I’m not sure why I find this phrase so hilarious.
First thing tomorrow I’m going to walk to Chevron and pay for a tank of gas, then demand they provide me a vehicle to use with my free car wash.
This was my feeling also. You went way above and beyond with this asshole and you should have told him to take a hike. Do you lose a couple months rent, this jerk may end up costing you more that that.
No renter has the right to expect a laptop and a cell phone. Please. If I have the luxury to go the downtown Wichita Inn I’ll have the decency to bring my owm cell, I have no laptop so I’m screwed there. Or can I badger them into giving me one? Hey, you may have given me food for thought.
I retain enough of my common sense to have bought a desktop. There is a desk and office chair in the apt. But you are right, I am planning to just rent it so I can keep buying hard disks every time guests load them with viruses or download kiddie porn.
I have had wonderful guests that keep returning. I had a couple with a child the same age as mine who keeps in touch with me and we exchange photos. I’ve hand wonderful guests to whom I’ve sent gifts afterwards. And I’ve had nightmares, to wit:
The guest who left town for the weekend and left one door unlocked and EVERYTHING on.
The guest who kept calling me in late at night when I had a newborn, “just to chat”.
The guest who accused my cleaning lady of trying to seduce him. :rolleyes:
The guest who complained about the size of the apartment even though our listing has the apartment area, and a copy of the plan.
The two clueless women that asked which way to the beach (even though we are in a large city and the nearest beach is in another town, and my listing says so because some people are so clueless they think the whole island is a gigantic beach (see another thread I started last year).
And finally. The guest who arrived with his gold-digging fiance whom he had just met two days earlier. She was cheating on him right there in the apartment with “her lawyer”. He then proceeded to die the morning of the wedding. A veritable Mexican soap-opera.
And now this one.
I think I’ll write a book someday.
You’re far too nice. Far too nice.
If the tenant doesn’t go to hell, it sounds like any chance of you making a profit did. I hope he didn’t use your computer, your connection, and your cell phone to advance his kiddie porn business.
Not to hijack your worthy pitting, but please, PLEASE (with sugar on it) could you expound on this one sometime?
I love a good soap-opera!
So do you offer a discount to normal, not dog-shit crazy dopers? 
Any one of several dopers including myself could easily set you up with a machine that is both damn near impervious to viruses and easily swept clean of customer trash. IF you have a local shop look into software like Deep Freeze or possibly an easily reloadable virtual machine arrangement.
Well, I guess my landlord-client privilege disappears with the client’s death.
I get a rental for four weeks from someone who in all appearances sounded like a sane, normal, decent person. And he was. Although the “sane” part is somewhat debatable.
He was 63, and showed up with a girl in her late twenties. At the beginning it was just a case age difference, pretty meh!. It got weird from there.
As it turned out she already had three kids, including a teenager and a baby. All from different dads. Which isn’t the problem, maybe she had bad luck or unreliable contraception. She said she was a born-again Xtian, but she shed the lamb skin soon enough.
She openly despised the guy, and called him “that fucking disgusting old man”. All behind his back. The guy was completely impotent, so her chances of carrying out the plan of having a fourth kid by him completely disappeared. So she concentrated in Shanghai-ing down the aisle. Then the guy got sick, seriously sick.
He ended up in a local hospital where he wasn’t responding to medication. He had a pacemaker and, as it turned out, he had leukemia. As soon as it was possible he flew back to the states for treatment. I was stuck with the girlfriend, to whom I had no legal obligation, and who was using the apartment to screw some guy whom she called “her lawyer” and who was helping research if she had any claim to the guy’s inheritance in case he croaked.
Of course she had no claim to anything, they weren’t married and our common-law partner statute dictates that people have to leave in a monogamous, public relationship, and share a house for 5 years to have any such claim, and even yet it is not equivalent to marriage.
Anyways, I had to ask her to leave when she decided she was going to bring her three kids (we are kid-friendly, but three kids is too much and I was weary of her already). I offered to refund the remaining money, even though I could legally kick her out and not pay them anything.
The day after she left the tenant arrived, she had convinced leave the hospital him and return to marry her. Instead of getting married right away so he could return to his treatment she insisted on a big wedding, which took two weeks to be organized. The day of the wedding he dropped dead, hours before the wedding (she called me and told me).
For an impotent guy he screwed her real good. And so it endeth.
Wow. Talk about last minute happy endings! 
You should definitely write that book.
Goodness precious, look what I did to that poor sentence!
The funny thing, I understood it…
My dear guest called again complaining about something or other. I just told him that I would be more than happy to refund the remaining days if he found another accommodation that suited him better. I was as polite as I could possibly be, but I was on the brink of telling him the same in the unkindest terms.
Take a guess as to what he decided.
Perhaps the next time he calls, you will remember the words “Get out of here, you racist fuckhead”.
Honestly, Mighty Girl, if you’re going to survive being a businesswoman, you need to acquire some business sense.
Offering wi-fi is a nice benefit. Offering an entire computer is, well, bizarre. It will cause more problems than it will be worth, trust me. I can imagine all kinds of midnight phone calls, “I keep pressing on the e-mail icon, but it doesn’t bring up my e-mail.” “Yes, I keep trying to bring up the StraightDope, but a screen keeps popping up asking me to click here for Hot Monkey Sex.”
Offering a cell phone is, similarly, bizarre. What kind of contract are you on where you aren’t worried about the guest charging hundreds of dollars on the phone that is in your name. International calls, 900 numbers, you name it. A landline phone with local access is expected. A cell phone? No.
“No, I don’t provide that. However, I’d be happy to provide you with directions to the nearest internet cafe/cell phone company where you can rent a phone.”
You’ve already discussed how two renters have left the apartment wide open. Consider what risks you are undertaking now that you have a computer and a cell phone waiting to be stolen.
Instead of giving your guests keyed locks, consider investing in a door that locks automatically when closed. Then put a keypad on the door where the guests enter a combination code vs. using a key. Change the code often.
As far as your guest being racist, well, dealing with odd/strange/creepy people is a necessary evil when being a landlord. Personally, I’d take the racist who took care of my shit over the really cool tenant who broke my computer, put a piping hot cookie sheet on my formica countertops, and put wood in my gas fireplace. But that’s me.
Notes for when this jerk leaves:
- Put lock that locks when door closes.
- Put spring on door to pull door closed.
Oh, and good luck keeping track of that cell phone. A desktop comp is a bit harder to walk with, but a cell phone is designed to be carried off.
Hell, based on the bottomless, saintly patience she displays for people who don’t deserve it, she has earned, and I would happily pay, full price.
So, MG, how far in advance do we need to make a reservation?