From Grand to Bland

Things change over the years.

We’ve had a longstanding tenant that we have been really happy with. Always pays on time, the unit always looked clean and cozy when we came to visit, very little maintenance needs, mostly followed the rules. The kind of low maintenance tenant you want to bend over backwards to keep.

Things changed this year.

We scheduled a maintenance inspection. We’ve been a little lax, and they weren’t very good about getting back to us to set up a date (a red flag, what are they hiding?), so it has been closer to a year and a half than a year. The unit wasn’t as clean as normal, my shoes stuck to the kitchen floor a bit. They had contacted us about needed new locks a few months back, and we heard “oh by the way, as part of that incident, the door slammed into the wall”. There was a big hole in the drywall where the door knob hit the wall with a lot of force. Two interior doors are broken with what looks like anger taken out on them. Neighbors started complaining about their poor parking (it is a shared driveway to two garages) and car fumes coming into their unit. We suspect they are running a car repair business out of the home (against the rules).

No more bending over backwards, we can probably do better.

Bruce installed a big board on the wall at door knob height with the message that if they can’t take care of things they won’t have nice things.