You're messy, but seriously- Have you no shame? At all?

The BBQ Pit
#1

Alt title: “Finally, a **Chessic Sense **pitting that will stay in the Pit!”

I told you fucking tenants a month ago that you were to be out of my house by March 1 so that I could put it on the market. You’d think over 30 days you’d get at least SOME of your shit together. But no, you just kept building on the squalor that you’d turned my beautiful home into.

I walk in to find the place absolutely trashed. You hadn’t bought a stick of furniture since I moved a year ago, so you figured it’d be cool to put (and leave) your pizza on the floor. Now there’s a permanent stain there. I also really enjoyed cleaning up your spoiling milk bottles left strewn in various places around the house. In your bedroom closet? Seriously?

Way to not take out the trash in two months. You left me with 10 bags of garbage stacked up in the basement. And that’s not counting the 4 you had in the kitchen itself, stacked up in a little pyramid against the wall.

Speaking of the basement, if you’re going to have a party, you should at LEAST dump out the left-over beer. You realize there was actual mold growing on the surface of the beer down there, right? And it’s really pathetic to shrug at me and go “It’s only been there a week!”

And how do you even USE that bathroom?! You haven’t cleaned it in months! The toilets (in both bathrooms) had shit stains caking the inside. They were covered in hair. Mold was growing in colors I’d never SEEN before on a toilet. The upstairs one even still had the VOMIT STAINS on the floor that I saw in December!

The shower hadn’t been cleaned in the entire 9 months you’d all been living here. This went beyond dirty. It wasn’t just the grout that was pitch black, but the ACTUAL SLIDING GLASS DOOR!! And I haven’t even mentioned the hair that covered the floor, sinks, soap, mirror, and shelves.

Did you even think about taking off your shoes in my house? After a professional steam cleaning, there was STILL a visible dirt trail going across the living room and down the hallway. And those guys were even able to get out the stain from the chimney soot. 50-yr-old charcoal? No problem for the steam cleaning. Your shoes in the house? Defeat. And can anyone explain how we found crisp leaves in the corners? You haven’t vacuumed since FALL?!?! And thanks for grinding gum into my carpets and hardwood floors. I spent a half hour on my knees prying that up with a paint scraper. Assholes.

To my “friend”: I let you stay there, at half the rent I normally charge, because you’re my oldest friend. We grew up from toddlers together. But somehow you managed to just toss that all out the window. Not only did you stiff me on the last rent, but you’ll probably stiff me on the utility bills that are coming due for February. I told you you’re not allowed to smoke in the house. But not only did YOU smoke, but you let your burnout FRIENDS smoke inside! Now your room smells like an ashtray. Your windows are caked with soot. The nice white windown blinds? Yellow. The grey “marble” window sills? Black. Literally. I couldn’t even see the marble, there was so much ash. Oh, and thanks for leaving me your 30-year-old shitty furniture “just in case * wanted it”. That’s like the middle school maneuver where you throw your garbage at someone and say “You touched it last” so they have to clean it up.

You said you’d come back to clean. When the responsible, clean, respectable roommate said “Honestly? That’s never going to happen. He won’t lift a damn finger to help you/us,” I stuck up for you. I said “No, he promised.” You never showed up. You lied to my face. You let ME scrub your shit stains, clean your vomit, wipe down your moldy shower. You’re off my friend list, starting now.

To the Craigslist guy: I had good luck with CL people so far. They were all nice, decent people that I eventually befriended. Not you, you disgusting fat ass. When the realtors came to look at the house again, they couldn’t even go into your room. We opened the door and all gagged from the stench. That lingered all the way down the hallway. If someone that’s never met you, never seen you, and never heard mention of you can open your bedroom door, quickly close it, and go “Wow! How fat is he?!”, you oughta be ashamed.

Saturday - You at least moved your bed. Well, half of it anyway. Then we didn’t see you again til the next day. Unlike my friend, you weren’t at work. You were at your new place doing god-knows what.
Sunday - You showed up for 10 minutes and took a bag of clothes out of the house. “I’ll be right back”. Never showed up again.
Monday - You finally dare to show up and start moving. On March 1. The day you’re supposed to be gone. “Carpet guys are coming at noon. You need to be clear of here by then.” You loaded up your car with ONE load and left permanently.

The carpet guy and I bagged the rest of your shit and tossed it all. I’ve been saving you for last, because you’re so disgusting, the SDMB is going to accuse me of exaggeration where there is none. Pepsi bottle, open on the floor. Moldy cheeseburger in the corner. Motor oil of some kind, spilled in the closet. You clothes still here. Under your clothes? Stacks of dishes. We’re talking at least 2 dishwasher loads, maybe more, of hoarded dishes, complete with rotting food and flies.

And then, to take the cake, I open your crawlspace/attic. Do you remember what you put in there? It was…waaaaaaait for it…7 bags of fast food garbage. We’re talking trash bags with decayed beef paties, pizza, and tacos. Some alien combination of coke and slime spilling out the bottom of the bags. And beside those bags of trash? Pizza boxes. With pizza still in them! Do you know what color pepperoni turns after a month or two in the attic? I do. I didn’t even know they served pizza with pepperoni, sausage, and MAGGOTS. Did I mention this was all in your crawlspace, you sick fuck?

You have until tonight to come back and get your broken-down car off my property or I’m having it towed. But not before I take a sledge to the windshield. And I’m calling your current landlord. Maybe there’s something he can do to break the lease now. Save him the headache.

To the one responsible, always-paid-on-time roommate: OK, so you were a little crazy. And always drunk. But at least you were friendly all the time. Good luck sobering up in your group home. Those two woulda driven me to drink too.

#2

… Wow. Talking about a bad luck with (some) tenants. Hope you got them to pay for at least some of the cleaning/took it out of their original deposit.

#3

I kept the fat guy’s deposit. I have to give back the drunk’s. I never charged my friend a down payment, because I’m an idiot.

#4

It’s hard to believe these people just developed these traits.

Did you check their references? Call their last landlords, and ask pertinent questions?

I was a landlord for many years. This is a wake up call for you. Always, always, always call ALL the references. If you didn’t demand references before renting to these people, it’s on you, and I hope you learned your lesson. If you asked for, but didn’t bother to check them, same thing, it’s on you, hope you learned something.

You know the new place they moved to? Did that landlord call you? He’s about to learn the same lesson.

Also, you may be obligated under the law to store their left behind belongings, (no, not the maggoty garbage), just throwing it out, or having it towed, may land you in hot water. You may not have informed yourself of the laws but don’t think for a moment they haven’t, these sort of people often have. You have left yourself open to learning another painful lesson.

Get security deposits, check references, follow the laws, it’s not all that hard. But, school’s never out for this sort of thing. Get smarter for next time and good luck.

#5

Well the one guy I’ve known my whole life. The drunk guy is actually pretty cool. He was my roommate when I lived there and sorta took over as house “boss” when I left. It didn’t end well.

Fat guy, on the other hand, was a huge mistake. I asked Drunk to interview him and he gave it the green light. Oops.

#6

That’s what I smelled…

I knew mold would grow on coffee (don’t ask), but I didn’t know it would grow on beer.

#7

This kind of shit pisses ME off as a potential renter, because now the landlord is going to be even more suspicious of new people. :frowning: And we are good, conscientous renters.

#8

Yup. Still don’t want to be a landlord. Thank you for reminding me, Chessic Sense. :slight_smile:

#9

Yeah, I know. But luckily, “storing” it merely means “make it retreivable”, and only for 14 days. It’s on the front porch. He can get it if he wants. As for the car, the “come get it” letter’s in the mail already.

#10

Do you feel better after unloading that?
I ask because I would.

I really feel for you, dude.
I have been the landlord before and I can tell you that good renters are hard to find.
Can’t say I’ve ever encountered anyone quite like you have, but my first house that I owned was quite a trip with roommates that sound like fictional characters when I recount our experiences.

Chalk it up to experience, and I hope you feel better now that it is over.

#11

Yup. Works best in bottles.

-RNATB, former frat house resident.

#12

[Mongo]
Chessic Sense only pawn in game of strife.
[/Mongo]

Dude, that sucks to have an undeserved social and financial disappointment. Sorry you had to experience what a truly shitty friend he was after all.

#13

Never do business with or rent to friends. As a landlord, sooner or later you’ll probably have to do something unfriendly to them, and it will be over then anyway.

I wish I could say I’m surprised, but tenants often leave a house like that. It’s not theirs, so who cares? A lot of people think it’s easy to be a landlord - find a tenant, start collecting money. From watching my parents be landlords for decades, I know it’s much more complicated than that. It starts with doing the legwork to get good tenants in, then you have to keep an eye on things regularly, then you have to clean up after them when they’re gone (including storing their stuff for an unreasonably long time). It can be a good way to make some extra money, but you have to do it right, or it’s the biggest headache in the world.

Good luck getting the house clean and sold!

#14

So, Chessie, I’ve been looking for a place to stay…

#15

Well, you guys are the second person I’ve unloaded this onto. The first guy was the cop that pulled me over on my late-night drive back to DC. I was in the car for 4 hours and only had a half hour to go. I actually saw the cop getting onto the highway, too! I said to myself “Better slow down”. I thought I did. Apparently I sped back up and started doing 80 again.

“License and registration. How are you tonight?”
“Well…blah blah blah MAGGOTS! Blah blah blah carpets! Blah blah blah 22 bags of garbage!”
" blink, blink Drive safe, sir."

#16

Good, cause I’ve got a house for sale.

#17

Save yourself the PITA and expense of cleaning. Sell the place as is and tell the buyer that it’s a teardown. :smiley:

#18

You have my sympathy Chessic. That was a lot of nasty work that you had to go through. I learned from my parents that you should never rent out a property that you’re emotionally invested in. They rented out their first house - the one that they built together, with help from the extended family, because they couldn’t stand to sell it when we moved to a house with more bedrooms. Dad was alway livid about the way the renters treated it.

My uncle, on the other hand, just rented properties, he didn’t care about them. If you didn’t call for a lot of repairs and maintenance, he wouldn’t raise your rent. Once he had a set of renters with four cats and a pot bellied pig. I think they stayed for 4 years. No repair calls. But when they moved out he had to rent a floor planer to remove the carpet. He shrugged and rented the planer.

I don’t think the odds are good that you’ll find renters who take off their shoes to protect the carpet. Finding ones that don’t store garbage in the attic - that’s more likely. Here’s hoping you never get stung this badly again.

#19

This part is very telling. It shows that you knew he was stuck in adolescence and you tried to change him, but you couldn’t.

You were very generous to let him rent your house. It’s sad that you got screwed. He’s probably counting on that same generosity from you that his possessions will still be around long after your legal obligation to store them. If there is an obligation where you live, store them, then toss them the day after that obligation ends. It’ll be one lesson that he hopefully won’t forget and will start him on his path to adulthood.

I hope you sell your house quickly and make a tidy profit on it. Good luck!

#20

Your story makes the house of my Baltimore crust punk friends sound like an operating room. They are disgusting, nasty people, but at least they throw out their old food.

What a nightmare. Good luck.