As hinted at here and here, we have been in the process of evicting our tenant.
Yesterday they were served a final 24 hour Writ of Possession, and this morning we meet the sheriff at the condo to make sure they are out and change the locks and ascertain any damages.
It’s been nerve-wracking, what with the delays and waiting for the lawyer to get around to file notices, but today is the day. Our attorney called yesterday and the tenant was quite shocked at getting the notice yesterday. They thought they had another 20 days. Hopefully they will be too busy getting their own stuff out to spend the time trashing the place.
I just want to get in, get it straightened up, and get it re-rented again. This has been a learning experience, and I’m glad it’s almost over.
Once it stops being an ongoing legal issue (as per the first thread you linked to), would you mind sharing the story? I have a particular interest in this kind of thing. I like to collect information about what exactly gets people evicted.
The place was not as bad as I feared. Some minor cleaning will need to be done, and some minor repairs, but the place was not trashed. We should have everything done by the weekend. The sheriff said he does this for a living, and before he came to our place he had already done four, and had another one to do 30 minutes after ours. They were driving off five minutes before the 24 hours was up. Any repair expenses will be added on to what the tenant already owes us. We have 20 days to get the final expenses to the attorney, who will submit a total of the final judgement to the courts. This will remain on their credit for the next seven years, and I have the right to renew the judgement every seven years after that, or until paid off.
Bottom line, folks…don’t lie to your landlord. We will find out and we don’t like it.
The process was rather tedious. We gave them notice their lease was terminated on Feb 23, and they were finally out today, so a bit more than a month. We had a hiccup with the first attorney, as linked to in my OP, and that delayed filing of the eviction complaint by a week.
Sattua, I think I will hold off on the specifics until we get our final judgement filed. Basically, we did everything according to Florida law, and I really don’t know how else they expected it to turn out.
It took me five trips to court before I was finally able to evict the deadbeat bastards that freeloaded off me when last I owned rental property. They were the ones that pushed me over the ‘landlording’ edge.
I was never able to collect on the judgement I was awarded, and I doubt they cared a whit about their credit report.
Too bad I don’t have a couple of close, personal friends named Rico and Luigi to find 'em and collect it for me.
But what would I do with a couple pair of kneecaps?
Officially (what we evicted them on) failure to replace or repair damaged property.
Unofficially, many complaints from the other residents, having a dog in violation of their lease agreement, and being liars. Their children were rude and vulgar to the other residents and the managers, the husband was belligerent and aggressive to the managers.
We were able to get a professional carpet cleaner to clean the beds, sofa, and the carpets on about a two hour notice, and he did an excellent job. As he was flipping the mattress in the downstairs bedroom where the parents slept, he found a double-ended dildo.
I don’t even know how that would work with a married heterosexual couple, and I don’t want to know. Ivylad took a picture of it, and I told him I wasn’t touching it and that he needed to throw it out.
We will need to replace the bathroom door (it looks like someone punched it) and it looks like the bathtub drain is clogged, and the screens on the patio need to be replaced, but all in all, it could have been worse.
No, flesh colored. We are also in the process of washing all the linens, and Ivylad had to use a lint brush to get all the pubic hair off some of them.
We also found, tucked under the mattress upstairs, a note from school. Apparently the older girl is failing science. I don’t think her parents know. According to some of the residents, she smokes too. She’s 14 or so. Nice…
What did they damage? Must have been something pretty expensive/important to warrant an eviction.
Um… so?? It seems to me like these things are none of your business. It seems like you’re bringing those things up to make them look like bad people. But having a double-ended dildo or a teenager who is failing or who smokes does not make them bad people.
Having a dog in violation of their lease agreement. However, as stated above, that’s not why we evicted them.
What they damaged was not important. Under Florida law we have the right to demand repair or replacement of damaged property within seven business days. It’s called a “curable non-compliance.” They did not repair or replace the damaged property within the given seven business days, so we had the right to evict them. Since they were problem tenants in other areas, we moved forward with the eviction
Look, these people put us through a whole bunch of trouble and got a month’s free rent out of us. I am not feeling rather charitable toward them.
This is a diverse group. I know it would just be a matter of time before someone jumped on the side of the tenant. Go right ahead. It won’t change my mind on if we did the right thing. Now we can get some people in who won’t disturb the other residents or cause problems for us.
I think you did the right thing, especially if they had pets and such that violated their lease. You live by the rules of the contract you sign, or else.
And having the dildo isn’t wrong, but leaving it behind for someone else to find is EXTRA trashy. If it were me, that’s one object I’d keep track of, you know?
But I just can’t help but feel a little bad for the people. It sounds like they don’t have a lot of money, and they have kids. OK, so they damaged some property and had 7 days to fix it. Well what if they didn’t have the means to do so that quickly? Seven days is not a lot of time to get a lot of money together, especially if you are already struggling. Was the damaged item something that was crucial to the building, like a hot water heater, or heat pump? Or could it have been feasible to give them like a month to save up the funds to fix it?
I’m all for evicting them if they owed more than one month’s back rent, or refused to get rid of the dog, or if they completely refused to pay for the damage within a reasonable amount of time (7 days is not reasonable to me).
No wonder the 14-year-old is failing and smokes. Sounds like a troubled family. Now it’s a troubled homeless family. I’m sure that’s not going to help her much.
I have heard lots of tenant horror stories here on the SDMB and elsewhere, and yours just doesn’t sound that bad in comparison - they had rude kids, they had a dog, and they damaged some unknown item, and they disturbed the neighbors somehow (you didn’t explain this either). It just seems to me like those are pretty minor offenses to evict a whole family…
Did they flat-out refuse to comply (to fix the damage) or was it because they couldn’t afford to? And, did they just flat-out refuse to end their disturbance of neighbors or get rid of the dog?
From what you wrote above, it sounds like they’re probably at the homeless shelter by now…
But that doesn’t give someone a pass to disturb their neighbors (I’m a tenant, too, but I’ve lived near enough loud, rude jerks to appreciate landlords who don’t tolerate that kind of thing), be rude and belligerent to the property manager, keep a dog when that is forbidden by the lease, and lie on the lease. Being reasonable and polite instead of rude and belligerent doesn’t cost anything. Nor does not lying or not punching doors. Not having a dog is certainly cheaper than having one (unless you’re being an irresponsible dog breeder, and that makes things worse instead of better as I see it).
Being a jerk has consequences. I don’t have too much sympathy for people who make their own lives worse than they have to be by being a lying jerk.
I would say that if you can’t afford to fix it, then don’t damage it.
I mean, damn, how hard is that?
And no, I’m not being snarky. The wife and I lived in several rental properties before we managed to save up enough to buy our own house. We ALWAYS left the place in the same shape as it was in when we moved in.
With one exception. This one house we rented had the walpaper start to peel off in the kitchen. I called our landlords and made a deal. They supplied new wallpaper, and I stripped off the old and put up the new. Both parties happy as a clam.
Destructiveness is a prime example of the “I don’t give a shit” attitude, sorry.
I am a bit shocked that you are cleaning the beds. Wouldn’t they be better detroyed (at least the Matress). Even GoodWill stores won’t take second hand matresses. If a tenant was moving in to a place that had bedroom furniture allready would they not expect the bed to be brand new and unused?
