LLing is full of firsts.

Rented a detached 2 car garage to a guy who downsized and stored extra household goods, sofa, stove, books...$100 per month.

The doors were very secure.

(At Convention I showed a pic of him signing the lease on the roof of my Corvette which was stored there at the time)

Fast forward 3 years - someone broke in and stole his stuff.

Here’s the weird part - the thief is a homeless hoarder and FILLED the 2 car garage with junk.

Some of the renter’s goods are mixed in the mountains of junk.

Renter wants me to pay his $1000 insurance deductible.

I estimate clean out cost at $600 for labor and dumpster.

What would you do?

BRAD

You are not the responsible for break-ins. Not responsible for his deductible. Really he could have had a $100 deductible instead of $1000. His deductible was his choice.

What would I do?

I would decline the kind offer to pay the T's insurance deductible.

I would do nothing else -- well, I would fix the exterior garage door if it needed repair. And if T presented a police report, I would probably not charge the T for the exterior repair.

Otherwise, I would collect the rent on April 1 or I would start eviction process.

Legit break in. Door busted.

The mountains inside are hoarder trash, not the stuff we saw the renter bring in.

Police report made.

Used my super house lease. Requires renters’ insurance.

We don’t know when it happened - how often does anyone check a long term storage garage? Had to be a while ago based on the accumulated piles.

Res is saying he paid rent after his stiff was gone but did not know it. Wants a refund.

A landlord in not allowed to insure tenants belongings. This is way my lease's state tenants must get renters insurance and the landlord isn't reasonable.

Case in point. A single family home that I rented to an attorney had a working alarm system. The monthly alarm connection fee to a central monitoring station was around $28 a month. I prepaid the 1st years service. Then when the tenant got billed, he had the service terminated. Two years later he got broken into. His wife or daughter went out the front door leaving it unlocked. There was so sign of break-in and the tenant didn't file a police report. The tenant deducted from his rent the cost of a new computer and TV. I then filed for eviction. I won.

I’ll bet if you went to this guy’s house, there would be mounds upon mounds of stuff all over. Probably cannot even set anything upon a table. His family gave him an ultimatum, he rented your space, to ‘downsize’, now needs someone to blame this hoard on.

Oops, didn’t see you last post.

The hoarder piles are mostly broken bike parts, a tv antenna, BAGS and BAGS of trash.

There is a version of hoarding where the person feels they must rescue trash from the curb and hold it safe.

I'm gonna try my friend #22's Trash for Trash. A picture showing "possible goodies" and a $100 bill, take all or nothing, posted on CL.

He can explain more.

I am sorry this happened to you, the rent must still be paid. The insurance is handled by the renter for their stuff, negotiations and the deductible. The police report will be helpful to them and you.

There must be more to the story? How do you know the guy that broke in and is apparently storing stuff there is homeless? What evidence do you have to that at all?

Most homeless people don't have enough space somewhere ELSE to move it all into some storage garage. Where was it before?

Just seems a weird assumption. You're renting a garage to someone. Someone apparently breaks in, steals SOME stuff, leaves other TRASH behind -- so why do you think it was a homeless person?

Weird story.

- John...