The deteriorating relationship and late rent from tenant

[Johnson Best]

Hello Bigger Pocket Experts,

I am facing unprecedented situation with my tenant I am under California law.

1. The relationship between us are at at its bleakest point, they were not happy I didn’t fix things in time (I was sick) and past month I have gear up the effort and fixed all of the major stuff and spent over 10 grand cash on it.  

2. Shockingly on my last visit there to monitor and wrap up the repipe work, the tenant stormed out of their house and curse me out and threaten to hit me very raw display of attitude, and I try to deescalate things down as it can probably been heard his screaming 4 houses down.  He even go, don’t you dare to walk away from me.  This has sadden me and made me realized even I am work on the issue there is no point of return and they are more mad.  I prefer to change a tenant.

3.  They have missed May rent not paid, paid June and July and now late or withheald the August rent until I fixed the remaining of the smaller stuff that they have complaint to the city.  I am truly running out of funds due to the massive repair mentioned above and they occupy my biggest house now owe almost 5 grand in rent.  I am not even sure they can come up that much money at once or just now dragging things out.

4.  They been here since Jan 2018 I have not raised rent once and the rent is unbelievably under value.  With the severe situation I double they would accept the rent hike or more than absolute min. At best another reason I want to change a tenant.

How should I go about this?  Obviously, the main goal is to be able to collect the almost 5 grand of rent they owe (2 months of rent) and later either successful hike the rent to the max allowed in CA or just find a way legally in CA to get rid of them.

Thank you for any feedback.

Johnson