29th October 2007

Economic Downturn or Tall Tale?

posted in Care and Feeding of Tenants |

So, the other day I got a call from one of my better tenants letting me know that he and his wife would be moving out at the end of the month. This call is two weeks notice, mind you. <sarcasm>It’s a good thing that the lease states TWO MONTHS notice.</sarcasm>

Anyway, this tenant said that he lost his job and that he has applied all over town with no luck. He is a medical technician with many years experience and said that the only reason he could think why he could not get another job is that he has too much experience and none of the businesses in his field wanted to pay for his experience.

The plot thickens: soon after I got the call, I had someone stop by the property to put a “For Rent” sign in front of the house. This person let me know that the tenant came running out to meet her and mentioned that he had applied for a job to another business in the area and when his current employer found out, they fired him and his wife who also works for the same company.

Now, I have to say, that sounds pretty sketchy. As a landlord, I can’t really ask the following questions: What’s the real reason you lost your job? An employer, under the fair labor practices act, can’t legally fire you for “applying for another job.” And they certainly can’t fire your wife for something that you did. Unless, of course, that both of you were stealing from the company or something.

I mean, I know that the economy sucks right now and some companies are looking to trim staff at any cost but that sounds too fishy to be believed.

Either way, here we go again. Ads will be placed in the local paper, signs will be posted and the drudgery of showing the property will begin. Oh how I love to be a landlord.

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • Sphinn
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • E-mail this story to a friend!
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • YahooMyWeb
  • TwitThis
This entry was posted on Monday, October 29th, 2007 at 6:00 am and is filed under Care and Feeding of Tenants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

There are currently 3 responses to “Economic Downturn or Tall Tale?”

Why not let us know what you think by adding your own comment! Your opinion is as valid as anyone elses, so come on... let us know what you think.

  1. 1 On October 29th, 2007, Jessica Hickok said:

    Tall Tale. The only downturn here is that our society and Tenants like these all think that they are “overqualified” and deserve to be paid more. Yeah. Ok. Whatever.

  2. 2 On October 29th, 2007, TheLandlord said:

    Jessica, I know right? My thought is that they bought a house somewhere and didn’t want to pay the “break-the-lease” penalty. They did lose their deposit but it wasn’t too much money.

    Whatever.

  3. 3 On March 18th, 2008, Harastus said:

    I have a broken lease clause with a penalty and a 30-day notice clause, also with a penalty. Usually, these are enough to keep all the deposit (equivalent to one month’s full rent) and charge the tenant additional money for breaching the lease provisions. Of course they promise to pay at the end of the month, but they move out piece by piece for the rest of the month until they leave just before the end of the month, usually to their recently purchase house or lower priced rental.
    They’ll either give me a relative’s forwarding address, a PO Box or state that they’ll call me with a new address (they use this when they say they’re going to live with a relative who doesn’t want his address to be given to third parties.) Hmm, my only recourse at this point is to write a letter to the tenants work supervisor (and sometimes church pastor) attesting to my character observations of the tenant. Of course, I preface the letter with a notice that this is not an attempt to collect a debt. Usually, the threat of this letter will spur the soon to be delinquent tenant/breacher into positive and constructive action. Tenants will listen if they really value their reputation at work or are in a position of trust and responsibility such as a teacher, teacher’s aide, church deacon/elder, or work for the government.

Leave a Reply