Becoming a live-in landlord is an easy 1st step to test your patience

Becoming a live-in landlord really opens your eyes to other’s personal and cleanliness habits. Now, I’m not trying to scare off those thinking of becoming a live-in landlord, but you’ll find even a person you really like can be difficult to live with at times. People have different definitions of clean. People have different levels of social awareness too. This is something to keep in mind. So if you will have a heart attack at the sight of crumbs on your kitchen counter, either remind yourself of all the money you’re getting for it, or well…don’t make some extra cash over some crumbs. But there can be worse than crumbs…

We decided that housemates would no longer be on year leases because of a particular renter we had that was too far below our cleanliness standards. This is how we came to the month-to-month lease. With a year, we were committed to honoring the lease and that time couldn’t come soon enough for me. I’m sure we could have asked him if he was willing to move early, but eviction was definitely out of the question. It was also unnecessary and unwarranted in the grand scheme of things.

This particular renter was a nice person and had a good job. We found out though, that he always seemed to have a mysterious “film” on his hands. Fingerprints on things he touched is an understatement. Everything he touched was covered in smear marks. Literally…smear marks…on the fridge, dishwasher, light switches, and thermostat (that he wasn’t supposed to be touching). He left messes in the kitchen all the time. His bathroom was never cleaned. I’m not sure his room was ever vacuumed, although there wasn’t much floor space left to vacuum. We got to the point where my asking him to clean was not working and I didn’t know how to talk to him about his dirty hands. So we drew up an addendum stating that a maid would come in every other week to do a full cleaning of the kitchen and his bathroom and he would be responsible for the payment. Surprisingly, he happily agreed to this. He would rather pay someone to clean for him than do it himself.

This renter was lazy. We have one bin for trash and bin for recycles in the kitchen. One day, he had a glass bottle to throw away, but when he saw that the recycles were full, he threw it in the trash instead. I reminded him that it was for recycles (we try to have more recycles than trash) and that he could just empty the bin. Instead of doing that, he debated with me that recycling actually requires so much energy that it produces more pollution. *Sigh*

Sometimes, these are the things you end up dealing with as a live-in landlord. We’ve never had to worry for our safety or that our things would be stolen. Every renter has been a good person that we interview beforehand. But usually it’s not until you live with them that you see the possible habits that just don’t quite reach your standards. Remind yourself to be reasonable. Remind yourself that not everyone has your same definition of clean. Remind yourself that this is a pretty easy way to make several hundred dollars each month. This is hardly a horror story; it’s more an entertaining story that at the time, was frustrating.