Criminal just released from prison last week?

On the other hand, if you feel that liars, criminals, and non-paying deadbeats should be living under a bridge, you'll do fine with the tenants.

Criminal background usually takes anywhere from 1-4 hours.

I'd definitely want to look at the leases and do a criminal background/eviction check on the tenants.

Introduce yourself to at least 1 good criminal defense attorney11.

Do they have any criminal record?

In fact, I consider someone who is stealing rent from me to be no better than an armed criminal that breaks into my house in the middle of the night to rob me.

If you do not want to join an agency for credit/background, and pay their fees, there are a few do it yourself ways to get some information--You can require the applicant provide you with their free credit report which they can obtain online--(you would have to know how to read and assess it), also you can go online for public records checks to see about evictions, and criminal public records. and thirdly, the landlord name & reference they provide to you, you can go to your county tax records online, put in the address or parcel # to see if the name on the property address really is the landlord, or just a friend that they have asked to pretend to be the landlord --that happens alot.

My next door neighbor was robbed about a month ago, most likely while I was home, and I am dumbfounded how someone has the nerves to walk out of a house with a mattress (in your case) or a big screen tv and down a long set of steps, and a number of other big ticket items (in the case of my neighbor).Like Joshua mentioned, lights on timers are a good idea, but I imagine that these are not your garden variety criminals that are used to stealing packs of bubblegum from Walmart.

From that information, you can do your own criminal background check and eviction check.