I have two short stories of bad tenants.
The first involves me wanting to help two women who seemed to want to start over. They were recently married and one of them was trying to get her kids back. Kids back is the first red flag. Only one of them was working, but this one had a good job as a prison guard. I called to verify their rental history and was simply told they that: "Well, they paid there rent" That was the next red flag. I will never rent to someone who has a reference saying well, they paid they rent.
At this time I was more of a nice guy and wanted to help people out. They had 1 dog that turned into 3 and then like 6. They let the dog use my house as a bathroom. One of the girl's, sister's husband went to jail and she needed a place to live so she ended up in the basement without permission. This was not a livable basement. It was unfinished and had dirt walls.
They lived in my house about 6 months. The house was then vacant for 90 days due to pest problems. House did not have any bug issues before them. It really took 3 months to kill them. House was sealed up for two weeks and fumigated. Carpet had to be replaced, windows broken, hole drilled in my brand new hard wood floor. Had to bring in a dumpster to clear the trash out.
Well they did pay the rent, eventually... typically after I drove over there to collect it and in small weekly payments.
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Tenant number 2 paid his rent on time and 1 day early. This guy hated me so much he paid it 1 day early via a credit card so I would stay away. Im going to explain how this guy looked because it adds to the story. He was around 6'3" very large build and said he was a professional trainer. He sure was built like one.
So this very large young many moved to Colorado from out of state. He was not in anyway use to small town life and belong in a city. He got in a fist fight with the gas company for trying to read his meter. They walk into the yard to read it. He threatened to hurt my exterminator whom was called for the 3rd time in 1 week to spray for spiders. Yes... 3rd time... The tenant had a new born and saw a spider... I dealt with this because he was young and seemed to be a nervous new father.
This mans wife flushed female products down the toilet and plugged up the plumbing. I had to actually show him on the box that it said do not flush. He called me throwing a fit that the toilet was over flowing onto the floor. I rush over there to be told clearly that I would not be allowed on the property, my property. I had to serve a 24 hour written notice to enter the property. (this is in my lease). The police then escorted me onto the property to see the damages. There were none. He was exaggerating.
The system was backed up so I got a plumber out there. Again the police were called and and the police had to stay there while the plumber worked.
I was able to serve the tenants with an eviction notice for violating the lease because they were calling the police and causing a disturbance. Also in my lease. This was all in about 3 months. The house was spotless and the rent was paid on time but this guy was terrible to deal with. Kept me up at night stressed over it and hurt relationships with my contractors.
Interestingly... there was nothing in the house at any time. They purchased a mattress that was on the floor and they had two back packs. The wife was seldom allowed in our line of sight and the back pack was very well protected. I often wondered what he was doing to pay the rent and what was he hiding from.
