Landlord Humor...UPDATED SEE POST # 6

[The Captain]

So far my units are fully rented and I've got a list of about 4 families that are interested if I buy more.  However I read the craigslist ads just to keep up with what's going on the fringes of my market and saw this today:

"PLEASE HELP! Need something ASAP...


Hi,

Two days ago my fiance, daughter, and myself had to leave the house we were renting a room in because our lease was up. We didn't find a place in time and we are now living in a hotel. It is too expensive and will eat up all of our money if we don't find something soon. I'm scared and don't know what else to do in this situation so I thought I'd post something on Craigslist and see if anyone could help.

--We are either looking for a room to rent or for someone with an apartment that needs a roommate(s). My fiance works full time, always pays rent on time, and isn't home much. I stay home with our 3 year old daughter for now but I am also slowly looking for work. If you have a room for rent or know of anyone that could help us, PLEASE contact us. We need something immediately.

Thanks for your time,
Sarah "

No kidding, followed a few posts later by this:

"WARNING-Don't Rent to Sarah Who Claims to be Living in a Hotel - room/share wanted"

Which then went on to list the hell this "Sarah" person had put this landlord through.  Unfortunately by the time I got to it, the posting was flagged for removal, obviously by the person who posted the first ad.

So craigslist will remove the warnings but leave the sob stories up.  Good to know, not that I wouldn't run a background check anyway.

[GRG a/k/a goldenrulegirl]

Wow.  But, then I'm skittish about Craigslist anyway -- no ability to validate ANYTHING that is posted there before one gets involved.  

[nogooddeed]

No freaking way would I ever rent a room to three people or want three people as roommates. 

I like how she's "slowly" looking for work.  Is that similar to "might do so if the planets align and it's 80 degrees on January 20 in northern Maine, but haven't quite gotten around to it yet?"

[The Captain]

I REALLY wish I had the original warning post.  Basically the "fiancee's" job had hours cut, they played video games all day, and started to tell the landlord how to run things.  It took a court order to get them evicted because the refused to leave after not paying rent.  It was comical in a sad, sick way.

[wvugurl26]

I take slowly to mean if a six figure job for minimal effort materializes, she'll go to work.

[Cookies Galore]

I founds hubs and three apartments on Craigslist. I've luckily been able to fish out the "run away!" ads so I've never had trouble with CL. It should be obvious to anyone the original post is trouble. Oh sure! I'll rent a room to three people! Lol

[The Captain]

Got it!  The original landlord re-posted on craigslist:


WARNING-Don't Rent to Sarah Who Claims to be Living in a Hotel
Her and her fiance are scam-artists. This is how it will work if you let them stay with you. They'll make up a sob story about it being too expensive to stay at a hotel in order to prey on your emotions, and once they're in, will pretend to be nice to you for the first month or so, but when it comes time to pay the rent, they'll give you another sob story about them falling on hard times, and might give you a few bucks here and there just to shut you up about the rent, but they'll never pay what they're supposed to.

After a while, they'll stop paying altogether, and they won't respect your rules. They'll have friends and family over without your permission, they'll smoke inside, and the place will get FILTHY. Sarah sleeps all day while her "fiance" plays video games. They have no lives. Eventually, they'll even start bossing you around. Basically, they attempt to take over your home, and expect YOU to support their family! And if you don't play their game, her "fiance" will threaten you with violence.

We had to get a restraining order against him. Child protection services was even called in to investigate their child who they were bathing in a filthy tub, and making meals for in a kitchen covered in maggots and bugs. Even when they were given notice to leave, they asserted that they would stay for as long as they wanted to. This kind of people are called "squatters". Squatters know the rules about renting, and they will take advantage of the laws to unfairly stay in your home for as long as they want to.

We had to take away all of their privileges (OUR TV, OUR couch, OUR dresser (everything was ours)), and eventually take them to court to get rid of them. Thankfully, getting a lawyer wasn't a problem for us, but what about you? Could you afford to let this happen to you?

Do not let this happen to you! If you're considering it, and you already live in an apartment, it's very important to get them on the lease first so that once they start causing trouble, the apartment can take care of all of the legal issues. Also, be smart and do a criminal background check. It's sad since their child is also basically a victim of all of this, and they use her to suck everyone in to their scam. They've done this before, and will do it again if others aren't careful. So be careful!

[Deleted]

That is scary. CL isn't very popular here so I'm not worried about that, but I would never go through CL to rent one of our places. 

We had similar things when we posted on a site recently for our rental. There were a bunch of doozies (I posted a bunch somewhere) but the most notable one was a woman, her sister-in-law and her young adult son who all wanted to share a 1BR apt (with the bathroom off the bedroom). 

I CAN'T WAIT to be rid of all the rentals, but given our income and our ages, that's not going to happen anytime soon. 

[NoNamePerson]

Jan 3, 2014 14:24:25 GMT -5 wvugurl26 said:

I take slowly to mean if a six figure job for minimal effort materializes, she'll go to work.

You say that like that's a bad thing. I'll take that job and I am retired   

[zibazinski]

I've gotten good tenants off CL in the past when I had a lot of rentals. First thing I never ever used an email address because of spammers. Secondly, I used their blind email address which is free. This allows me to preview and discard the obvious tenants that I'd never rent to. There are so many warning flags for any half way intelligent LL that the fact that one even fell for it means the place was probably a shithole to begin with. Because a decent LL has some brains and won't rent their decent place to someone obviously incapable of paying for it. If I rent to two people who are unmarried, their individual incomes have to be able to take care of my rent times two. So if my rent is a grand a month, each person must net two grand a month.

[Bonny]

Jan 3, 2014 21:47:28 GMT -5 zibazinski said:

I've gotten good tenants off CL in the past when I had a lot of rentals. First thing I never ever used an email address because of spammers. Secondly, I used their blind email address which is free. This allows me to preview and discard the obvious tenants that I'd never rent to. There are so many warning flags for any half way intelligent LL that the fact that one even fell for it means the place was probably a shithole to begin with. Because a decent LL has some brains and won't rent their decent place to someone obviously incapable of paying for it. If I rent to two people who are unmarried, their individual incomes have to be able to take care of my rent times two. So if my rent is a grand a month, each person must net two grand a month.

It depends a lot on the individual market. The AZ house doesn't do very well on Craig's List. The San Diego condo has been mixed. But the best renter that I've had so far has been in my San Diego Co. house and off Craig's List.

In general I think the higher priced markets do better listed with a real estate agent. I think people in these markets think that there's less likely to be scam if a Realtor is involved. Also in the San Diego and AZ markets the landlord generally pays the real estate fee so why not use their services if you're a tenant.

[zibazinski]

Because if a tenant does, their rent is going to reflect that "privilege." Some tenants stretch to live somewhere nice. Extra money every month that goes toward the rental agency is going to get beyond some tenants stretch. Those fees can be up to 10-11 per cent extra every month. A LL isn't going to pay it so guess who does? Your thousand dollar a month rent just became eleven hundred. That might make that place out of your reach whereas a grand wasn't.

[tloonya]

Jan 3, 2014 20:11:11 GMT -5 The Captain said:

Got it!  The original landlord re-posted on craigslist:


WARNING-Don't Rent to Sarah Who Claims to be Living in a Hotel
Her and her fiance are scam-artists. This is how it will work if you let them stay with you. They'll make up a sob story about it being too expensive to stay at a hotel in order to prey on your emotions, and once they're in, will pretend to be nice to you for the first month or so, but when it comes time to pay the rent, they'll give you another sob story about them falling on hard times, and might give you a few bucks here and there just to shut you up about the rent, but they'll never pay what they're supposed to.

After a while, they'll stop paying altogether, and they won't respect your rules. They'll have friends and family over without your permission, they'll smoke inside, and the place will get FILTHY. Sarah sleeps all day while her "fiance" plays video games. They have no lives. Eventually, they'll even start bossing you around. Basically, they attempt to take over your home, and expect YOU to support their family! And if you don't play their game, her "fiance" will threaten you with violence.

We had to get a restraining order against him. Child protection services was even called in to investigate their child who they were bathing in a filthy tub, and making meals for in a kitchen covered in maggots and bugs. Even when they were given notice to leave, they asserted that they would stay for as long as they wanted to. This kind of people are called "squatters". Squatters know the rules about renting, and they will take advantage of the laws to unfairly stay in your home for as long as they want to.

We had to take away all of their privileges (OUR TV, OUR couch, OUR dresser (everything was ours)), and eventually take them to court to get rid of them. Thankfully, getting a lawyer wasn't a problem for us, but what about you? Could you afford to let this happen to you?

Do not let this happen to you! If you're considering it, and you already live in an apartment, it's very important to get them on the lease first so that once they start causing trouble, the apartment can take care of all of the legal issues. Also, be smart and do a criminal background check. It's sad since their child is also basically a victim of all of this, and they use her to suck everyone in to their scam. They've done this before, and will do it again if others aren't careful. So be careful!

And if you don't play their game, her "fiance" will threaten you with violence.
So is it video games he wanted you to play with them? Seems nice...

[zibazinski]

It really seems to be a BS post. Some posters like to lie and make stuff up and even when caught and outed, continue lying. Wouldn't surprise me to find crazy people making up lies even on CL. 

[Bonny]

Jan 4, 2014 6:45:58 GMT -5 zibazinski said:

Because if a tenant does, their rent is going to reflect that "privilege." Some tenants stretch to live somewhere nice. Extra money every month that goes toward the rental agency is going to get beyond some tenants stretch. Those fees can be up to 10-11 per cent extra every month. A LL isn't going to pay it so guess who does? Your thousand dollar a month rent just became eleven hundred. That might make that place out of your reach whereas a grand wasn't.

Zib,

I hear what you're saying and it makes logical sense but the reality is much like buying a FSBO. A buyer rarely "saves" the money he thinks he will by avoiding the real estate agent. If the buyer is really lucky he might save 3% but what usually happens is he winds up with a really difficult seller who keeps trying to cut corners to save money. In general most buyers and especially first time buyers are much better off using the services of a local real estate professional with a good reputation. Exceptions to the rule are family members doing intergenerational transfers and savvy investors.

The two properties I referred to in my prior post are on the higher end of the scale. The AZ house was last rented for $2200 month and should rent between 2300-2400/mth (3000 sq.ft. in a high priced area-think North Scottsdale). The San Diego condo is in the La Jolla Shores area and currently rents for $3100/mth. People who rent these houses need to be making $100k or more a year and for them time is money. I think they have made the decision that trying to save $100 mth isn't worth the headache and risk of dealing with Larry the crazy LL.

[tloonya]

I found one on Cl as well. She is quiet and paying on time. However she had just brought into her room some first invented heating device and all of my kitchen appliances became not usable. I was wondering for a month what ta heck until I saw the extra cord. I told her to stop and I am wondering if I should make her pay some $$ for electricity. I was about to call an electrician to redo my box because as soon as I was starting my toaster oven electricity would go off. It would cost me a lot of money!

I had also found some workers on CL. Successfully. So you can always try but be careful.

P.S. Funny thing. Once I was looking for the driver and posted 'please, see me at my store at (address)'
I didn't want bouncing emails forth and back with tons of people. Usually responses are overwhelming.
So one emailed me and said 'you must be crazy if you think someone will come to your store to meet you'...I was like WHAT? It is a public place in safe neighborhood and my store is at the shopping mall!
Would he rather meet me at my house? Idk...

[zibazinski]

I've always had good luck with CL but know others that haven't. I don't have high end properties, the most rent I get is 1200 a month so having a property manager makes no sense for me. I do have one managed but that was because I basically ran out of time to screen and get myself a new tenant. As soon as my ducks are in a row, they are gone along with their property manager. But that is because I want to sell the house, otherwise I'd just let things ride.