There are plenty of stories floating around the internet about horrible landlords, and they most certainly exist. The flip side is also definitely true, though. Some of these things horrible tenants have done to rental properties will blow your mind.
Reddit user u/TheChuckie asked:
"Landlords of Reddit, who was your worst tenant?"
40.
My mother owns a house on the coast she inherited from her aunt and rents it out to people now that she's moved. Makes great money considering it's a decent sized town and the house is close to the beach.
She doesn't allow animals due to the old wool carpets that are not easily replaceable. But she legally can not keep children out.
I didn't see it for myself, but after several attempts to contact the tenants, she drove down there herself and let herself in. Place was a pigsty. Diapers, vomit, baby food everywhere, literal sh-t smeared on the wall and flung onto the ceilings; carpets were soaked and stained. Tenants were no where to be found. She talked to the neighbor and they'd apparently been gone for a month. Had to get the police to track them down.
39.
I wasn't old enough to remember this, but my dad tells me the story once in a while. We rented our second floor to this older lady who always was behind on her bills and tried every excuse in the book to postpone or not pay them. Well one day, my dad and her got to the house at the same time so he was able to confront her about some payments that were very late, and she was like "Oh I have the money upstairs. Just follow me".
While they were heading upstairs, she dialed 911, unbeknownst to my dad, and when they got upstairs she was stalling pretending to look for the money until a cop car came. When she heard the car, she started screaming and pushing my dad.
Fortunately for us, the lady was keeping a secret roommate without my parents knowledge, and she happened to be in one of the rooms and heard the whole thing. She came out of the room while the officer was starting to apprehend my dad and explained to the officer what actually happened
38.
Son of a landlord.
I was sent to clean out a garage unit for a few extra bucks. brought a guy with me because it was a lot. Turns out the lady who'd been renting the unit had been secretly living in the garage for months. We threw out family photos, one particularly odd couch that we had to break into pieces just to lift it out of there, and the piece de resistance....
four five gallon buckets full of human waste. We didn't know it was human waste until the last bucket was on the truck and the lid popped off and splashed a little bit.
I have never smelled anything so foul.
37.
Rented to a couple with iffy credit. Met them and both seemed ok. Guy was a truck driver and Lady worked in retail. Confirmed employment and decided to give them a chance.
Rent was paid on time for 3 months or so. Then it started to be late. Then one month is stopped. Always some excuse why they couldn't at least pay SOMETHING towards the rent. So, I started the eviction process which turned out to be a very lengthy process where I live. Went a little something like this
File eviction paperwork with court
Wait
Get court date
wait
Show up on court date. Tenants do not. Instead of granting the eviction, court date was rescheduled.
Wait
2nd court date. They show up. Judge wants us to talk to each other to work something out before he makes his judgement. Yelling ensues and I'm granted the eviction because I have meticulous records and Guy is a douche. They know they have to leave though and I thought they'd go fairly quietly. However, I still had to file with the Sheriff to come physically evict them. I'm hoping that isn't necessary because that means more time. But, alas, tenants never leave.
Wait
Wait
Wait
6 more weeks later Sheriff deputies come to evict them and the house is trashed. Holes in drywall, stains on the carpet, doors ripped off cabinets.
Spend about $10,000 fixing their mess plus 8 months of lost rent from the time they stopped paying until they were physically evicted. I learned a very expensive lesson to only rent to people with good credit with solid employment history. I have a strict set of criteria and I always stick to it. No chances given based on a good feeling on prospective tenants. If they don't meet the criteria, they don't rent the house.
36.
A family of hippies. And I mean full-on, flowers-in-their-hair, guitar-playing, kumbaya-singing, smelled-like hippies. I used to manage a complex of town houses, and they moved into one of our houses.
After four days, they threw a huge fit about how they'd had to take their daughter to the ER due to "radiation" from a nearby cell tower. They told us they were moving out immediately and demanded an on-the-spot refund of their deposit.
Of course, I said no and went to check the town house. It was completely destroyed. There were black marks and baseball-sized holes all over the walls. The carpet had been torn up and the entire place smelled of urine and feces (we later found animal feces under the carpet). It was just absolutely disgusting. Quite frankly, I was astonished that anyone could do that much damage in just 4 days.
...somehow I don't think the cell tower was what made their daughter sick. And needless to say, they didn't get their deposit back.
35.
Lady was chronically late on the rent, wasn't paying the water bill, never mowed the back yard. The lease prohibited pets but she had I think 8 ferrets running loose in the basement (I don't know if you can litterbox train a ferret but these weren't) which smelled about as good as you could possibly expect.
My dad's friend owned a house and his tenant stopped paying rent. Dad's friend went over and the guy wouldn't open the door but shouted at him that he was done paying rent and would have to be evicted.
The tenant said that in that city he could expect an eviction to take x number of weeks/months and would cost x dollars in legal fees, apparently having had experience with this before. Tenant also said that if dad's friend slipped that amount of cash through the mail slot he would clean the house and be gone by the next day.
Dad's friend went to a lawyer who told him that the time and expense was about right.
Dad's friend put the cash in an envelope and slipped it through the mail slot. The next day the house was clean and empty.
34.
enter patrick
patrick never paid his rent. patrick kept making excuses. patrick got evicted. patrick trashed the house and left his dog. patrick later went to jail because he tried to ROB A BANK
33.
My dad rented out our old house. He thought he had a good tenant. Tenant even asked to repaint the interior if we deducted one months rent. Sounded good.
Then when they wanted to move out we got a look at the place. When they painted they used the cheapest paint, painted door knobs and outlets and left big paint strokes. Looked way worse than what it must have looked unpainted. And there were large holes torn in the carpet.
And none of the toilets worked, they just ran constantly. And they must have hung wet clothes on the bathroom faucets because none of those worked and were rusted beyond repair. My childhood home looked terrible and we had to repair.
Oh, the reason we thought he'd be a good tenant? He was an executive hire to run the local hospital. Seems him and his family must have just lived like pigs in that filth.
32.
Two Apple engineers. They were a couple. They were taking a camera around and taking photos of every little thing they saw on the move-in inspection. This isn't necessarily unusual, but it is when you're snapping closeups of every square inch of the property.
3 months into their 3-year lease, they wanted out. It was "too expensive", despite the fact that my rent on a house is cheaper than most 1BR apartments here in Silicon Valley.
I refused. By CA law, they had the option of just leaving and forcing me to find a new tenant, but they chose instead to just damage everything.
- Drag parties. 200+-pound men dancing in stilettos are not kind to wood floors. $14000.
- Deliberately spilling onto carpets, also required replacing subfloor. $8000.
- Breaking outdoor tiles with a sledgehammer. $9000.
- Severe water damage in the bathroom from flooding the bathtub. So much damage that I had to repair the foundation. $180,000.
I evicted them and kept their security deposit. They sued me for it. I countersued for damages.
They broke into the property after repairs were completed and before I had new tenants, taking "moveout" photos to prove the house was in better condition when they left than when they moved in. They changed the date on their camera as "proof". The jury didn't believe me when I pointed this out.
The lawsuit took eight years. The court ultimately sided with me; I was awarded my damages, but not attorneys fees, which were more expensive than the $200+k it cost me to restore the property.
31.
Moves into a house with five kids and just turns the place into a nightmare filled house of horrors, a church to her hoarding addiction. No pets allowed? OK make room for my 117 cats. Water damage, holes in the walls, broken windows. You name it, she'll destroy it. She never paid rent on time.
She asks the landlord what to do with garbage when moving out. He says put it on the curb. She doesn't clarify that she'll be putting 500 bags of hoarded garage. Giant piles of garbage bags attract possums, rats, wild animals galore and get us on the front of the newspaper, which is sitting on my desk when I come to school on Monday. House gets condemned and knocked down.
Move to the next house, same thing. 9 years go by. Condemned and knocked down. Next house, same thing. Condemned and knocked down.
Don't let my hoarder mother move into your property.
30.
My friend's a landlord. He once evicted tenants in January after they had failed to pay rent for several months, even though he had tried to be patient with them. He owns several properties and didn't get over to that apartment for about a week. Turns out they had turned the heat all the way up, opened all the windows, and walked out. Cost him a fortune. He tried suing and lost.
29.
My last tenant gave me the one month notice that I asked for, she waited until her lease was up so it was fine. One week into her last month and I get a phone call, she said she's moving that weekend so she's only going to pay one weeks worth of rent. "It's only fair". I said that is not how a lease works and I still have to pay the mortgage on the damn place!
She sends me a cheque for 1/4 of the rent and I just cashed and played dumb until she moved out. Took good care of the place and had no issues during the walk though when she moved out. Once I got the keys in my hand, I hand her the damage deposit minus 3 weeks worth of rent. She was furious, then I closed the door and locked her out.
28.
One day a cable guy came to hook up my cable and through conversation learned my coworker is his landlord.
He went on a rant about how much of a d!ck my coworker is for charging him rent when "I wasn't even living there, I just had my stuff there." I feel bad for anyone who has him as a tenant.
27.
Previous Leasing Agent here. This tenant is the Facebook Anarchist.
- Came in every day and requested that we fax documents. This person did this around three times a day. They didn't have a job. They just tried to sue people all day. That is all they did. They were unemployed and on rental assistance. It was easier for us to just fax the documents than to argue with them.
Posts on Facebook approximately 30-50 times a day. Personally, this is my favorite part. This person's grasp of spelling, grammar, and general sentence structure is such that reading their posts verbatim is gut wrenchingly funny. This person has, like, two people who comment on their posts. Most of the comments made on this person's posts are just them commenting on their own post. The content of the posts themselves are also incredible. They include, but are not limited to:
- Anti-government conspiracies
- Anti-women posts
- how they are "worth 100s of millions of dollars"
- How they are a hall of famer
- videos about politics
- videos about aliens
- videos about the conspiracies of political figureheads hiding aliens
- One time this person tried to organize a "business leaders of the world" conference at the shared pool. They invited stars and famous people such as The Rock. Nobody came. So they just requested that I take pictures of them by the hot tub. They posted them on Facebook.
- They once posted 72 pictures of themselves on Facebook on a single day. The only difference between the each picture was slightly different posture.
- We had a business center for tenants to use computers. This person used them most days for extended periods of time. I once walked by when they were playing very loud alien sounds and they had both index fingers touching the screen of the computer. I asked them to stop.
- We had roofers replace the roof on their building. We got several e-mails asking if the roofers could fix a problem on their balcony. I had to explain several times that they were contracted for a specific job and that the job they were doing was fixing the roof and not fixing their balcony.
- The issue of the balcony was regarding a panel they claimed was loose. There were no panels on the balcony. We sent maintenance over on more than one occasion and there was no panel. When questioned about the panel they usually tried changing the subject.
- US marshals contacted us and requested that if any gun shaped packages were shipped to this tenant to give them a call.
- This tenant tried to sue us on several occasions. They even used our own fax machine to fax the documents they were using to sue us. They faxed the documents to us. They used our own fax machine to send a document approximately 8 feet.
- Sent several lewd e-mails to one of the leasing agents. They were convinced that the leasing agent was trying to have sex with them. The e-mails are still in their file. Any time I needed a laugh I would read them.
- Makes poorly rendered Photoshop art mostly pertaining to Cleopatra.
- Calls themselves "director" because they make videos where they showcase their Cleopatra art paired with alien music.
There are probably more stories but I can't remember them right now.
26.
My current tenant just moved out. I have (read: had) a beautiful home 3 years ago, 3 bedroom, fully solar, updated everything, nice bamboo floors. Enter my tenant.
Red flags were not immediate, she had a great history with prior residences, a couple of exceptions were made (she wanted to pay 100 less than I had listed, asking if she could plant things in the garden, etc).
Fast forward 6 months or so, rent starts being late. Not only late, but she would not let me know until the day rent was due that she needed to pay 3-4 days later.
When I could come by to collect the rent, she would tell me things were broken (disposal, sink clogged, etc). Which is all fine, but she would tell me it has been broken for 3 weeks and just now decided to tell me. We talk and text frequently about rent and other things, yet she could never inform me when stuff was broken until I dropped by.
This all came to a head when she got rats in the house. I go over to collect rent after 2 months not being there and holy hell. A fan globe was broken and the glass was all over the kitchen...for multiple days they told me (she had a 4 year old in the house too). The bathroom has roaches all in it, trash along the side of the house spilling out of cans, holes in the drywall (small, but there), blinds (nice wooden ones) strings broken, and the house smells awful like rat piss.
She tells me there have been rats there for a few weeks. Well I wonder if it has anything to do with all the trash outside and open food dishes in the sink that reek? I never in my life thought I would have to tell a grown woman with kids that yes, you need to put garbage in the garbage can. No, you cannot leave food out until it rots otherwise you get these lovely pests.
Anyway, even though it is in her lease to deal with rodent/pest control issues, I do it myself. I hire a company under contract to handle the whole thing for 1 year guarantee for like $1k. All she has to do is call the number I give her whenever she sees/hears a rat or anything.
Well guess what she does NOT do? She would occasionally text me saying she saw a rat. I saw call pest control to come take care of it, then nothing. This went on for 6 months, all the while rats chewed my stove wires (now not under warranty since they don't cover pest issues), clogged the dishwasher, wrecked my cabinets, etc.
They just moved out last week. Holes in the doors now, looks like they tried to crowbar the INTERIOR doors open for some reason, split jams, garbage left all over the yard front and back, my floors have this inexplicable grease all over and sticky things, her child drew in crayon all over the doors. It's a mess.
If you ever rent a place you care about, first stop caring about it and second BE CHOOSY and take the few months unrented to get someone you are SURE about.
25.
Steven. He and his girlfriend moved in. They led us to believe he was employed full time and she was a student. Soon after we were dealing with him cooking/eating/using common areas at like 2-4am in the morning constantly, strong smells of like car battery in the early AM (probably tweaking). His attempts at cleaning consisted of trying to "mop" the walls/surfaces instead of wiping them down or just using the mop on the floor.. cringes.
Kept a puppy in the house/room at times when he thought no one was around, which was definitely a NONO. Late with rent on his second month, became hostile with all other housemates with almost any interaction or when asked to clean up his messes. Tried to pick fights with housemates to bait them to hit him or overreact, luckily we didn't..dude was a psycho...Ended up giving him his 30 days notice before he had been here his second month.
All the while his poor girlfriend who we all thought was in school, was actually pregnant with his kid and that's why she was always home, and they had been running from/avoiding her family, she was a nice girl, but you could tell she had no control in the relationship. Apparently it also came to light that maybe their relationship started when she was like 14-15, and he was probably 20 at the time, grooming her it seemed.
He threatened us with all kinds of legal action, actually did have to get a lawyer and make sure we were in the clear.
Worst 3 months with a tenant/housemate. We actually threw a party when they left, I can only imagine that poor girl's life, or the kids! Only have bad wishes for Steven since he was such a scumbag douchcanoe.
24.
I have a friend who has always been a perpetual roommate (prolly to hold onto more of his paycheck living in the Bay Area). 5 houses ago he explained to me the the place he lived in was completely redone in part because the previous tenant spread kitty litter all over the carpet in one of the rooms. She then let her 6 cats sh!t all over that room like a giant litter box.
But I've heard that this is not as rare as it should be.
23.
Kyle was a tweaker who believed that I was Satan incarnate. Kyle also likes to steal everyone's mail and break into random apartments. Kyle would go on a meth bender and trash his apartment and the commons areas until he did enough damage for the police to finally put him in jail for 1 night.
Kyle would get out and stalk me and my friends, showing up in restaurants where we were eating or at art galleries where we were touring, where he would follow us around and make threats. The police would tell Kyle "Don't do that, it's not nice" and then leave me to deal until his "lays a hand on you, then we can do something."
Kyle was why I started carrying a gun. Kyle was finally arrested for 17 counts of felony mail theft and drug possession, but Kyle got ror'd and came back to an eviction notice. Kyle then sh!t, pissed, bled all over his apartment and left needles in strange places, requiring us to replace all the appliances and flooring along with 12 ft window.
22.
I do not have a tenant but my friend here, who doesn't have reddit, is telling me about a current tenant.
This couple, nicknamed dumb and dumber, are helpless. She overloaded the bathroom outlet and flipped the outlet switch. She didn't know all she had to do what push the button back in and she would have electricity again, so she calls an electrician who warns her it will be a minimum of $150 for him to drive out there and fix this. He walks in and spends less than a second pushing the button in.
She then sends the landlord the bill, which the landlord refused to pay. Calls asking who will clean their bathroom, mow their grass, can they come out to flip the breaker box for them, I don't like this fridge...buy us a new one, why is it a big deal if we are late with rent, our washing machine we moved in with isn't working well isn't it your job to buy us a new one, what is an air filter and why do I have to change it, I need someone to hold our mail while we go on vacation can you contact the post office? Two absolutely helpless adults with kids.
Oh, and I had to add this in. The air conditioner fails. She lets them know at maybe 9pm at night. They contact an HVAC repair company who will be out there in the AM. Instead of waiting less than 12 hours, she goes to the store in the middle of the night and buys multiple window units to install at 2am.
Which she cannot do, because outlets are too hard for her. She then tells the landlord they are responsible for repaying her for the multiple window AC units. HVAC guy had the AC repaired in less than an hour that morning. The tenant is still out $400 because legally the landlord doesn't have to pay her for that.
21.
Worked for a property management company, and dog owners were the worst. We had several that didn't let their dogs outside. They just let them pee and poop inside. The most frustrating thing was dealing with them when they moved out, and they would get angry at not getting their deposit back.
20.
One of my clients had the tenants from hell: things were going great for a year until they burned the house pretty severely from attempting to make hemp oil. Obviously, after this happened they attempted to kick them out. They refused to leave and even wouldn't let the contractors in to work on the property damages.
Finally, MONTHS pass and they get approval to have law enforcement force them out after not paying rent. Then they could finally work on getting the house fixed up again to rent out again. Once the house was fixed up, the old tenants broke into the home in revenge, poured cement down the drains, and turned on the faucets, thus flooding the entire house. So then comes the second property damage claim on their hands.
They do have new (and great) tenants now, and I know they have gotten the law involved at this point, but it's crazy how some people are so inconsiderate and entitled these days.
19.
Tenant paid deposit and first month's rent. I'm guessing somebody got laid off real soon after, because they didn't move much in. After not paying second month, and not answering phone calls, it was time for eviction (which goes on record). Tenant makes up a story about police saying they couldn't come back after the shooting.
I have no idea what shooting they're talking about, but if they can produce a police report, we can cancel the eviction. Tenant goes to perfectly decent house and shoots up the back door. Eviction process continued and I had to get a new door installed.
18.
Not a landlord, but I worked as a handyman one summer and we had to repair a house that was rented out by college students. We get inside and the place is absolutely trashed. There holes in the walls, in the doors, the windows were broken, cabinets ripped off and to top it all off, the entire place reeked of pee because the previous tenants locked their dog in a small room while they went home on vacation. We put an absurd amount of work into the house over a three-day span. I've never seen a house in that condition before.
But one day we were talking to the landlord and she makes the comment "These were the second-worst tenants we've ever had." My coworker and I look at each other and ask what the worst tenants were, because, like I said, it looked like a war was fought inside this house. She tells us that one time, the house had pretty similar damage, except before the tenants left, they filled hundreds of condoms with water and pinned them to the ceiling. I don't repair houses anymore.
17.
​The Dog Ladies.
Around 1993 friends of my father's friends bought a neighboring farm which came with a beautifully maintained classic country style 3 bedroom house. Having taken out a massive bank loan to buy the new farm they decided to rent out the house to help with payments.
A couple showed up, wanting to live their dream of country life with their 2 German Shepherd dogs. They were charming ladies and it sounded like a great match.
Fast forward 2 years:
They are almost 6 months delinquent on rent. The farmers are getting desperate, the ladies said if the landlords came on their property they would have them arrested. There is clearly WAY more than 2 dogs here! The ladies are not even living inside the house, only dogs are in the house... humans are living in a shabby old camper van now parked out front. Nothing has been maintained, the house is clearly falling apart, the lawn is just weeds, the stench can be detected well before you get near the house.
This has to end.
One blessed day... it did end. The ladies up and moved their camper van and they were gone.... but the dogs were still there. 1st call- SPCA. Now, this predates the internet carrying stories about massive animal hoards, but this would have been a major headline at the time: over 60 dogs were seized from inside the house, plus there were several decaying dead dogs found as well.
The dogs had chewed and eaten away all of the original woodwork, walls, a lot of the flooring, anything they could, even each other.
The urine and feces had caused everything to rot through, not one square inch of the home was salvageable.
It was heartbreaking when the demolition came. The original family had worked so hard to meticulously maintain this gorgeous country home, and it was all plowed under only 2 years later. It was a total loss. I was too young to know what happened with insurance companies, but I do know they did not rebuild.
16.
My super told me this story about a guy who was getting evicted in our building a few years back. Apparently he was a real piece of work and hadn't paid rent in months. Anyway, he put off packing until the day before his eviction and left a bunch of trash and had slashed all his leather furniture and left it behind, and glued tinfoil on all the windows for some reason.
The unit was in a real state so they completely renovated it; new tile, new hardwood, new bathroom, the works...but they couldn't get rid of "the smell". A pungent fishy trash odor, made worse by it being summertime, which just permeated the entire unit. Even though it had been cleaned top to bottom, it wouldn't go away.
You know that spot under your kitchen sink cabinet, that flat baseboard-like piece that covers the empty space from the base of the cabinet to the floor? You guessed it, the evicted guy had apparently pried it open, stuffed it with raw fish-garbage and sealed that baby back up as his last 'f--- you' for being evicted. I don't know what sparked them to check, but it had been a couple weeks before they found it.
15.
Son of a Landlord here. Parents own a four flat where I was born and raised at living on the top floor. About 10 years ago they had these two tenants living in the unit below them, I called them dumb and dumber, both males. I was around 25 at the time and just moved back in with my parents to save up some money to buy my first house. D & D were around the same age.
My parents ALWAYS stressed the importance to new tenants about the building being a quiet building, as stated in the lease: no parties, no loud music after 9 pm, just be respectful to your neighbors. Well D & D liked to party and have lots of late night company at least 5 nights a week. One night about 1 in the morning they were having a party. I was just getting back to the house finishing my smoke outside when I heard my mom knocking on D&D's door.
I heard her say knock off the party and keep it down as other tenants had already called to complain. As my mom got back to her apartment I finished my smoke and started walking up. As I walked past their door I heard one of them say "she's lucky I didn't answer the door, I would've snapped on her."
O HELL NO!! I'm a pretty big guy 6'5 240 lbs. so I had no problem knocking on their door. When I did the whole place went silent. One answers the door and I say"so who's gonna snap on who now?!?" They denied ever saying it, and apologized for the loudness yada yada yada.
I told them next time I'll just call the cops and if they want to party to move and find a different place to live and read the lease more carefully. I think I scared the sh!t out of them cause we didn't hear much from their apartment after. Other than that my parents have been kinda lucky with tenants.
14.
I had a tenant that turned out to be my real estate agent (using someone else's credentials), and then stole my identity, bought an Audi and a Yamaha motorcycle and left me with the bill.... oh, and he put holes in all the walls and didn't pay rent. It's a longer story than that, but he was caught, and now he is housed in prison.
13.
obligatory not a landlord but I did work at a property management company for about a year.
There was a couple that seemed super nice. they were polite and young, literally no red flags. we helped them fill out the application, the landlord told them all the rules (no pets without deposit, don't break stuff, the usual)
after 4 months of their year long lease, they just left. when one of my coworkers went to check up on them, she found that the house was TRASHED. there was shit covering the walls, duct tape over all the windows, needles scattered. there was even a bunch of blood stains in one of the bedrooms. oh and they punched a few holes in the walls and ceilings, and clogged all 3 toilets.
they were apparently heroin addicts, and let their friends use their place as well to do other heroin addict activities.
took a long time to get that place livable again.
12.
Not mine but my Mother's. She rented an apartment unit to a guy who wanted us to replace the normal toilet with a bidet. As the toilet worked perfectly fine and to rip it out and replace it with a bidet was unnecessarily expensive, she refused. The guy didn't contest it so we thought everything was fine. Fast forward to a year later and the downstairs neighbour complains of leakage.
We check the unit and it turns out the guy replaced the toilet with a bidet himself, only he did a bad job of installing it properly so it constantly leaked. Instead of fixing it, he had let the water accumulate and never bothered to mop it up so the bathroom was filled with stale water, had mold growing in patches, and the water had leaked through the tiles and ruined the floor. He didn't get his deposit back.
11.
My dad rents out houses. He does it for a good price (1000+ a month for 3 bedrooms or 4). One day he had to evict someone since they hadn't paid anything to him for months (my dad is the type to work things out with you if you come to him and describe the problem or whatever).
This lady had like 2 kids but when she "moved out" she left her car in the garage and she made sure to trash the place. Completely. Floors over filling with trash,walls with holes punched in with every room. At the time my family helped in cleaning the place so in middle school for one weekend I was there picking up some grown women's trash and cleaning the garage and trying to help the best I could.
10.
These kids weren't the worst tenants I've ever had but didn't pay rent and left the place trashed when they were evicted. The girl calls one day and asks if she can have a hamster. I said "no, you can't have a hamster and if you have money for a hamster then I'd recommend paying your rent that's 2 months late." She says "its my birthday money". She learned the hard way that when you're about to be evicted 'birthday money' doesn't exist anymore. Spoiler: she bought the hamster.
9.
More of a "Worse situation involving a tenant" situation. I was managing a high rise unit block a couple of years back. Got a call from another tenant complaining of an ungodly smell in the corridor. Went to check it out and sourced the smell from a particular unit on that floor where I knew an elderly lady lived.
Knocked on the door a couple times with no answer so used my master key to enter. The poor lady had fallen and died, about a month prior. With the summer heat her body had pretty much liquified. To this day I can still remember the smell. I threw up almost instantly and couldn't sleep for days.
A lot of people dump their elderly family members into condos and forget about them when they should be placed in assisted living facilities. Very sad.
8.
My Dad and I bought a 4 plex, well he bought it and I was living there and was the manager. I was nervous being only 22 and not having any experience managing a property. This was a couple months in and we were in the backyard when a girl comes out with a puppy. She was not someone we recognized so we started talking to her. She proceeded to tell us the following:
1. Hi, I just moved in apartment 1 (not on lease with our knowledge) 2. My puppy (dogs weren't allowed especially puppies) 3. has worms (diarrhea everywhere). 4. Oh, can you wait to cash my rent check, I don't think I have enough in my account (late rent/possible bounced check).
It's not that it was that bad of a situation but being new to the job we were speechless. She ended up moving out because we didn't allow dogs.
7.
I bought a nice ranch home in my early 20's and after about 10 years I decided to move closer to my work at the time and rent the house out.
First tenants were great.
Second tenants had a solid work and rent history. First month went smooth, then no payment at all. Never got another dime from them for almost two years while I was trying to evict them. Went to court several times, the judge kept letting it drag out. Husband was a drunk and blew all the money on beer.
I got rid of the house after that. I did get lucky as it wasn't trashed or torn up.
6.
The hoarders. I can't sort them from worst to...less worse, but I'll tell you I've seen 5 that have used their bathroom as storage to the point that they can no longer use that bathroom. The thing about toilets is that wax rings will eventually dry out and crack if you don't keep them moist with occasional flushes. Once they crack, they leak into the unit below and I have to be an ahole and barge into your unit, empty the bathroom, and stop the leak.
It was always super gross and I always took a shower once I got home because plumbers refuse to do the empty-crap-out-of-the-bathroom job. Understandably.
Flush the toilet you don't use regularly, people!
5.
I had a tenet that I evicted recently. They were constantly late on rent. Never paid the water bill. But the icing on the cake was they said they had no pets, but actually had a dog and a cat. That would have been fine if they told me and paid the additional deposit and pet rent.
The dog chewed up all of the baseboards and tore up and through carpet all over the house.
I went through their Facebook to investigate when pets started living in my unit. It was literally from day 1. I asked the tenet about the pets and they said"no we don't have any". I asked why there was a post with a leash on it going under the back door. They had no answer. So I sent them a bill for all of the back pet rent and pet deposit along with paying all the late fees owed and water bill.
They moved out without telling me. I secured the property after they didn't pay for 2 months. All of the damage was shocking. I'm still trying to collect, but they are doing everything they can to not pay.
4.
This woman who never paid rent on time (if at all), left a metric ton of garbage everywhere, and destroyed almost every surface to some extent. Then after we evict her she has the audacity to not pay us the, like, $25k+ she owes us and changes credit companies and moves to another state to avoid paying it.
3.
One of my current lodgers. Never pays on time, says that I knew he couldn't pay on time so I was unfair in renting to him, doesn't do dishes, plugs his own Ethernet into the modem because the house wired internet is "too slow"(all cat6a btw), took care of my dogs one time and just covered their pee and poo with paper towels because he forgot to let them out. His lease is up in a few weeks.
2.
Had two 'artists' that lived in a unit and had put in several hundred drywall plugs into the ceiling. Why? So they could suspend mannequin parts from the ceiling. They were also dealing meth out of the apartment, and their place had a substantial infestation. We were moving to evict, but cops came and arrested them. Aside from the drugs and the fake body parts that were everywhere, the cops also found a cachet of weapons. When the cops came to arrest the guy, he was in bed with a hooker, and they made him put on pants.
1.
I once had to rent a u-haul to haul off trash from a one bedroom apartment because there was so much. I stopped counting trash bags after the 3rd box of 30 trash bags was used. I had to repaint the walls and install new flooring throughout because of the smell. The roaches took 3 weeks to die. The apartment still has a faint odor that I can't get rid of.
There are plenty of stories floating around the internet about horrible landlords, and they most certainly exist. The flipside is also definitely true, though. Some of these things horrible tenants have done to rental properties will blow your mind.