Lifestyle questions in rental application

[Michele Fischer]

For those who find their own tenants, maybe particularly for low income units, do you include any lifestyle questions in the application or screening process? For example, info on whether they own a lawnmower, how they tend to interact with neighbors, if they like to have a lot of visitors, housekeeping standards, etc? If so, can you please share? I'm struggling with a few current tenants on these softer issues. Explaining my expectations at agreement signing obviously wasn't enough, trying to figure out how to beef it up on my end or weed out on their end. Asking about smoking is discriminatory, how about these topics? TIA for input!