by Teresa
Every experienced landlord has a horror story or two about terrible tenants. But a website based in Florida has visual proof: pictures of tenants and the destruction they leave behind.
The photos are posted on TerribleRenters.com, a site that aims to spare other landlords the trouble of renting to these folks. Each resident’s full name, along with a description of the problems he or she caused is posted, with photos of the property. Some postings include photos of the tenant.
Check out the site, and you’re going to see what countless landlords are forced to deal with when problem tenants move out:
- Crayon marks on walls.
- Burns on hardwood floors.
- Bags of garbage.
- Un-bagged garbage—piles of it.
- Tenant possessions simply left behind.
- Holes knocked through walls, leaving one room open to the next.
- Filthy carpets and linoleum.
- Rotten food left in refrigerators.
- Ovens that have never been cleaned.
- Drug paraphernalia.
- Animal feces.
- Stolen appliances and fixtures.
- Spray painted messages on walls and ceilings.
The list goes on and on. It is truly astounding to see how some people live. It’s even more shocking that they think it’s acceptable to leave such messes behind.
The typical “terrible tenant” has been evicted for non-payment of rent, not for damaging the property—so landlords face a double-whammy: loss of rent, plus the expenses of cleaning up garbage and property, expensive repairs and replacing stolen items.
TerribleRenters.com is based in Florida and most of the submissions are Florida residents, but some are from other states. Landlords post anonymously. Some are looking for their tenants to serve them notice or to file charges. Others just want to warn landlords not to lease to these problem tenants.
The best way to avoid problem tenants is to conduct thorough tenant screening. And it doesn’t hurt to Google the names on the application. Who knows? Maybe your applicants are listed on a terrible tenants site somewhere!
This article was written by Teresa and originally published on tenantscreeningblog
