11.16.13 Tenant Tailspin

Currently living through our third terrible move out of the year.

What would you do in this situation? How long would you let this train wreck continue?

One of our tenants lost her job in the spring due to a fast food restaurant closing down. We waived half of April rent to give her a chance to get on her feet. We assumed she could get a new job quickly (since several fast food restaurants were hiring), and she told us that unemployment was coming, held up by some paperwork glitches with the owner.

We found out much later that she didn’t fill out the paperwork to get her unemployment sorted out. My husband even offered to sit down with her and help her as things deteriorated. She didn’t find a new job. She got more and more depressed.

Partial rent trickled in May through July. Not enough to stay caught up, but enough that she wasn’t more than $1000 behind at any one time. She had been renting from us for a year and half, which sadly is one of our long term tenants, so we wanted to work with her.

In late July we still thought the unemployment would come through, but we were ready to move toward ending her tenancy. She told us that she and her kids would move into a tent in a friend’s backyard whenever we said the word. Playing us? Maybe, but she moved into our unit from a garage, so maybe not.

Her next move was to attempt suicide. In our unit, causing damage to our doors and windows as rescuers broke in. At this point we realized this would not end well, but didn’t think it was a good time to kick her out.

In August the rent money stopped coming in altogether. And the unauthorized occupants, vehicles, and pets arrived. Once she stopped respecting the rules of the rental agreement, I was done, but my husband held on a few more months, knowing this would be an expensive move out and holding out hope that she would pull her life back together.

When we went to serve the final 3 day pay or quit, we discovered that she had moved out but left her kids. A call to CPS; they knew her well. About a week later we were able to get her, her belongings, her family and guests out without going to court. Her parting gift to us, though, was painting every interior wall in the entire unit spearmint green.

In hindsight we could and should have reacted differently, taking our losses sooner. We seem to say that every time. Hopefully we won’t become completely callused to the problems of our low income tenants, but boy do their circumstances stem from their poor decisions.