NJ BiggerPockets Family I need your help. I bought a 3 unit in West Orange in June. It came with 2 great tenants and 1 tenant from Hell. Based on what I found out after I bought it, she and the previous owner hated each other. I can definitely see his point of view. It was to the point where he hired a property manager just to deal with her so he would have to be bothered. The property manager quit!!! Again, I found all of this out after I bought the property.
Since I've owned it, I've done multiple repairs on her unit and a good portion of it was her neglect. Such as clogging the sinks (hair and grease) and letting the shower and sinks overflow to the point where the ceiling in bathroom on in the unit below collapsed from all of the water. When the contractor went over to repair it he said the water came down like a waterfall. After that repair was done and the clogs were cleared, I got a call from units 1 and 2 one evening saying that their ceilings were leaking (again). I went over with my contractor and ran all of the sinks, the shower for 15 minutes and there were no leaks below. It turns out that she does laundry by hand in a basin and it tipped over.
There have been several other repairs causing me to spend month each month. The kicker is that she is evil and belligerent. Every contractor, plumber, handyman that I've sent over all have said that she yelled or cursed at them while they were there. They have all provided documentation on the condition of her unit and the negligence on her part. This is not the biggest issue. The unit is a 1-bedroom 582 sq ft space and 4 people are living there and 3 are adults. Only 1 of them is on the lease. She moved her elderly mother into the apartment sometime after moving in and she is basically an unauthorized tenant. The other adult is her 18 year old daughter which I have no problem with since that is her child.
I served her with a notice to cease indicating all of her lease term violations. It's been a month and the elderly mother is still there and she also will not give me access to the unit (which was another one of her violations), however, she pays her rent on time each month. What would you do in this situation? My thought was to offer her 3 options: 1.) Try to convince her to leave since she's breaking the city occupancy ordinance and if that doesn't work then 2.) Offer her cash for keys and lastly 3.) proceed with the eviction indicating to her that if we go that route she a.) will be forced to leave with no money, b.) she'll be out on the street, c.) she'll have an eviction on her record , d.) an eviction will make it hard to rent somewhere else.
Any feedback is appreciated.
