6th March 2007

Oh Please Let This Lady Be My Tenant

posted in Landlord/Tenant |

Yesterday I showed one of the vacant rental houses to an older lady (65-ish) and her Mom (85-ish). When I arrived at the property, both of them were in the back yard looking at one of the fruit trees. A good sign.

I introduced myself and let them into the house to take a look. I don’t like to crowd people so I told them to take their time looking and that I would be outside. They spent 20-30 minutes looking around the house. Another good sign.

When they were finished, they came out of the house and I asked them if they had any questions. The younger of the two women spoke up and said that they liked the layout but in a quite agitated way said, “…but there are things I would need to do.”

To myself I said, “Here we go…”

She said that she would need to fence the backyard (for the dogs), paint the inside, install a dog door, change the refrigerator to (get this) a side-by-side model with an ice-maker because, “…that’s what I’m used to.”

Needless to say, I was laughing my ass off to myself the whole time. This is exactly the kind of tenant you DO NOT want. I just know that the second day after they move in, I’ll get a call with a list of what’s wrong with the house and that would be AFTER the move-in inspection.

Thanks, but no thanks.

There are currently 4 responses to “Oh Please Let This Lady Be My Tenant”

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  1. 1 On March 6th, 2007, Katie said:

    Nice to hear that I’m not the only one hearing about how my rental property NEEDS to be. I’m curious. If you were to name one quality trait for the ideal tenant, what would it be?

  2. 2 On March 7th, 2007, admin said:

    The ideal tenant overall would be honest. If I had a dollar for each bullshit story I have heard… I think that the tenants sometimes think that I’m either gullible or stupid when in fact, once I catch them in a lie, they get absolutely no “benefit of the doubt” from that point on.

  3. 3 On March 12th, 2007, Katie said:

    You’ve chosen the perfect trait! You can never really know what a person’s true intentions are. Thanks–

  4. 4 On March 17th, 2007, Christopher Smith said:

    I’d describe the perfect tenant like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart described pornography: that it was hard to define but that “I know it when I see it.”

    By best tenant is in one of our low end properties. They didn’t have any credit and not a whole lot of references (as is the case when renting in some neighborhoods) but I liked the way they looked me in the eye. I can set my clock by their rent check arriving every month.

    Run the background checks, but trust your instincts!

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