The Successful Landlord Blog

So, yesterday I received the Writ of Possession from the court….finally! It came in roughly 20 days from the date I filed the eviction papers. In the mean time, the tenants, having found out that I filed eviction, vandalized the house.

They broke all the external doors and kicked a hole in a very strong plaster wall in one of the bedrooms. And, of course, left the place a TOTAL mess. They even left a locked vehicle in the garage registered to someone else in another town. The police ran the tag and it did not come back stolen thankfully. They advised me that it was on private property and I could have it removed at will. So I waited for the Writ of Possession to come and I had it towed. I think it was registered to the grandmother of one of the tenants. Whatever…

So, I had the doors repaired/replaced and there is a cleaning crew in there today working on it. I think that there is only one working light bulb in the whole house because they were too lazy to change the ones that burned out.

On a positive note, I got to really sit down and talk with the neighbors to find out exactly what was going on at the house when these dirtbags lived there.

It turns out that someone was selling drugs out of the house. The neighbors reported that there was a huge amount of vehicular traffic in and out of the house from about 5pm to 4am every day of the week. Nice huh? And not to mention that one of the tenants had recently been granted custody of her two VERY young kids (which I knew before they moved in.) The interesting thing is that this kind of activity is very foreign to this neighborhood. I advised all the neighbors I spoke with that in the future, if there is any activity that even looks suspect, call the police. And if they even so much as leave their garbage cans out for 24 hours after garbage pickup, call Code Enforcement.
Judging from all the kids toys left behind at the house, my guess is that the kids were taken back from her. Quite sad. In fact, this situation is further proof that you should have to get a license before you bear children.

Anyway, enough pulpit pounding, the house will be back to normal soon, the tenant deposit I retained will be about half way depleted, the trash will be gone and the White Trash is finally gone. Good riddance!

So, I just got a call from one of the dirtbag tenants who are being evicted and it was SUCH a “good” conversation that I just had to write a post about it.

First some background, one of the tenants informed me that they were moving out a month ago and leaving the other tenant to stay in the house. I said, “No problem, you need to write me a letter stating that you are moving out and have both [tenants] signatures at the bottom.” A week went by and no letter materialized. I then wrote the letter for them myself, mailed it and called the tenant who had moved out to let her know that she needed to sign it or her name would remain on the lease. Still, the letter did not come back.

SO, today, which is 17 days after I filed for eviction and probably 1.5 months after I sent that letter for them to sign, I got a call from the tenant who moved out who proceeded to “curse me out” on the phone and told me that I knew she was moving out and I could have removed her name from the lease but I didn’t, etc, etc. And how her credit is going to be ruined because of this, blah, blah, blah. I felt like telling her that this eviction will not “ruin” her credit as much as the $700 power bill I saw strewn around the house with “FINAL NOTICE BEFORE DISCONNECT” on it in big red letters and did I mention that the water utility company had shut off the water as well?

It amazes me how some people behave in an irresponsible manner and then want to blame someone else for the predicament that they find themselves in.

So, on Monday, I filed for eviction to get rid of these deadbeat tenants. Yesterday, I went into the house to inspect for damages (after posting the required notice) and got the distinct impression that they have abandoned the property. (see update)
The only reason that I did not change the locks right there and then, even thought it would be illegal, was because it looks like they left in a very big hurry and may expect to come back. (arrested maybe?) There is a bed, TV, DVDs, music CDs, clothes, a free-standing dishwasher, dishes in the kitchen and some furniture left in the house. There is also a locked car in the driveway.

However this may seem, the minute I get the possession order from the judge, that house will be locked down and cleaned out. There will also be a large garage sale at our house that weekend. I expect the possession order to come in some time next week….so here we go!

Saturday….Went by the property and there was a pickup truck in the driveway. I’m not sure who was there or what they were doing but I saw the nice big Sheriff’s eviction notice taped to the door. I also had neighbors calling me today to tell me about the truck. It feels good to have eyes on the place. They mentioned that they would call if they saw anything “fishy” going on.

So, tomorrow I will be filing for eviction to remove these “people” (and that’s being nice.) Thus far, they have not paid rent for this month nor have they paid late charges from being late last month nor have they called to say that they were going to be late paying, etc.

What this is telling me is that if I do nothing, they would stay in the house, not paying rent, until I do something. This time, we WILL be going to see the judge and I WILL NOT be filing a “voluntary order of dismissal” like I did last time.

“Hi, I’m a dumb ass who rents and I’d rather get kicked out of my place by the sheriff than talk to the landlord to have things wind down in an orderly fashion and possibly get my sizable security deposit back like he offered me.”

Can you say D-U-M-B-A-S-S ?

I was at a tenant’s house today doing some repairs when she asked me if I would be willing to allow them to rent-to-own the house they are renting. While I think that these tenants are on the right track wanting to own a home, I think that they don’t understand what they’re getting into.

I read a book last year (at left) about investors doing this as an investment strategy. Basically, when I was finished reading it, I felt like the focus of their “strategy” is pretty much taking advantage of green home buyers. The authors of this book, in my opinion, specifically advocate practically swindling tenant-buyers, as they call them, by luring them into contracts where, statistically, something like 75% of tenant-buyers never go through with the deal thereby contractually handing the seller-landlord a sizable cash down payment for doing nothing more than entering into a contract.

That just would not sit properly with me. I’m not sure how the investors sleep at night after doing one of these deals. I guess that the Buddhist philosophy says it best. A good deal is one where all parties win.

It’s kind of like when investors buy foreclosures and then rent the house back to the person being foreclosed on. I guess that for the person being foreclosed upon, it may seem like a good deal at the time but I’ve also seen many disadvantaged people (old/poor/sick) renting from their buyer only to be mistreated because they have no hope of being able to move.