange men all day and night and that the elderly and people with kids have been afraid for a while. At this point the guy and his wife are living in hotels because they can’t get back into their own home. She bonds out, goes back to the house and delays the hearings repeatedly. Stopped paying rent when they told her they were coming back, has more people over, filed a cdc declaration which made the case abated until the owner filed a contest for it, then had to wait three weeks for the hearing on that where the cdc was declared valid because the original petition was for nonpayment. So they had to file an amended petition for holding over and wait for a hearing for that. The owner wrote to the judge with all the facts and evidence, begging for a quicker hearing. It was granted. She filed another cdc declaration; he contested it; three weeks later a hearing decided this time it was invalid so they set a final trial date for two weeks later.

They go to court and she tries to stall and get a continuance. It’s granted. Because it was scheduled for the same day as her required appearance for prostitution. That gets reset too. Eviction hearing is now reset for the next week. She loses (because of ****ing course she did!).

During the five says they have to wait for her to appeal, she has a huge party on their roof. There is not a rooftop deck. He buys a drone to see what’s happening because the neighbors are telling him they are being loud and destroying things. The drone confirms this. He writes to the judge begging for the writ of possession sooner. But of course, the law requires that no writ can be issued until the appeal period is over. On day five, she files an appeal. He has to contest her inability to pay court costs affafavit which takes a few weeks. His contest is denied—the appeal hearing is set.

The filing date for this was 10/9/2020. The appeal will he heard on 5/2/2021.