As an investor, sometimes you or your property manager will receive requests for service that are unreasonable - unreasonable in the eyes of the law and according to your own lease paperwork, provided you’ve set it up as such. 

Let me give you a little bit of background on this one tenant we have who has been a repeat offender in this category.  Let’s call her Susie. We inherited Susie when we bought this building several years ago.  She’s single, about 50 years old, and her rent is paid in full by the Section 8 program.  We’ve since turned this building into a smoke-free environment and she is the only tenant that smokes.  She smokes outside and fills up a big bucket with her cigarette butts.  Sometimes the bucket spills off the side of the stairs and then our property manager has to pick up all the butts.  Sometimes in the winter when it’s cold she forgets the rules and smokes inside.  We immediately receive complaint calls from other tenants because the smoke goes right into their apartments.

The last time I was in Susie’s apartment, it was wretched.  The bathtub was full of clothes, stacked up as high as it can get without tipping over.  No bathing is possible nor probable within the history of this tenancy.  There were dead bugs everywhere.  The walls were covered with yellow from all the years she spent smoking inside the apartment.  The kitchen - well let’s say it’s never been cleaned.  Wrappers, cans, plastic food containers, you name it, it’s all there.  It’s a toss up whether the stove or refrigerator will be worth trying to clean and save or if we will get new ones when she leaves.  Her smoke alarm goes off occassionally when the food on the bottom of the oven gets charred.  One time the fire department came and she, by way of her social worker, was given a warning to clean up.  It hasn’t happened.  Our property manager has been after her social worker to get someone over there to clean the place up.  He’s told there aren’t any funds available for expenses such as this, but that they’ll get after Susie to take care of it herself.

Susie complains about the condition of her apartment.  For years she’s been telling us she is looking for a better place to live because we don’t keep this one up.  Every few months we receive a complaint from Susie that something about the apartment isn’t right.  This time it’s the toilet.  The toilet is plugged and she’d like the landlord to come fix it.  Our property manager tells her he will not come fix it because it’s her responsibility to do so.  A week or so passes and Susie calls again to say that the toilet is still plugged and she’d like our manager to fix it.  Again, he reminds her that this is her responsibility.  If she cannot fix it herself, perhaps someone at the county can assist or she can call a plumber.

A few days later, a plumber calls and wants to know where to send the bill.  He was there to fix it and Susie told him that we were paying.  Well of course she did.  The plumber said that the toilet was so full that of course it would no longer flush!  When you have a problem like this, you can’t keep adding to the problem!  So he fixed it and now he’s going to have the joy of trying to get money out of Susie or the county.  I wish him the best of luck!

Now you might be wondering why we haven’t kicked Susie out by now.  She’s on a month to month lease and we could terminate at any time.  Well, guess what we have to do as soon as Susie is gone?  Gut the place and spend several thousand making it livable.  I’m happy to leave the apartment exactly the way Susie likes it until she’s ready to leave.  The county pays her rent every month and so far I’m willing to deal with the issues rather than the huge renovation expense and vacancy time while it’s being worked on.  That day will come, in fact just the other day she told our manager that she’s found a nicer place.  I wonder if that landlord will call landlord references during his screening process?