Hi Andrea, I’m in the same situation as you and I am enraged at this point. My house is Upstate NY and I had a tenant on a 30 day eviction notice. She was supposed to leave by Mar. 30. Then the shutdown happened on the 15th and she’s used it as an excuse not to pay rent for a year. She has Section 8 assistance so I at least got $300 a month but she’s now almost $6000 in arrears.
On top of that the Section 8 folks sited my house for lead paint. (I just bought it 3 years ago and was never told there was a problem before). With the lead paint infraction this brought the Health Inspector. Yet another person to find anything they can so Section 8 doesn’t have to pay. I replace ALL of the windows in the house so i wouldn’t have any further delays, to the tune of $12,000 and I had to reside the top of the house for $3800.
Let me say my house used to be beautiful. I renovated it so it was a place I was proud to rent. In addition to nonpayment this tenant is systematically ruining my home. She’s filthy and I don’t think she’s cleaned in a year. I’m talking garbage on the stairs and in common areas. Junk, furniture and garbage strewn all over the backyard. Like where were these people raised? The topper? She had a dog ( not allowed in the lease) and had him locked in the basement without being taken out. Yes poop and pee all over the basement. We’re talking weeks worth. My PM has to keep going over there to clean it up because its a health hazard and I have had to pay for a plumber to go there twice to snake out the sewer main. She’s flushing mask PPE and booties down the toilet!!!! How much can I take?
I have a lawyer and we’ve been trying to get her out since the memorandum. He got a judgement that she pay Nov, Dec, and Jan rent on time or she can be evicted within 24 hrs. She was supposed to be out on Feb 1. Then the moratorium was extended and even though I got a judgement during the initial moratorium the extension stayed her current eviction. Now since Feb 1 she’s taking advantage again and hasn’t paid a penny of rent. In addition she found the time to go down to the court and file a Covid Hardship case. The only one with hardship is me. She works 2 jobs and hasn’t paid rent in a year.
There is so much more like her heat being shut off and me having to turn it on so the pipes don’t freeze, the gas company calling me to tell me she’s under investigation for theft of services because she used someone else’s SSN to open her account. Her running the washing machine and continuously flooding the basement because the hose wasn’t in the slop sink. Oh and my favorite. Once the water has built up enough it extinguishes the pilot light on the furnace.
Do I sound frustrated??? OMG. Per my lawyer there isn’t much I can do. What I want to know is, is there some type of financial relief for landlords that don’t have a mortgage, but are in dire straits because they’ve had to put out so much money for repairs and maintenance.
