TENANT FROM THE TWILIGHT ZONE

One of my rentals is a small duplex just a few miles from where I live. Each unit has its own driveway, and there is enough street parking in front of each one for two vehicles to park. I had been renting it to a single gentleman for about 4 years when, by mutual agreement, we decided to terminate the lease. Morris had been a good tenant for the first two years he was there, but he started hanging around with the wrong people. Soon he was using illegal drugs, the place was becoming a mess, and he paid his rent late every month. It goes without saying that when people are on drugs, you can’t trust anything they say, and their behavior is unpredictable. Morris kept promising to remove the car on blocks he had sitting on the front lawn, and to return the grass to its original condition, but he never did it. One day when I noticed the back door to his unit had been forced open and the door jamb was all busted up, I asked him how that happened. He responded, “I guess it just wore out”. It was apparent that no good could come from a continuation of this man’s tenancy, and since he was behind in the rent, I offered to return his security deposit in full if he was out by a specific date and took all his possessions with him. This is much cheaper and more efficient that going through the eviction process. Anyway, Morris agreed, and on the day he and the multitude of his possessions were gone, I began refurbishing the property.

When a rental is vacant between tenants, that is the best time to do capital improvements. There were several things I had wanted to do to this place for a long time, and now was the time. Among other things, I put a new roof on the house and installed a concrete driveway. In addition to doing numerous repairs and repainting, I replaced all the plants that had died under Morris’ care and laid new sod where the front grass used to be. When the improvements were completed about a month later, the duplex looked like a new building. And since it always takes a long time to recover the costs of capital improvements, I took this opportunity to make an upward adjustment in the rent.

It didn’t take long to find a new tenant. Laura was a divorcee who had custody of her two daughters. She had a good income, and there were no records of evictions in her past. She was a very nice person with a pleasant disposition, and we hit it off right away. She explained that she had gone through some tough times, had made a lot of mistakes, but had straightened out her life and was looking forward to a good future. When I looked at her application, I saw that her boss was an old friend of mine.

Normally, I don’t allow tenants to keep dogs at my rentals, but I made an exception for Laura. Problems with pets usually involve pet owners who don’t take responsibility for them. Laura seemed like the kind of person who would be responsible and keep her dog from creating problems. I agreed to allow her to keep the dog, and we entered into a 6-month lease. She moved in, and in the first few months, she proved to be a very clean tenant, she paid her rent on time every month in cash, and there were no visible signs that her dog was going to be a problem.

One time when she came over with the rent, she said she wasn’t feeling well and asked me not to take the time to write a receipt because she wanted to go right home and go to bed. I was pleased that the business relationship we had was such that she would trust me to mail her a receipt. I was also happy that she had paid the rent on time rather than waiting to recover and pay me later. Tenants like Laura are the ones you hope never move. At least that was what I thought at the time.

About 4 months after moving in, Laura sent me an unusual email. Instead of the cheery tone she always used when talking to me , her written message was cut-glass cold. She said some unsavory people had been coming over asking for the former tenant Morris. She mentioned that one man showed up about 11 PM knocking loudly on her door. I was given the impression that he had awakened her from her sleep. Everything in her email centered around this former tenant and his friends that were stopping by looking for him. What struck me as odd was the fact that Laura had never said a thing about this for 4 months, but now suddenly it was a big issue. I called her on the phone and told her I didn’t know why friends of Morris were coming by because he had moved a few blocks away and they should know where he lives. Also, since the rental looked so different with the new driveway and grass in the front yard where a car on blocks used to sit, I would have thought people would recognize that their sloppy friend no longer lived there. I asked her about the man who knocked on her door at 11 AM, wondering if he hopped the fence that surrounded the property. She said that her mother was visiting that night and they left the driveway gate open. Then I asked what the man did when she told him Morris didn’t live there any more, and she said he just left, but as she put it, “he looked kinda scary”. I explained to her that anybody has the right to knock on her door, and if she doesn’t want solicitors, keep the gate shut. She was not satisfied with this answer and stated that she was very unhappy living there. That was the end of our conversation that day, but I realized this was just the beginning of trouble.

The next day, I received another email from Laura. She claimed she had talked to some of the neighbors about Morris, nobody had anything good to say about him, and he had engaged in activities that were not met with approval in the neighborhood. While some of the things Laura claimed she had been told were true, most were exaggerations or irrelevant, and some were outright silly and impossible. For example, she said that all the neighbors told her Morris and his girlfriend performed sex acts in the front yard. Although I couldn’t prove that wrong, I was fairly certain it never happened. Later conservations I had with the neighbors, including the tenant in the adjacent unit of my duplex, confirmed that no such incident ever took place, and they had not told Laura that it did. I was beginning to wonder what responsibility I had to a tenant for the behavior or alleged behavior of a former tenant. Obviously, this situation was not getting better.

Through the years, I have had a few instances of tenants making up stories or exaggerating problems. It is always done for defensive reasons, and when it happens, it is a good idea to expect the unexpected. Perhaps a tenant knows he is not going to be able to pay the rent that month, so he makes up a big story as a preemptive measure. One lady who was behind in the rent told me she had seen rattlesnakes crawl under the house and one of them had bitten her dog. I would think the odds of that happening would be quite slim, but her house was built on a concrete slab--they must have been very skinny snakes. I guess she figured if she could invent some problem, it would compensate for her not paying the rent. The next time I was there, her dog was fine. In Laura’s case, I had no idea what she was about to do, but I knew it had to be something big. If she was disturbed that people were coming by asking for Morris, why did she say nothing about it in the beginning? Every time she had come to pay the rent, she was so pleasant, and when I asked her how things were going, she always had a positive answer.

The next day, she sent me another email telling me one of the front windows had been broken. I drove over to take a look. These windows are dual-pane windows and only the outer pane was cracked. She said she had called the police because she believed somebody was trying to break into the house. It was obvious by looking at the window to see where the crack had started, and it was not near the inside latch as if someone was trying to break in. Also, if somebody wanted to break in through a window, they would have no problem breaking both panes. If someone had thrown a rock, it most likely would have broken both panes. I couldn’t prove it, but I suspected Laura had broken the window herself. Too many unusual things had become known to me in a short period of time, and it was dramatically changing the business relationship Laura and I had. I called a glazier who came out and replaced the window the next day.

I received one more email from Laura. It was no surprise to me that she said she could no longer live there, and she feared greatly for the safety of her daughters and herself. Since the problems she encountered were not of her making, she demanded that I let her out of the lease. I called her and told her I would gladly terminate the lease for her and suggested we get together and sign a document to that effect. I prepared an agreement stating that the lease would be terminated by mutual agreement of both parties, and all her security deposit would be credited to her. We set up a time to meet and execute this agreement. I asked her at that time when she would like to move out, and she said she would be staying one more month. Now there was a red flag if I ever saw one. With all her talk about how uncomfortable she was living there, and how she feared for the safety of her children and herself, she needed to stay another month? Also, it was getting so close to the end of the lease I couldn’t understand why she just didn’t stay until it expired. She went on to explain that her boyfriend’s parents had a mobile home they were going to fix up and let her move into it. They needed some time to complete a few repairs, and that’s why she would not be moving for a month. I said nothing that would cause Laura to believe I thought she was a liar and tried to keep things as civil as possible. Since things were calming down a little, I asked her when the last person had come by asking for Morris. She said, “About a month ago”.

When I know a tenant will be moving out soon, I try to do repairs that can be done without disturbing the tenant. In this instance, there was one dead plant in a planter by the front of the house. I bought a replacement plant and stopped by one morning about 7:30 AM.   Laura worked early hours so I was surprised to see her car still parked in the driveway. Also, a grey Pontiac was parked in the street right in the middle of the two parking spots, so I had to park across the street. I didn’t give that much thought at the time.

I knocked on Laura’s door, but there was no answer. I waited a minute and knocked louder. This time she answered, coming to the door in a bathrobe. I told her I would like to replace the dead plant and do a few other repairs in the front. She was not happy about that, but she did allow me to install the plant. All the plants were on an automatic drip system and I noticed that her dog had been chewing on the drip tube. Also, the drip admitter by the dead plant had been chewed off by her dog, preventing it from getting water and causing its death. I went to my car to get another admitter, but when I returned, her dog had already removed the new plant I had just installed. I brought this to Laura’s attention because I didn’t want it to happen again. She put the dog in the back yard and tied him up. I finished with my job in a few minutes and went home.

Later that day, Laura called me on the phone and told me how unhappy she was that I had come by without calling in advance, and told me she would not allow me onto the property again without permission. She went on to say that if I did stop by and anything happened to her dog, she would sue me in court.

Two or three days later, Sherry, the tenant in the adjacent unit, called to tell me the sink in her bathroom was clogged. I went over with a plunger and unclogged the drain. When I was there, I noticed the gray Pontiac that had been parked in the street in front of Laura’s place a few days earlier was now parked in her driveway, and the gate was shut. I asked Sherry if she knew who owned that car, and she said, “It belongs to Laura’s boyfriend”. Now I understood why Laura was so upset with me when I came by at 7:30 in the morning……….she was in bed with her boyfriend, or so it appeared. Now her image as being the nice, sweet, innocent young lady was shattered. And, it explained why I got the nasty phone call later in the day.

It was clear that I had to walk on thin ice until she moved out. I had to be the nicest person in the world, knowing she was from the twilight zone. That was not easy to do, but I did it. I must have a silver tongue. Every time we met, I felt like I was smiling at the devil. And since I had already credited her security deposit toward the last month’s rent, I had to take her word for it that she was really going to move out as promised.

I do have to give Laura credit for keeping the place clean. Often, it is impossible to show a rental to a prospective tenant until the former tenant has moved out, but in this case, I could give people the address and let them drive by and see the place. I told everyone not to disturb the current tenant, but I didn’t tell them the reason why. I could only imagine what Laura might say about me behind my back. As it turned out, a lady named Irene called to look at the place. When she drove by to look at the exterior, Laura happened to be in the front yard. Contrary to what I had requested, Irene asked Laura is she could see the interior, and she agreed. Subsequently, Irene filled out an application and I accepted her as a tenant. Amazingly, she said that Laura told her what a nice landlord I was and she had been very happy living there, but she was getting married, and she and her husband would be moving into a mobile home owned by his parents. I should have figured out before that all the stories Laura made up and the way she had acted were because she was going to get married and needed to break the lease. If she had only told me the truth, I would have been happy to let her out of the lease.

The day came that Laura was going to move out. Everything went well and she left the rental nearly as clean as the day she moved in, but she took all my drapes.

I have had two different tenants in that rental since Laura moved out. Nobody has said anything about people stopping by to see Morris. Nobody told me any stories about questionable activities Morris may have engaged in when he lived there. And the current tenant never shuts the gate.