Either way, it is risky to deny an applicant soley based on past criminal conduct.Good luck!

But I would very thoroughly screen them (credit, income, criminal checks), interview them, and try to drop by to their current residence to see if it is clean, tidy, well taken care of etc. 

hi Joshua I have the same issue my unit has been on market more than 10 weeksA lot tenants seen and applied when you run the credit below 600 plus criminal records overspeeding, driving with revoke licensed etc

Then, you fail to check his criminal history, and he then wrecks your neighbor's windows in the property next door to the tenant.  

That will not happen as this Ontario welfare recipient has proven beyond a doubt he is a common bottom feeding criminal.

I rely on the background checks to check for criminal activity and to see if they have had any evictions in their past, credit screening just tells me a bit about their spending habits.  

I just looked it up for you but I knew this before anyways, it's pretty common knowledge that criminal and civil crimes have to be tried in the jurisdiction in which they occured or as agreed to in a contract.http://ask-a-lawyer.freeadvice.com/law-questions/can-i-sue-small-claims-co-71943.htm

We use a TPV that does a criminal and credit background check and makes recommendations.  

I discriminate all the time against people who don't have good credit or who are criminals, etc."  

Many companies require you to use their application forms (on-line or faxed/e-mailed), which we do and add our own supplemental pages for info they don't request but we want.Think about the qualities of a good tenant, what your criteria is, and design a process to weed out undesirables and look at credit, criminal landlord history.