… Just like “Customers Suck.” Or maybe I can start a petition asking Customers Suck to add a Tenants section to the website.
Does anybody else work with rental properties / tenants? Do you feel my pain? Please say you do.
I doubt that more than a small percentage posting at Customers Suck are the landlords.
There is definitely such a site, where landlords and building managers can log on to share stories and submit photos; every week a new “winning” photo is chosen. It’s all funny and horrific both. (Like the one of a recently vacated apt. with about 1/2" of hair, human hair, all over the carpets. WTH?!?) :eek:
Can’t remember the name of it, though.
I most assuredly do.
I’ve said for years that there should be a nationwide database of bad tenants.
See if any of these sites are helpful (the third is run by a guy in Kokomo). Of course, you may find such sites essentially useless…
Me, me!
I manage a short-term rental property that we own. The good thing is that the vast majority of our guests are terrific tennants. We had one last month that will be henceforth known as the tennant from hell. Let’s see:
Repeatedly left the doors half unlocked.
Would run the AC day and night with windows and doors open.
Lights, TV, electric water heater on 24/7.
Left town for a day leaving the apartment as described in the three lines above.
Broke a chair.
Called every night for something or other (I encourage guests to call me if they need anything, that does not include counseling or babysitting them though).
Made me change the telephone because he couldn’t see the “small buttons”.
Etc.
We once rented to, quite simply, the stupidest person in the world.
Mrs. Wang (not her real name, which is Chin), wanted to rent a piano so her darling son could take lessons. Factored into the fee for the piano movers is the number of steps they have to carry the piano up.
So one day, I’m at work when the the phone rings. It’s our tenant, calling to ask how steps are on the front stoop.
“hmm…good question. I walk up them every day, but for the life of me, can’t tell you how many there are.”
Then I remembered who I was dealing with and a very uncharitable suspicion crossed my mind.
“Mrs. Wang, where are you calling from?” I asked, and as I suspected, the answer was “from the apartment.”
“I have an idea. Why don’t you open the front door, look at the stoop, and count the stairs?”
This is the woman who insisted that the kitchen light was broken until I showed her something we call a “wall switch.”
Bizz
I’ve never been a landlord, but my uncle has stories. Once he had to rent a chipper to chip the carpet off of the floor ==> multiple cats and an indoor pig.
He shrugged it off. He rents multiple places and he figures that since they never called for maintenance in 20 years, he was money and time ahead.
Before this job I was a property manager for 150 luxury units. I didn’t have a lot of horrible move-outs. I did have a lot of tenants that thought I was their personal consierge(sp?). Everything from knocks on my door at 8pm to help a tenant move a TV, to “Can I borrow your truck?” (The answer was “NO!”).
No sir I don’t miss it at all!
Barrels
I’m glad I’m not alone! We do run background checks on all of our tenants who apply, and some people think we have very stringent rental requirements - monthly income of 3 times the rent, employment of at least 90 days, residency verification, criminal background check, and a search for open monetary judgements. Loads of people say “thank you” and hang-up when I tell them this. Most of our tenants are OK.
But there’s this one lady who inSISted for a month that there were animals in her attic, living up there and causing liqud urine to drip through the ceiling onto her personal effects. She called the health department, who found no evidence of animals of any kind, but did cite us for a few small things (foundation needed pointing, gutters needed cleaned). She also has a sign on her front door asking everyone to remove their shoes because “this city is dirty.” Whenever she calls, she’s either in full-fledged bitch mode already, or crying. (Yes, crying.) She never identifies herself when she calles - just launches into tirades. I know who she is, but I always ask, “And what is your address? What is your name, please?”
A new tenant is having trouble with her bottom door lock, and was told five times NOT to use it (she has a deadbolt). So of course we got a call this morning from her … she’d locked herself out!!
I could go on and on and on … but I won’t. Not for now, at least.
We had a move out a few months ago. These are 2 or 3 bedroom townhouses. Younger, punk rock type tenants. They left a 20 cu yd dumpster of useless junk for us to haul out. It took me 5 full sheets of drywall to patch where they had body slammed, kicked right through, punched, gouged, and generally destroyed the walls.
But, in their stupidity, right by the front door they had taken a black magic marker and written a message to us. It basically said go f… yourselves, you drove us to this, we couldn’t monetary assistance etc…hope you enjoy the place.
Well, the stupid asses signed it.
We called the local constabulary, who took pictures of the damage, and we pressed charges. Vandalism and such.
It’s nice when they do it to themselves. For a change.
xSUUssssse me. So she has called 5 times, and it still has not been fixed? It only costs a few bucks, and takes a few minutes to fix by anyone that knows what they are doing.
Bad landlords need to get pointed out too. In my apartment complex they’ve been messing with Central heat for months, dredging out the pipes and what not, and now us Tenants are freezing our butts off while they are waiting till tommorrow to supposedly get central heat back on. If its not on by tommorrow a lot of us are going to be pissed.
I have an electric blanket, thank god. And a space heater, but with all of us using such things we’ve really been drawing on the electricity, causing problems. Not to mention this complex is ancient and probably to code for 1910 (wall sockets have no ground, and other things like that)
Nope. She called once. Our maintenace manager was on vacation, and the property manager couldn’t re-key the bottom lock (he doesn’t know how). However, he did install a new deadbolt and gave her that key. She knew that the bottom lock didn’t work and wouldn’t work and that it would be a couple of days before we could get it re-keyed, and still locked it. (This was after she parked her U-haul on the lawn after 24 hours of rain and left 30-foot-long gouges in the grass. And then complained when we wouldn’t help her get it unstuck.)
If you remember, post it! I stumbled upon such a site once, but also have long lost the bookmark.
How about the tenant who tried to spit in one of our property manager’s face yesterday? Three times.
Of course, this particular Tenant from Hell has material for many lengthy posts, but I do not wish to depress myself with her behaviour on my own time.
This company once had a tenant who apparently kept three large dogs in their basement for about three years. They never went outside and the tenants never cleaned the basement floor.
:eek:
Dear God! It’s so easy to get caught up in the landlord/tenant dichotomy, I forget how bad the other side has it. I’ve heard lots of Landlord from Hell stories, it’s good to hear some Tenant from Hell stories, too.
That’s disgusting. Was he reported for animal cruelty?
How does a person who manages rental property not know how to spell “tenant” correctly?
I don’t know - it was long before I worked here. Besides, in Indiana, the animal protection laws suck. Big time.
(to hijack my own thread) … I once reported someone who was keeping a horse in a pen that was maybe 50’ x 50’ with an 8’ x 10’ storage shed for shelter. There was no bedding in the shed, other than her own manure. The water trough held less than 12" of water and was growing plant life. The only “food” available was the weeds in the pen and the moldy corn in the bowl on the ground. The property was visited and since the owner gave her fresh water that day and had food on the property they were not cited.