Then Tenant From Hell

In case you don't know J owns 5 rental properties. Three of which are rented out and the other two are in various stages of refurbishing. Most of our tenants are great. They pay their rent on time and don't give us any trouble.

Unfortunately, there always has to be one in the bunch. If we knew then what we know now there is no way in hell that we would have allowed her to move in. She moved in last July, 2008. She seemed like she was a good tenant. She had a daughter and was moving in with her boyfriend. Both had decent jobs and the daughter was sweet and quiet.

Shortly after they moved in the live in boy friend lost his job. Didn't get a severance pay and pretty much sat on his butt all day long not even looking and taking advantage of her. She finally kicked him out after she realized that he wasn't getting a job, nor was he looking like he led her to believe.

After he moved out, we started to notice different guys going in and out. We actually thought it was pretty comical for a while...until we started getting her rent in cash and in small bills. Also about that same time, the couple that lives downstairs started complaining that they can hear everything that goes on up in her suite...more specifically, her bedroom activities...at that point we pretty much decided that she was prostituting to get her rent payment. J called her up and told her that she had to be more quiet during the night because she was disturbing the couple downstairs. We also told the downstairs couple to knock on the ceiling with a broom to quiet them. That didn't work, she only made louder noise.

As the months went by, she was getting later and later with her rent payment, but would always pay the late fees. Then about the time I was at home recovering from surgery, I happened to be outside and saw the gas company there shutting off the gas. The next day, the electric company was there shutting that off. So J called her to find out what was going on. She told him that she hadn't been paying the utilities because she couldn't afford to and was more worried about paying her rent every month. Next thing we know, she comes over begging J to get the utilities turned on for her....J said no way would he put the gas in his name, but he'll be nice and put the electric in her name and he would give her a copy of the bill every month and she would give us the money....yea, that happened for only one month.

Now she has another guy living there who we suspect is doing something illegal in that suite...He doesn't have a job, spends his days walking up and down the street talking on his cell and leaves nightly for a couple hours.

This past weekend was the last straw. They got in a huge fight and started throwing trash bags over the balcony. Her sister comes racing over making a lot of noise. Oh and I need to say that all of this happened at 3AM Saturday morning. Neighbors were calling our house to tell us. We heard all the commotion. J was livid! Later in the day on Saturday, he called her and flat out told her that she needed to look for a place to live because he was going to start eviction proceedings.

Monday morning, he slapped a 3 day eviction notice on her door and conveniently called the electric company to have them shut the electricity off. That is happening Friday. Should be interesting since it's going to be in the 90's.

Today is Wednesday and she's still here...no sign of the guy though...which means tomorrow morning, J has to go downtown and file for an eviction.

Luckily her daughter spends the summer with her grandmother and isn't here to witness all the stuff that goes on there. I'm pretty sure that if she was there, I would be calling child services.

Hopefully she won't show up for court and the Sheriff's office will be there quick to get her out of the place. Otherwise this just may drag out until September. We want her out quick to get the place rented out again before the cold weather sets in.

I'm sure there's more to this story down the road - will update as needed.