All Forum Posts by: Craig Spencer

Thanks everyone for the input. We are by no means skilled in this area, which is why we are asking advice. This is all great advice, and I am so glad that we were able to get in contact with everyone here. I guess a big portion of this is just paranoia as to what could happen here. My wife and I are both feeling physically sick dealing with this. I think that our only option at this point may be to hire an attorney, so we can at the bare minimum know exactly what this specific set of circumstances could result in, and be sure that everything is handled properly. I can see some people saying that property management isn't for everyone etc.. We think that we can handle property management, and we don't have multiple properties, this is it, it's a duplex and we live in one side of it. We are not looking to get rich from this, we are simply trying to get some good tenants in the other side so that we can move from here completely in a couple years, the goal being to some day give the property to my son or sell it for college.

@John Thedford Yes, this is a year lease, we've learned our lesson here. She had an eviction on her record, but she had a story about a nasty divorce that my wife decided to buy without checking any of the facts, again, another painful lesson learned.

We would love to, but have been told that there is absolutely nothing we can do about the animal, due to the ADA. We are fine with this, and honestly, I suffer from severe anxiety myself, and, while I do not see how owning a dog can amount to less stress in this situation, if it does help her, then that's great. We have been told differing opinions on the illegal tenants, but that it will be hard to prove that someone is living there that is not on the lease, we have also been told that some apartments evict on additional tenants all the time and have no problem. We are by no means rich, this was an investment into our sons future, should we get a lawyer? Rent is $950 next door, how much money should we keep in an account specifically to tackle evictions like this? We want to be prepared should this ever happen again. Also, I honestly feel like anyone that would do this to a new landlord, living directly next door, we're just not sure what this lady will do.

OK, so we are NOT AT ALL interested in keeping these tenants as neighbors. The first day they were here, they were burning a fire, illegally (per city ordinance) dangerously close to our home. They are loud, to the point that, even after only three months, we are completely unsure as to what the inside of the place even looks like. They have people living there that are not on the lease, per statements made by the lease holder, a mother and her son are in the house now, without consent. Then, to top it all off, we have two dogs, we were VERY CLEAR in our lease that we were not interested in having any pets, my wife made a concession to her that she could have her declawed 6 year old cat, and it is written in on the lease, we also have a clause in our lease that we may terminate any concession with 30 days prior notice. Two months into the lease, we began seeing a dog at the residence. We asked about the dog, and were handed paperwork stating that this dog is an "emotional support animal". It's a damned pit bull, it has already been loose in the neighborhood once, and everyone, including our neighbors who have small children, were terrified of the thing, just like ourselves. It seems to be an aggressive animal, and we know that once summer is here there will be nothing but issues. Please tell us that we have some sort of leg to stand on with the late payments?

Also, I'm trying to be clear, you're suggesting we offer them money to vacate the premises, correct?

Unfortunately, they are bad tenants and we are both (my fiance and I) feeling the mental strain of living next door to them. We bought the duplex after living here for five years, next door to our landlord, who was an extremely nice older woman, that we never had a single problem with, everything went smooth transitioning to renting the place after our old landlord moved out, but we feel that we have genuinely rented to the wrong people at this point.

We have tenants that moved in October of last year, 3 months ago. We are new homeowners, and new parents. We bought the duplex that we have been living in for the past five years, and we are living in one side of it. We spent time selecting a tenant, we did a credit check, but we did not call references. The tenant has been late on rent every month since she moved in, and has neglected to pay the late fee ($25) each month, even though it is plainly outlined in the lease. Are we able to evict on these grounds? We are in Michigan.