The ‘Tenant from Hell’ in North Georgia

All right, so I am going to show you a walkthrough of a property that we just had a tenant move out of. We gave them a 120-day notice that we were not going to renew the lease. So we signed a 12-month lease with them and probably didn't do a very good job of tenant selection. We looked over a couple of things that I knew better than to look over, and at the end of the day, that proved to bite us. So here's what happened.

Twelve months ago, we told them we're signing this lease. You know, rent is due on the first, you're late on the fifth, and you're going to get evicted on the 10th. So, three or four times throughout the first seven or eight months, they were late. We explained what the rules were. For some reason, they couldn't quite understand that the payment was due on the first of the month. 

We even made arrangements with them that we would allow payments to be paid on the 5th between the 5th and the 10th with no penalty if they would just show us documentation as to how they got paid. So, we went through that for three or four months. They never showed us, but ultimately, I want to show you this because this is the part of being a landlord that doesn't show up on a profit and loss statement. It doesn't show up on a pro forma, but if you're going to rent property, you need to get used to seeing this.

Let's just do a quick one-minute walkthrough here. They left us what appears to be 15 gallons of hydraulic oil—that's awesome. They left us tons of personal trash here, gotta love that. More trash here, and all of this trash, mind you, we haven't even gone in the building yet. This is what they left us on the outside, and then there are all the tires and wheels that they left us.

A bunch of stuff on the screened-in porch. When they moved in, this screened-in porch had a door right there. It is nowhere to be found now, so I guess they felt like that was something they should probably take with them. They broke into the storage building and left the door open, so who knows what's going on down there.

They didn't clean the gutters or do any of the outdoor maintenance they agreed to do, but we've already got a dumpster—shout out to Trinity Disposal. This podcast is sponsored by Trinity Disposal. I wish it was sponsored; it would cost us less money. You can see over there, they didn't do any landscaping. You see the eviction notice there.

All right, you've got a couch they didn't want, a whole bunch of trash. They left us a little present right there with some busted sheetrock, and they took every single light bulb that they could take. They broke the floor right there. How you break LVT or LVP, I'm not real sure, but they sure enough did. That's the third refrigerator we've had to put in here, the third new refrigerator that we've put in here because somehow they kept tearing them up.

For these tenants—and then, yo, wait, let's see what they did there. The blinds are all jacked up everywhere. They left us some more trash. Dr. Pepper bottle—actually, a Coke in the corner that still has Coke in it—that's amazing. Thank you for leaving more trash here. The shower curtain was pulled down off the wall—that's amazing. Then they left us a room full of clothes that they didn't want and shoes and all kinds of other things. Yeah, that is the life of a landlord when you don't choose your tenants carefully.

I'm going to go in and look at these other two bedrooms real quick, and oh yeah, they also cut the power off before they moved out. They didn't tell us they were moving. They were supposed to be here until May 31st, and then they decided to leave without telling us and without paying their April rent.

Of course, those things on the wall are pieces of tape, and you got some stars on that wall and some other things they put on the wall over here, all of which, of course, we told them were not allowed to be put on the wall. I don't know how you mess up an air vent like that, but they sure enough did that. A little bit more trash in here, not sure what they had behind that wall, but nonetheless, that is the case. Just kind of scuffed up the closet there. I'm almost afraid to open this bathroom door, but there it is. Vanity, shower—they took the shower curtain, took the light bulb out of the fan, obviously never cleaned the fan, left us a bag of trash right here hanging on the door.

So yeah, that is the life of being a landlord. Just didn't want you to think it was all rainbows and sunshine. Sometimes you gotta fill up the Trinity dump.