All Forum Posts by: Lisa G.

@Jeremy Housekeeper -wife of Family 2 was Chapter 7 and it was discharged. She was very upfront and honest about it.  I called the husband to ask about the garnishments, it looks like one is 'active' and one 'inactive'. He didn't say what it was from, just that they were going to be paid off and funds were taken out of his bank account. 

Thank you all for your input. It is very much appreciated! 

@Gerald K. yes, I do understand that part, The thing that makes me the most nervous about Family 2 is the credit card wage garnishments. Did they have to wait until it got that far to pay their bill? It is fairly recent. 

@Brie Schmidt - I was thinking about asking for a post dated check, or something. I do understand about the house selling. I really like that he has held his job for 25 years. 

@Brie Schmidt & @Jordan Thibodeau *waves* my rental property is in the Northend, a few of the families in the neighborhood let their kids live with them as they go to college. 

Okay, so the first tenant I chose (who had perfect credit and a clean criminal history) did not end well-stopped paying rent after 4 months-some neighbors mentioned to me they were not very favorable neighbors (they almost called the police on them several times). So I'm gun shy picking the next tenant. 

I have decided on 2 families, but can't choose:

Family 1-Divorced (long ago) father of a 21 YO son sold their house. Father has had his job for 25 years, perfect credit. Son works, has good credit-for a 21 YO. They would like to move in on the 22nd, and can pay pro-rated rent but not the deposit, he can pay the deposit when the house closes on the 27th.  

Family 2-newly married older couple, she has custody of her teenage niece and has been raising her since she was a baby. Wife had bankruptcy after her divorce 9 years ago. She has had her job for the last 2 years. Husband has had his job for 5 years, but also has wage garnishments from 2 years ago from credit card bills (fairly large debt). They want to move in this weekend and have the money for deposit and pro-rated rent. They brought copies of their pay stubs for me when they came to look at the house. 

I have offered both families to start the lease on whatever day they move in or to pay a pro-rated rent. Both can pay July rent on the 1st. 

My screening service runs credit, criminal, and residence- both families' scores are very close. I like both families. 

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated! 

I need to collect owed back rent from my tenant that did not pay May rent and skipped out on some utilities that we are responsible for, about $2000.

He refused to give me a forwarding address, but I do know where his brother lives (next to the rental), where he works, and where is wife/soon-to-be ex-wife lives.

Has anybody has success with either? Pros/Cons of each? I realize I may have to eat the loss, but I'm researching my options. Thanks.

Thank-you all for your replies. It was my first tenant so I suppose the best way to learn to swim is to be thrown to the sharks straight off the bat!

I'm thankful he left when we told him to, the worst thing I think (besides not mowing the lawn for the 5 months he was there, and leaving piles of garbage) would be this:

a huge industrial sized eye bolt used as the center support for the drapes, not sure if he was hanging iron curtains or what.

@Andrea M. we basically told his 'lady friend'- "I'm sorry, but you did not want to give us your information, there is nothing we can do so that is between you and him" she suddenly wanted to give us her information, and we just said, "Too late, you have to be out by the end of the month"

you had to kick them out?

Just dealt with a tenant that had a clean credit, rental and criminal history that suddenly quit paying rent-I'm talking *squeaky* clean record. He moved in at the end of December last year, payments on time, then at the end of April, we get a shut off notice from the water company (they send us copies of shut off notices-which we are ultimately responsible for). Then we got a late reminder from e-rent payments.com, so we make an appointment to go see the tenant. Tenant gives us a bunch of 'reasons', he owed the IRS lots of money, his wife filed for divorce (I guess they were separated), wife wants alimony, he had to hire a lawyer, he's going to just file for bankruptcy, on and on.

We find out he is also sub-leasing a room to another person who refused to give us her name or SSN, even after we told her we were not going to charge more, we just needed her information for insurance and legal reasons, she still refused.

So we give him a week to come up with the rent, he can't so I served an eviction notice (his roomie then starts calling us and yelling at us that she paid him her part of the rent) and he says he can't be out in 3 days. We gave him till the end of the month, when I collected the keys he claims he doesn't have a forwarding address, and said I had to call to turn off the utilities-that's when I find out most were turned off due to non- payment.

The big kicker, the next door neighbor is his brother AND boss.

I'm so upset, we thought we had a good tenant and then we had to deal with so much BS, has anybody else had an experience like that?

We put our house up for rent, and asked our neighbor (of 8+years) if he would be willing to keep an eye on any renters we find and he agreed. When we had out first open house, he came over to ask if he could recommend his brother as a potential prospect. Keep in mind that we are NOT 'buddy-buddy' with this neighbor, just the general 'hello' cordial type of relationship.

I said, "As long as he can pass the credit and background check, we will keep him in mind" Turns out, the neighbor is his brother's boss, said he was a quiet responsible guy. Had his brother come over and fill out an application and pay the fee.

I run his credit, and it comes back spotless, the screening I used is from the state landlord association, and he gets an 'above average' rating, he also makes 4x the rent. The other person who filled out an application has 2 prior evictions, and large balances of current various wage garnishments.

We chose the neighbor's brother, and he moves in. Now he is over a week late paying the rent, keeps giving us the 'check is in the mail' run around, and most recently asked if we could set up a direct deposit for him,. I set up an account with eRentPayments.com and emailed him the instructions on how to set up payments.

Also, when we went in to check on the toilet, we noticed that there seemed to be extra tenants (a girlfriend or roommate and possible children) not listed on the rental agreement. We cannot be sure that they are living there, but how do we make sure?

Anybody run into issues like this? (first time LL and I already wanna rip my hair out)

Thanks for the replies, turns out the water supply hose was loose. :/

@Stephen Swalwell when we put down new flooring in the bathroom, I did caulk around the toilet base, so that's why we were confused by the leak.

We were able to cancel the appointment with the plumber, so we didn't have to pay for his 'service call'.

Now onto other frustrations...

@Alex M. We were unable to go back to the house to look at it (we're new at the landlord thing, and uncomfortable with DIY in the plumbing world). He just said the floor was wet, and water leaked thru the lights below.

The renter said that the toilet is now completely empty so hopefully nothing else will leak. I'm guessing we will have to replace the toilet to a one piece.

I've never thought about leaning back whilst doing my business on a toilet.