Horror movies are not popular anymore. It’s always me who ends up alone. Anyone?
You may be like me and think that a PG-13 horror film is blasphemous. It’s just not possible.
As much as I love my R-rated movies, I will keep it as family-friendly as possible. As a tenant, I’ve experienced some unfortunate things that don’t fit here.
Since 2012 I’ve been a property owner. This is enough time to say that I’ve seen a lot of strange things from tenants. Here, I will discuss how I dealt with three of these situations.
Three nightmare scenarios for landlords
Horror Story No. 1
The first time I bought a duplex, this happened. Purchased her in 2012. When I saw the listing, it said that “Brand New Roof” I was thrilled!
As a first-time investor, I would be able to avoid this huge cost. As I’ve written previously, I purchased it with FHA financing. I rented out the rooms to friends and house hacked for many years.
The roof began to leak during heavy rains and winds. The roof was often broken and I found pieces on the floor. It was not something I thought about.
After a few months, I asked my contractor to go and have a good look. My “new roof” turned out to be a total hack job. It was done blindfolded, and they were drunk. The whole thing was wrong.
Just last week I received a phone call from the neighbor of this duplex. She drives a black Infiniti. It doesn’t make much sense in my neighborhood, but I digress.
She told me that multiple rows of roof shingles had blown off of my house in a storm, and scratched her entire SUV. She sent me photos. It appears to be true, despite my best efforts to deny it. The shingles seemed to have shattered at the perfect angle and scratched the entire side of the passenger car. This was an opportunity of a lifetime.
I get a $1,500 bill from her. At this point, I’m super-excited.
It started to rain again outside, and even inside the tenant’s upper-floor bedroom. We are having a blast!
How to resolve the issue
We patched up the roof the next day and water stopped entering the house.
The neighbor will receive the amount she asked for.
My cash reserve was also affected by the roof I did at another property. The plan is to have the roof replaced on this house before snow begins falling. It’s a fact that I would have replaced the roof years ago.
Learn from this!
Horror Story No. 2
Renting rooms to the public or entire units is an assumption of risk. This risk can come in all shapes and sizes. Uncommonly discussed risks may include one of them.
It’s about their strange bathroom behavior.
You know exactly what I am thinking. This will be kept non-R rated.
My tenant did not use the facilities in his designated area. They preferred to make use of the “facilities” in their designated areas. This is a bad thing, yes?
It is still bad to rent an entire unit out to a single person. Agreed?
Imagine the horror of renting out a space for several tenants. Extra bad.
I thought it was an accident at first. All of us have had issues and ailments that disrupted our fragile balance. It was a good thing I didn’t hear anything more.
The complaints and pictures kept on coming. I needed to act quickly.
“Is there a way to resolve the issue?”
As I mentioned in an earlier article, I’ve never had to evict anyone. money has been used to buy keys on a few occasions. It was one such instance.
I gave the tenant $150 if he would vacate his room and return the keys. It was exactly what he did. I was extremely fortunate. It would have been impossible to remove that person from my neighborhood.
These types of behavior are difficult to detect. The key is to act quickly and logically. I was threatened by multiple tenants to move if I didn’t handle the situation. I wouldn’t have been able to blame them.
It’s great that it worked out. I also appreciate my quick action.
Tenant Horror Story No. 3
My college is a rental. It’s great. Knocking on wood, I haven’t had the problems that others complain about. The tenants there have only had two to three parties (as far as I am aware). So far, there has been no damage caused by wild parties.
It is the exact same house as Issue No. 2–no pun intended.
Not long ago I began receiving frantic text messages from tenants in that floor. All of them are students in a nearby college. They told me in a state of panic that their entire unit was on fire.
I felt my heart sink.
At first, my heart was dripping because I was truly terrified that someone had been or might have been injured. The second reason was that I’d spent a lot of money on renovations, which included a costly interior painting job.
Lucky for us, no one was hurt. When I found out, I wanted to know how this happened.
It may come as a surprise to you, but at first nobody came forward. At this point, I had run out of patience.
Finally, one of my tenants told me that it was another tenant’s fault. It turned out to be the truth.
The tenant, in fact had placed a pot of cooking oil on a stove at high heat. Then he went to his bedroom to lie down and let it heat up.
He fell asleep.
My contractor came over to inspect the damages. The fire was not visible, but there were hot fumes. This oil pot was so hot that the finishes on the cabinets melted. All the blinds had the appearance of candle wax. Smoke stains had scorched the beautiful paintwork.
How to resolve the issue
I was quoted $1,800 by my contractor to repair the damages. Honesty is better than I expected!
I am more generous than what I should be. In light of this, I chose to fix the problem and not charge any rent. The tenants did it not on purpose, and they have always been wonderful to me.
It was soon back to normal and the tenants had learned an important lesson. It could have been much worse had someone been injured. Thank goodness nobody was hurt.
There is always something exciting going on, as I tell people when they ask me what it’s like being a landlord (near-distance). I am a real estate agent, but my life is stress-free and relaxed. There is also the rental to consider.
No matter what happened, it was a great experience. I’ve always enjoyed a challenge.
You will encounter bumps on the road, whether you’re buying your first or 50th rental. It’s inevitable. Take it in stride as long as no one gets hurt. File it with all the other bumps.
It will keep us busy!