Advice please! Tenant that won’t get out….

[Jessica Lambert]

I have a rental home in Waynesboro PA. The tenant has not paid September or October rent. She has been on a month to month lease since March. I have a strict no pet policy and she had multiple animals in the home that have destroyed my new flooring.  She advised me she would be out by today. Over half of her stuff is gone, but there is still a lot of stuff there (packed and unpacked). She has not responded to my phone calls or text messages in over 3 days. What course of action can I take? Am I permitted to remove her belongings? Thanks for your help! I’m relatively new into rental properties and I have never been in this situation before. 

[Nathan Gesner]

Your state is similar to mine. If the tenant appears to have left, is not communicating, and they are at least 15 days behind on rent, then you can post notice proclaiming the property abandoned.

Here's the actual statute: https://codes.findlaw.com/pa/t...

Your state gives pretty clear instructions:

Notice shall be sent by first class mail to the tenant at the address of the leased premises and to any forwarding address provided by the tenant, including any address provided for emergency purposes.  The notice shall be in substantially the following form:

Personal property remaining at (address) is now considered to have been abandoned.  Within ten days of the postmark date of this notice, you must retrieve any items you wish to keep or contact your landlord at (telephone number and address) to request that the property be retained or stored.  If requested, storage will be provided for up to thirty days from the postmark date of this notice at a place of your landlord's choosing, and you will be responsible for costs of storage.

I would send notice by mail, post a copy on the front door in case she stops by, and change the locks so she can't access the property without your permission. If she contacts you to collect the remainder of her stuff, tell her she can only collect it after she's paid you for storage, which would include the unpaid rent for September/October, then schedule a specific time for her to access the property. When I do this, I open the door and give them X hours to remove their belongings. You may want to sit outside and watch to ensure they don't trash the place or steal something. 

There's a very good chance she left behind junk furniture and you'll never hear from her. You can usually tell it's abandoned just by looking at what they left behind (junk furniture, old mattresses stripped of linens, empty closets, trash, old food but not new food, etc.).

After the deadline passes, dispose of it as you see fit. I try to sell anything of value, even if it's $10 for a couch. That puts a little money in my pocket and it saves me from hauling it to the landfill. Small stuff like pots/pans or clothing can be taken to a donation center or trashed.