Bad landlords get what they deserve
Thursday, August 30, 2012No sympathy for clueless landlords
By Kelvin Wade
From page A11 | August 30, 2012 | 2 Comments
I don’t like solicitors at my door because, chances are, if I don’t know you, it’s a waste of time.
If you’re not wearing a uniform, holding a package, holding a pizza, selling Thin Mint Cookies or have a fistful of balloons and an oversized check, I don’t want you to even think about touching my doorbell. It’s unfortunate that installing a trapdoor on the front porch or catapult system is cost-prohibitive.
So when my doorbell rang the other day, I went through a mental checklist of who it could possibly be. Cathi was expecting a package, so that could be it. Whoever it was rang the doorbell again and that made me think about turning on the garden hose. You don’t rush me.
I opened the door to a fairly well-dressed man who resembled Mario from the video game series with a heavy accent I couldn’t place. The gist was he owned a house down the street and had evicted his lousy tenants. I knew the house he was speaking about because his no-good tenants had been friends of the problematic neighbors who lived next door to me, causing havoc before they were evicted. Birds of a feather.
He said his tenants had removed his closet doors. They’d told him that I’d taken them and he wanted them back.
An internal clock started ticking in my head, tallying up the minutes of life I would not get back while holding this insane conversation.
“I don’t know your tenants and they didn’t give me any closet doors.”
“They say you stole them from them. They say you come get them.”
A little demon made his appearance on my shoulder and whispered, “and he believes these tenants of his? Open up the screen door and slap this guy upside the head.”
“Hey, I don’t steal. I don’t know who you are and I didn’t know your tenants. I don’t have any doors.”
He said that he was thinking about suing them because they trashed his house. I told him he should and closed the door. After sitting down in my recliner and picking up my computer keyboard and the TV remote, my chuckling bewilderment at the encounter gave way to contempt. I wish I’d kept him at the door.
This guy was an example of the absentee landlord who wreaks havoc on neighborhoods.
I dealt with this with my former neighbors. Too often, people who shouldn’t be in the rental business rent out their properties to anyone who can pay the money and they don’t care about the destruction those tenants heap on the neighborhood.
My former neighbors had kids who destroyed people’s plants, egged my car and house, defaced property with markers and stayed out at all hours. Meanwhile, the parents partied all night and had huge fights in public. There was an endless parade of police and child protective services. And when we’d contact the landlord, her response was, “What am I supposed to do? They pay on time.”
I’m not kidding.
I wish I had told the guy on my porch to do background checks. Check references. Remind him that he had the legal right to call and then come over and see his property. Drive through the neighborhood sometime. And listen when your former neighbors are telling you what’s going on at your property.
I know it’s hard and bad tenants burn even diligent landlords, but for the ones who don’t care and just want to collect a check, you reap what you sow. Peace.
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