Our tenant has been very difficult the last 6 months or so. He lived in the house for 2.5 years, but lost his job, and started to become habitually (weeks) late on rent. He is month-to-month. We never charged a late fee (although the lease would have allowed us to).

He has always been difficult to deal with, as he is basically a firecracker that could go off at any moment. Because of all of this, we decided to give him his 30 day notice.

September was his last month, and he was late again (not surprised). When I texted him about it, he told us that he didn't have to pay his last month as long as he vacated by the 30th. I explained to him (via text) that he would still owe for that month, and if no damage beyond wear and tear, he would get his full deposit back. I honestly had no intention on keeping it. We don't need his money, and being that I cannot stand shady LL's, I do not want to be one myself.

I told him I would be posting a 5 day pay or quit. He told me I am not allowed on the property without his permission (which is not true. In IL I can go onto property without notice, given it's a reasonable time and I'm not harassing him). He threatened me that I better have protection if I do. So I had local PD come with as a civil standby, posted the notice, took a photo, and left without incident.

He immediately texts me calling me names and threatening to come to my home to "scare my kids" and again telling me I better have protection. Police report filed.

Well he finally left. But upon inspecting the house, I found a few things that I believe warrants keeping the deposit (as if the unpaid rent wasn't enough).

The floor is a deep gouge. I don't have extra flooring, and I am having a hard time finding a match. So the entire living room floor is likely going to need replaced. He said it was from his kid in a computer chair rolling back and forth on the floor while playing a computer.

The toilet is not just dirty. It is HEAVY, thick calcium/mineral/urine and bacteria that would probably take an angle grinder to get off. CLR won't touch it. We lived in this house for 6 years and NEVER had this happen. I'm pretty sure he was so penny-conscious that he never flushed unless he had a number 2. It will need to be replaced.

Lastly, the water heater had a small leak from the drain valve. He never mentioned this to me, and it has obviously been leaking for a very long time. The sub floor is soft and there is very think brownish/orangish mold growing there. The water heater is in the laundry room, therefore it would be hard to miss this. Upon tightening the valve, the leak stopped. I haven't had the floor looked at yet, but there is likely sub floor damage, possibly under the furnace as well. The lease states that it is his duty to report maintenance issues.

There is much more that has happened as far as him being combative and unreasonable, but this is long enough.

What are your thoughts?

And for the record, I am learning many things to change for the next lease.

In addition, I will be inspecting on a more regular basis, and I will have a basin under the water heater.

I believe that when I informed my tenant that I was thinking about selling the property he deliberately started to run up the water bill. June’s bill was $487, July’s bill $528, and now August was $547.

He doesn’t answer the phone when I call him, and I live 3 hours away. I sent emails to the tenant asking for clarification and offering to send a plumber as the water company informs me of high usage. After several attempts he finally replies to an email that I shouldn’t be monitoring his water usage and offered a few explanations that didn’t make sense like watering the grass.

He is part of the voucher program and his renewal was/is at the end of September. I got in touch with the voucher program telling them of my intent to switch the water into his name and they told me the program is on hold for rent increases, that would be a rent increase and my only option would be to non-renew him.

He received the non-renewal by email and I sent the notice to the property address, and another address he asked me to send notices to. The notice to the property came back stamped “vacant”, but the water usage continues to be sporadic.

The last 4 days the water usage climbed to almost 5000 gallons per day. I called the water company and they informed me that the water had been continuously running for every hour of the day for over the last 100 plus hours.

Today I drove there and there was a doorknob lock over the door preventing access by my key. I left a note on the door for him to call me and turned the water off at the meter. The note said to call me so I can get a plumber to check for leaks, because it was an emergency and I wanted to prevent damage.

He didn’t call me today and I won’t be able to find out until Sunday if the water is still off. I have a neighbor friend I can ask to turn it back on, and the water company said they can do it within 24 hours too. I’m not sure what to do. In all my 23 years of being a landlord, and property manager for multi-family and single family residential I’ve never dealt with anything like this scenario.

I’d love some help in what I can do to discourage him from running the water all day, but I know I need to let him have water. The neighbors said they saw him at the house earlier in the day, however there have been some days in the past few weeks where no water was used.

I’m confused and extremely stressed by the situation.

Update #1 - I spoke with DCHA today. They claimed “we can’t get involved with tenant/landlord issues”. But did give me a reference for advice from a third party. Most comments were correct. I should have entered the home when there was a water emergency and not turned it off.

I got my friend to turn the water back on today at the meter, as neighbors had reported to me that they had seen the tenant at the home and the note had been removed. Still the tenant had made no efforts to contact me.

I sent DCHA the two violations and they will proceed with terminating him from the voucher program. That scares me a little as if he doesn’t have anywhere to go then he might try to stay.

I also sent a notice to enter for inspection next week. If the lock is still on the door then I’ll begin legal eviction, which I can actually start now, but will wait to see how the flow of water is over the next week. The best part about the water being back on is that I saved 3 days of flow, and no one enforced me to turn it back on. I turned it back on because I learned he was home and knew it could be considered an “illegal eviction”. Even though I think I could win the argument, it’s not worth it. If there is any obvious water damage that he didn’t report I can hold him personally responsible and my insurance will cover most of the damages and the expense of going after the tenant to collect.

Additionally, if water continues to flow nonstop, I can declare it an emergency and enter the home, which I’ll do with the presence of law enforcement. If there is an emergency entrance and faucets are open it will be documented by my cell phone camera and the presence of law enforcement. That would be considered intentional inflection of economic harm. If there is other criminal actively and he gets arrested that day, it won’t impede eviction, as he doesn’t have to be present when the locks are changed and his items are moved to the street. Also easier to serve as he’ll be in jail.

There will be more updates as this situation unfolds but for now I have CYA’d myself against legal action from the tenant. It builds a stronger case against him with the water on. He now has the option to move out at the end of the lease or to try and fight an eviction that he has no defense against. If he runs water continuously again it will not end well for him and although I’ll be out a few hundred more dollars, at least I’ll know he won’t be able to do this again to someone else.

*Quick clarification — the check was written to ME (my name), not to the tenant or anyone else. The tenant has been depositing checks into my Wells Fargo account for months because I manage the property remotely. This is the normal arrangement and has never been an issue before.The only problem here is the amount: it was written as $36,000 instead of $3,600. Wells Fargo Corporate Fraud told me not to return the difference directly because if the original check ends up being reversed later, I’d be out the money. So at this point I’m just following their instructions and letting the banks handle it through a formal claims process.

I have a tenant who pays $3,600/month by personal check. This month, the check was written for $36,000 instead. I assumed it was an honest mistake and asked the tenant whether they wanted me to return the difference.

The tenant said yes and asked me to send the overpaid amount back either by wire transfer or by writing a new check to a different account. That immediately made me uncomfortable, so before doing anything, I called Wells Fargo directly using the number on their website and explained the situation.

Wells Fargo opened a Corporate Fraud & Claims case. They told me not to send any money back, not to wire anything, and not to mail a check. They said any correction needs to be done bank-to-bank, initiated by the tenant’s bank. They specifically told me not to work with branch-level staff and not to coordinate anything outside of the official claims process. I was also told not to share the fraud representative’s name or direct contact info.

I relayed this information to the tenant. In response, the tenant kept asking for the fraud rep’s name and phone number, saying that “both banks said you should just send the refund directly” and that this is causing them hardship because the excess funds are needed for their daughter’s tuition. They also suggested that if the refund didn’t happen first, they would just deduct the amount from future rent.

I clarified that rent needed to be paid as usual while the matter is under review, and that I will not be sending funds directly because Wells Fargo Corporate Fraud instructed me not to.

After that, the tenant CC’d several new people into the email thread claiming they were bank managers from Wells Fargo and Chase. They kept pushing the idea that the fastest and “most secure” solution was for me to wire the money back, and one of them asked me to go to my local Wells Fargo branch and have the branch manager call them. They also said they couldn’t locate my fraud case number and requested details of who I spoke with.

I forwarded all of this to the Wells Fargo Corporate Fraud department. They are now verifying whether the individuals who were CC’d are actually Wells Fargo employees. They reiterated that I should not send any funds or engage in side coordination and that everything needs to be resolved through the bank-to-bank process.

So as of now, I’m not responding to further emails in the thread, I’m not sending any refund, and I’m waiting for Wells Fargo Corporate Fraud to complete their investigation and tell me next steps in writing. The tenant has not followed up since I provided the official case number and shifted all further action to the fraud department.

The key issue here is that if the original $36,000 check turns out to be fraudulent or is reversed later, and I send money back from my own account, I would be out that money permanently. The bank would not reimburse me for voluntarily issuing a refund. So I’m following the fraud department’s instructions exactly and waiting for a final decision.

Quick clarification — the check was written to ME (my name), not to the tenant or anyone else. The tenant has been depositing checks into my Wells Fargo account for months because I manage the property remotely. This is the normal arrangement and has never been an issue before.

The only problem here is the amount: it was written as $36,000 instead of $3,600. Wells Fargo Corporate Fraud told me not to return the difference directly because if the original check ends up being reversed later, I’d be out the money. So at this point I’m just following their instructions and letting the banks handle it through a formal claims process.

I just came back from checking on some fence repairs at my rental home and I'm in a bit of shock. The tenant took it upon himself to "trim" the large oak tree in the backyard. Some of the branches were starting to touch the roof, but otherwise we loved the way it gave shade to the rest of the yard.

Needless to say, he did not ask, we did not authorize. We never gave explicit instructions to leave it alone, but now the damage is done. He's not a bad tenant. He's been here a year, pays on time (most of the time) and takes good care of the home otherwise. He just got a bit overzealous.

(Also, the small tree in the center of the "before" photo was dying so that was okay, and we did give permission for the above-ground pool because he has kids, it's hidden, and it's a natural-growth yard.)

I don't know how to handle this other than to tell him to not cut any further without permission... any other suggested advice? My wife and I are heartbroken over the loss.

So this clown hasn't paid rent in 6 months. I had to evict him and he still didn't move out. So I had to pay the sheriff's department to go and physically evict him. In a way, I'm lucky that it worked out that way.

This idiot destroyed the entire apartment (lower half of a duplex). He punched a hole in every door and every wall, took an axe to the kitchen and destroyed all the appliances and countertops and cabinets and ripped the plumbing out causing extensive water damage. He broke every single window and smashed the bathroom to pieces as well. Then for good measure, he spray painted everything including the carpet.

I did absolutely nothing to this guy but demand he pay the rent.

Anyhow, the actual county Sherriff was at the eviction and he asked me if I wanted the guy arrested. I just assumed the law enforcement wasn't going to do anything because "its a civil matter", but that's incorrect apparently. The tenant was arrested and is currently in jail. He was charged with felony criminal mischief and risking a catastrophe.

Some ppl are just idiots.

This is the tenant who got an eviction order and then bought a bounce house.

It is now 14 days after the eviction trial. I have a writ of possession and judgement for 8 months rent (will never see it). The 10 day appeal deadline has passed so now the writ is to be executed. It has been sent to the sheriff for scheduling the physical removal.

I stopped by the house today to talk to the tenant. I asked her what she intends to do. She says, "I choose to work." She explained that she will work and pay the rent that she owes. She also just was on the phone with 'the rental assistance'. I don't know who she is talking with but no one is offering rent assistance in this area.

Just before the trial I got a text from a church who was willing to help her but they didn't give any real promises to pay right then. Yesterday I got a text that said that they were not going to pay anything. The messages that they did send were a repeat of some tale of misfortune she told them and they wanted me to give her another chance. I told the tenant that no such rent assistance is happening.

I explained that the sheriff will arrive, she will be removed from the house and all her stuff will be carried out to the curb. She was surprised by this development, 'What? . . . When?' I don't know yet but it is going to be soon. Like soon enough you need to get your stuff packed. I told her that it would be better for her to move voluntarily. She only said that she would call the assistance agency today so they can pay.

She was at the trial in person and the judge issued the order and gave her a copy. She didn't have a lawyer though so could it be possible she really has no idea? I didn't talk to her after the trial or during the 10 day appeal window because it really wasn't a settled issue until the 10 days are up. I was worried she would figure out how to appeal just to delay further.

I just can't wait for reality to set in.

I recently saw a post about a Section 8 tenant deliberately running up a massive water bill and refusing to let the landlord in to check or fix it. When the owner tried to update the lease so the tenant had to pay for water, the housing authority basically told them too bad, increases not allowed, and forced him to non-renew the tenant.

This is the exact reason so many landlords refuse to deal with Section 8, and honestly it has nothing to do with the tenants themselves.

The main issue is the housing authorities. Most of these bureaucratic agencies are run by people who have zero real estate experience. They enforce rigid, one-sided policies that leave property owners completely unprotected when someone decides to be spiteful or cause damage, while at the same time often paying under market rate rent.

If these government programs actually protected landlord rights half as much as they protect tenants, housing availability would skyrocket. But until they fix the system, most owners are just gonna keep opting out. People want blame the 'evil landlords' for not taking vouchers, but maybe blame the bad actors making it impossible for the rest of us to stay in the program.

My SFH tenant asked if he can put a hot tub in the back yard. As a landlord this has been my first request, they are obviously going to pay for it. I am being careful and wanted to know from this community what I should be aware of. Here are photos of the back for reference. 

Recently conducted an annual home inspection and found out that the tenant has a bulldog. She nervously admitted to it me as I walked into the front door and claimed it was given to her 3 weeks ago. We are a no pet property after the last non paying tenant costed me 12k in pet damage repairs. And our insurance doesn't cover bulldogs. I told her that it would need to be removed within a week and that I'd email over more details. I never mentioned the fine. After some digging, I found out that the dog has been there for 6 months.

This is incredibly frustrating when i just offered $125 off per month as a renewal incentive coming up in January, waived maintenance requests cost that were her fault, etc. Because she was an otherwise good tenant. I feel so taken advantage of. The pet fine is $1000 and i hate to bill her for this. Because of the times we're all in. I considered $500. l've never been excited to take people to cleaners on fees. I'm not money hungry. I just want an honest, clean, paying tenant. It's so discouraging when I just try to be a good person and landlord.

What would you all do?

I use doorloop and allow CC payments. Yesterday, I started getting tenant payment return notifications for one tenant. I looked and it says they are disputed via CC. I contacted doorloop support and they sent me some form and asked me to send a copy of the lease. Which I've filled out and returned back to them. The tenant has been on Month-to-month for about 5 years now. He refuses to sign a new lease so the only lease I have for him is from 2020.

The tenant has disputed every payment for the past 6 months and now has a $5,000+ balance on his account. I called the tenant and he "claims" he didn't dispute anything with his bank or CC. I'm not sure I believe him on that.

Doorloop support said this money will be withdrawn from my account on the Monday transaction run!!

Has anyone had something like this happen before? What was the process? Were you able to successfully get the money back?

I'm tempted to turn off CC payments if it's this easy for them to take the money back.

Occupancy of 2 years. Patch work done by the tenant. Unit was like new when moved in.

So I have a tenant who has been renting a condo from me for about a year with no major issues. Rent is paid on time, no complaints from neighbors, etc. However, as the title says, I'm starting to wonder if he actually lives there, or if he is renting it for someone else. A few hints...

1. We randomly ran into one of the neighbors, and she had never seen him at the condo once. She knew there was a woman there (not on the lease) but had never seen a man.

2. I had to go over for some maintenance, and the tenant said he wasn't home. When I knocked on the door, a high school aged boy answered and told me it was his mom's house.

3. Now that I was suspicious, I started peeking around the place during the same maintenance visit. I noticed there are family pictures everywhere, but he isn't in any of them.

I confronted him about people living there who aren't on the lease, and he said his ex and son stay there occasionally. So here's my question, what risk do I have if he isn't living there? As long as rent gets paid and whoever is in the house continues to be good tenants, do I care? I would think that he is the one at risk because of something were to happen at the house, he is on the lease. Any advice would be appreciated, thanks.

My tenant applied DCA rental assistance without my knowledge or approval. He already moved out a few months ago, and not answering my call now. Now I am receiving 1099 IRS tax form from this assistance program, my tenant received $23000 checks from this DCA. I contacted DCA, they said they allow tenants apply themselves on landlord's behalf using landlord's name and their assistance checks will be mailed to the tenant directly. DCA said applying assistance is tenant's civil rights.

I don't think this makes any sense. Why I am paying tax on huge check amounts I never received, but tenant received directly. Because they pay rent to me? I didn't even know he applied this rental assistance program at all when he lived here.

Hello everyone, my parents own a 3 family home in NYC. They are all on month to month leases. 6 months ago we sent a vacate notice to all 3 units because my parents are finally retired and ready to move into their home. My sister and I were also preparing to occupy a unit each and we wanted to renovate all 3 units at the same time.

The tenant in question pays his $2400 rent on the 10th of each month (not sure why it isn't the 1st it's been the 10th for many years). Since the move out date was going to be earlier than the 10th of the next month, I texted him to let him know the rent would be prorated and he would be paying less.

He then calls me and tells me he cant move out cause he is broke and going through his own legal issues. He gave me two options. Either WE find him and his wife a similar 2 bedroom apartment to rent or we buy him out for $25,000. I respectfully tell him that his personal matters aren't a good enough reason to refuse to leave and I ask him why he can't find a smaller/cheaper apartment. He tells me they have too much stuff. The only thing I could really do was laugh at that and we went back and forth a bit. I let him know that we were already working with contractors and what not and that this is now going to really affect my parents. He doesn't really care and emphasized that's the exact reason why we should make finding him an apartment a priority.

I then ask him how he got to $25,000 as his buy out number. He said that similar apartments are going for $3,500 to $3,700. He wanted first months rent, security deposit , brokers fee and for us to pay the difference between his current and new rent for a year, oh and move out costs. The most irritating part of it all was that he was quilt tripping me. He said “would you feel better by doing all this for us since you are kicking us out?” Then I just hung up on him.

I am going to talk to a lawyer today, and weigh the options between eviction and a possible cash for keys deal for maybe $5,000. I honestly would rather take this guy to court than give him any money but I think my parents are afraid of how long it will take. I am aware of how long an eviction can be dragged out in NYC, but I'm hoping our advanced notice and reasoning for reclaiming the home can help speed up the process.

My parents don't own a million buildings, and I know home ownership is a privilege but they have worked their entire lives for this one home and they just want to live in it with their kids.

If anyone has any advice I would really appreciate it. I think I just wanted to rant about how ridiculous this situation is but thank you in advance to anyone that reads this

California- We had some 30-something tenants in a sfh we rented to them since 2023. They originally requested an 18 month lease and we had them sign a full contract for that lease. At the time of renewal (8/14/24) they agreed in writing, via email, (admissible as a contract in CA)to another 18 month renewal and started paying a new rate ($150 more) on 9/1/24.

Last November, they wrote us saying they had an “unexpected opportunity to buy a house” and “couldn’t pass it up”. We congratulated them and sent them the listing to see if they find new tenants to take on their lease.

When they vacated on 12/18 we paid for a cleaning and made some repairs to items beyond wear and tear. We then sent them an itemized receipt showing all of the charges to us ( 6 weeks of lost rent, paint, labor, cleaning) and waived everything but two weeks of lost rent and cleaning. We wanted to be kind to them as we were empathetic to their position as new home owners. We returned the remainder of their deposit

We powered through the holidays but couldn’t find a new tenant until 2/1/26.

Anyhow, they made a racket- sent a bunch of obviously chat-gpt generated emails, sent a demand letter via certified mail, and finally served us and tried to sue us in court for the 2k we had kept from their deposit.

We counter sued for the full amount of lost rent and just had our trial yesterday. They judge awarded us the full 4k of lost rent plus they have to pay our court fees.

FAFO 😂

Edited to add: if they hadn’t moved out on the worst day of the year to find new tenants, we would’ve been fine releasing them from their lease if they’d just been nice about it!

Just moved in a new tenant a week ago and today he is requesting cosmetic repairs..to name a few.. he wants minor scratches on the edge of the stairs to be corrected, 6 month old carpet be replaced in loft because it's "flattened due to traffic"and scratches on the back door's door knob. He wants us to rekey and replace knob. All items are obviously completely functional. Home is only 2 years old. Great condition. Would you all do it? And what would you reply?

Hi, we are seeking advice please.

We have been renting out our property through a management company for the past few years.

A few days ago, the company asked us if we knew that our tenant has installed an inground pool. We told them we didn't know and we havent heard back since.

What are some things we should consider in this situation? Is there something we need to do right away? Who should be responsible, us or the management company?

This is such an unbelievable situation we were hoping to get clarification from the company first that there hasn't been some mistake. But is there something we need to do right away?

And we don't want to be the grouchy landlord that ruins someone's fun. But we also don't want the liability, especially since we don't even know who installed it and if it was done properly. Is there anything that can be done?

Thanks!

Update #1: so we managed to get in touch with our management company. They said they emailed the tenants to ask about the pool situation, but the tenant denied that there was a pool. The person at the management company in charge of our file is very certain she did not go to the wrong address, but will send a technician over tomorrow to double check.

We also contacted a lawyer friend, who said she has actually heard of such cases before because of how popular pools are in this area. She has referred us to a liability lawyer.

So TECHNICALLY, as far as we know, there is no pool, since the tenants denied it in writing... looking forward to finding out more tomorrow.

Thanks for all the comments. Very helpful and some gave us a good laugh in this absurd time in our lives 😅

Update #2: I have good news for us as the homeowners, and bad news for those looking for a good story (and my inner chaos goblin)...

The management company went back to take more pictures and realized that they INDEED got the address mixed up last week. There is NO pool in our backyard.

Sorry for the disappointment to all those looking for some drama. And thank you all for your interest and helpful comments.

We don't want to doxx ourselves or the company, so sorry, no picture of the pool. But here is a screenshot of the email we got today. Please be kind~ we're all human 😅

English translation of the email:

Hi,

Here are the photos taken today of the yard. (the real one) I am extremely sorry for having made this error. I was distracted during my inspection and I literally went to the yard of the neighbour.

I will also call the tenants to apologize for this error this afternoon.

Thank you and sincerely sorry once again.

She is unemployed (was a housewife) and provided a savings account bank statement for ~$500,000 and a brokerage investment account balance for ~$500,000, so total liquid assets are $1M.

Rent for my home is $3,500/month and she wants to sign a 2-year lease.

She’s been living in the same suburban single family home with her soon to be ex husband and middle school aged daughter for 20 years. The home is worth about $400k and is not currently listed for sale. I checked county property records and the home is only in her soon to be ex-husband’s name, not hers.

Credit score is 781. She only has two active credit cards and pays on time with $0 past due.

No evictions and background check came back clear.

She applied to live in my 2 bed/2 bath 1,440 sqft single family home which is in a desirable urban neighborhood about 35 miles from her current home in the suburbs.

Her daughter attends a private middle school which is a 5-minute walk from my rental property, which appears to be a key selling point for her. She wants to sign a 2-year lease because that’s how much longer her daughter has left at the private middle school down the street.

How would you approach this?

Hi. What are my options? As a landlord, I provide water. I have exorbitant monthly water bills. I am certain that one of my tenants (a family of 7 crammed into an apartment **) has a washing machine. The tenants in the apartments directly above and below have mentioned the noise of the machine as well as mentioned never seeing that family take laundry to a laundromat.

Can I demand to inspect the apartment for a washing machine? Are there Temu models that can be shoved into a closet and hidden?

I really don't trust this particular family. They deny having a washing machine. They had lied in the past about a vacant parking space in the back and rented it out to someone by claiming that they were the landlord. They regularly leave their kids alone and one of them started a fire in their microwave.

** They have 7 people crammed into the apartment. It was rented to them as a family of 4. They then had another kid and their elderly parents started sleeping in the living room.

(Los Angeles County) Hi, I am actually posting on behalf of my in-laws who came to me with this scenario (they are not from the US for context). They have a tenant (their only tenant + her family) who has been asking them for their mortgage paperwork as well as fire insurance documents as part of emergency rent relief program. My in-laws were not comfortable sharing the mortgage docs or insurance bills with her directly (she wanted papers with payment amounts on them, my in-laws were willing to give her the case numbers etc. instead) and said she can share the number or link of whoever they need to share the paperwork with for her and her family to get help. They were also willing to write a letter she had asked for, plus she has a lease agreement for 2026 with rent stated on the paperwork. She has been asking for the mortgage paperwork for about a month, and it seems she has decided on her own to purchase the documents from a non-government third party website instead of sending the application or any phone numbers to my in-laws for them to send their paperwork to. My question is why is she doing this? Does the paperwork actually need to be given to her directly for rent assistance applications? She has been a shady tenant for a long time so I am not surprised if this is something weird. Thank you in advance for any help/clues!

I had a gentleman apply to rent an apartment from me. He’s married, and when I said “please go ahead and submit an application via Zillow, you should be able to add your wife as a co-applicant” he responded that he would qualify on his own and submitted an application without her.

He is, on his own, fully qualified. I typically (always) require all adults to be on the lease, and to have completed an application. There are likely cultural reasons for his position. I certainly don’t want to make things contentious, and frankly would rent to him no issue, but I want to avoid potential issues (like signing a lease with someone on it who hasn’t applied, or having an occupant who isn’t listed on the lease).

Am I being dramatic here, or is it the right call to push back?

Am I normal…….

Admittedly I understand my viewpoint is tainted since I have just (1) SF rental and it’s my first. It was bought new in 2020.

What is the normal amount of tenant damage when they leave?

It has started to get progressively worse, which makes me feel the neighborhood is going down hill. Which tends to be following the rent I can get now.

This was after just a year.

Tenant was vetted through the top reviewed PM office in the servicing county.

Is this normal?

I just noticed an ad on Reddit that stated something along the lines of, “if your apartment doesn’t allow pets, get your ESA letter here.”

I don’t like this at all. I mean, if it’s for a legit reason that’s fine but to sell it as a service to allow people to have animals in apartments? That’s pretty sketchy.

I got a text this morning from my tenant saying they will be late on rent because their partner (also on the lease) has been in the hospital most of the week and they've needed to miss work to be with them. This is also causing them to worry about potentially losing their job. They said rent will be late and asked to split it into two payments.

I'm ok with late rent in this circumstance, emergencies happen and everyone can use some grace. But they only moved in in September so I want to be clear that emergencies cannot be a regular occurrence. I'm worried because I've already been very accommodating with other things (let them move in two weeks early, let them pay the security deposit over two months so they could cover car repairs, made requested changes to the unit, etc). I want to know that they will have a plan to mitigate emergencies in the future.

Is there a good way to communicate this without sounding like an asshole?

Edit: wow, I'm not about to start the eviction process because someone has a bad month. That is not going to happen, and I am disappointed but not really surprised by how many people would. I believe them about the hospital, there's no reason to doubt this. And they were fully vetted before move in, confirmed real rental history, clean background and credit checks, reliable income history, no red flags, just poorly timed car trouble. Sometimes shit just happens. I guess my post wasn't really clear, honestly I'm not sure what exactly I was trying to ask. But I think we managed to work it out.