Wednesday 20 June 2012

The Bestest Tenant Ever

This is what happens when you start doing a job without really knowing what you are doing. 

Tenant #1. 

Fuck me, did we ever screw the pooch on this one. He had just about every red flag you could have. Didn't know to recognize them. Everything we have learned about what to look for in people came from this one person. 

So he and his family move in. Things are going ok until his wife takes up crack, apparently again-there's a question to ask, "are you currently recovering from something? Is there a likelihood that you will relapse?" 

They get a little behind on rent. We muddle through. And here's why we had problems: 

The apartment in question was shit. The bathroom was blue, and you're like, "dude, paint that shit" No...blue bathtub, toilet and sink, sitting on a blue tile floor. The kitchen was small and dark, it was ground floor. 

So, lesson #2, you can't put great people into shit product. In fact, we have been really bad at putting shit people into shit product. It's happened a couple of times. Your decision making becomes based on, no one else is going to want this shit. 

After they moved, I spent a month re-doing it. It's hot now. 

So finally they split up. He moves into a 1 bedroom and she leaves. Things get better. The 1 bedroom was another problem unit, so its nice to have that off the map. 

Then, the worst case scenario. He comes to me and says he has bedbugs. 

Sidebar: If you've never dealt with these little bastards, consider yourself lucky. They say it has nothing to do with cleanliness and lifestyle if you get them. Awesome. I call bullshit. My nice clean little yuppies may be equally able to get them coming through a wall, but people that clean often and care are going to notice them quicker and deal with their eradication faster. Therefore they aren't going to have more time to transfer them to friends and family. 

In my opinion, its a problem of cheap people picking up free shit. 

So in this case, his ex came by and stayed for a few days and then tells him, "oh yeah! funny thing I did have bugs in my place now that you mention it" 

We get that dealt with. In the process, he managed to blame motherfucking EVERYBODY, but himself. It did make me smile when he had to get rid of every stick of furniture in the place. 

At this point, we're on the warpath. We had enough of this shit. 

A couple of months go by, and we manage to sneak away over christmas. We get a call from another tenant. HE has bedbugs. Fuck me. He's another story, but needless to say, he wasn't a surprise either. See sidebar above. 

So we put a notice out that we are having the dog come through and lo and behold, this guy comes to the door and says, "you know, I just saw one the other day!" 

What a fabulous little coincidence! That discovery just happened to coincide with this other guy down the hall. 

Unfortunately, its not what you know, its what you can prove. We all knew that he most likely had never gotten rid of the bugs, but couldn't prove it. 

In reality, we should have just evicted. If it failed, then it failed. 

We spent $1000 heat treating the apartment. 

Then about 60 days later, he sounds the alarm. I think I have them again. Thinking that we were under a warranty period. We weren't. 

At that point, we were done with this guy. So Dino hatched a plan in concert with the owner. 

It's called the "Fuck it, I'm done." plan. 

They let him stay for a month for free and then move. 

Not as clean and sanitary as we normally like, but here's the thing. If he got bugs again, it was either going to cost another $350ish for spray, plus any additional apartments or $1000 for heat. 

And we washed our hands of the biggest cluster fuck. On top of all of that, I think my favorite part was sometimes you could tell that you had just pissed him off and he'd want to snap, but couldn't. He would walk by us in a huff on a couple of occasions, and once I wish he'd have just let go, because I would LOVE to fire back.

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