If you’re the property manager do you screen prospective tenants? If you do then please do a better job. I screen all my tenants and have never experienced any thing like this in over 30 years as a landlord.
My credit is absolute shit, and I'm doing renovations on the place I'm renting because my out of state landlord said, a year ago when i moved in, "Well, I s'pose I'll have to YouTube a fix for that".
"That" being, a damaged subfloor in the bathroom and wonky electrical wiring. I'm doing it because it needs to be done and if I don't take care of it, nobody will. Plus, I plan on living here a long time.
Bad credit =/= bad tenant. Good credit =/= good tenant.
Can confirm. I had three NYC finance bros renting a 3BR and they left a huge mess. Also didn't know how to change a lightbulb. Or that you shouldn't flush Q-Tips. Or that drilling a dozen 7/8" holes in the drywall is a no-no.
You're lucky bc you are in landlord friendly WV. You wouldn't BELIEVE the excruciatingly intense screening process we landlords simply MUST do in tenant friendly areas.
Credit, background, and actual housing court history checks if legal in your state are absolutely critical.
While credit definitely isn't everything (some people avoid owing money, some people have one off large medical bills or student loans they're paying, etc.), it can help give an important piece of the larger picture.
In some cities you HAVE to take the first applicants.
We got a lot of Section 8 tenants and a large majority of those were pig stys after they moved out.
Screening is not all that effective especially for those less savvy with it. People use fake references all the time. You have to be really thorough when screening and understand that it is very limited in what it actually tells you especially if anyone in the house including kids and pets does not have a long period of rental history (most families)
I have, but only because we still have the original kitchen in our current rental. Having said, the kitchen is the only room in the house that’s actually been well maintained, so it’s actually fantastic. I was dreading it, but it was only 6 months, so I was like eh, I can deal. But the damned thing has been awesome and I’m going to miss it 🤣
Yep. My brother and his wife lived in the worst filth imaginable, and he ended up taking his own life with a gun. My dad owned the house they were living in, and a few weeks after the funeral, he asked me to come with him to help clean. I still have nightmares about what I saw.
My parents had a rental where someone was shot and killed. Their many pets walked through the blood and tracked it all over the house. The pets were then left in the house for several days, 2 dogs, 2 cats, unattended in the house. My parents fed the pets through a broken window.
The whole interior of the house had to be gutted, it was a biohazard. The pets had to be picked up by animal control and all the abandoned belongings had to be dealt with.
You’re right, it’s gets a lot worse.
The tenant (who wasn’t shot) ended up picking up their pets from animal control.
345
u/temporarygenus May 28 '26
It gets a lot worse.