Emerson Family: Being a Landlord Sucks!

When we moved form California we were unable to sell our house, so we chose to rent it out. (Our only other option was to let it sit vacant and we really can’t afford two house payments.) We heard a bunch of horror stories so we thought we would be smart and use a property management company. The owner of the property management company was really nice. He came out and took pictures, put signs in yard, and began adverting. When someone was interested they would do a background check, run credit reports, and criminal histories. All we had to do was give the ok. The rent was even directly deposited into our bank.

Well everything went well for the first 7 months, and then in middle of November the bank let me know that the money was not in our bank account. We called the management company and they let me know that the rent had not been paid that month, however the tenets were supposed to come in that Friday and pay the outstanding balance. It would have been nice if someone from the management company had called us before the bank did…

The tenant did go in and pay part of the months rent so I still had hope. They then claimed that the rest would be paid by December 1st. Well December 1st came and another promise of paying the rent in full by December 5th. Well that would be the last we would hear from them for a few weeks. When the tenants finally decided call the management company we were told that the Tenant claimed they might be able to come up with a few hundred dollars, and that they had been told to get out.

The last week of December they told the management company that they would be out January 15th. Well, we had a friend go by the following weekend only to see 4 cars in the driveway!

After a lawyer sent a letter giving them a court date did they decide to call again. They wanted to work something out. The management company told them to pay all the back rent plus lawyers’ fee or move out. Well they didn’t want to pay so we moved forward with the eviction.

They did not respond to the eviction complaint, so we got a default judgment. We then got a lockout date of February 6th at 9:30am from the Sheriff to execute the eviction. Heath went down make sure they were out and to assess the condition of the house. After all the horror stories we were prepared for the worst but were pleasantly surprised that the house was in fairly good condition. Even the Sheriff was surprised that they had not thrashed the house. They left a bunch of junk and the house was pretty filthy, but nothing that could not be handled by a thorough cleaning!

We were disappointed by the yard. Most of the back lawn had been replaced by solid weeds. The roses had not been watered in months, and several were completely dead.

Heath was amazed when the former tenant had a friend come by to pick up an old desk that was left in the front yard. Their friend told Heath that they were moving out until 4:30am that very morning.
Unfortunately we have no other option then to rent it out again. Heath was able to get all the stuff left behind by the tenant moved into the garage for haul away and a neighbor let Heath put the bags of garbage in his dumpster

Our House the grass is dying and a nice yellow brown now.