A month ago, I shared the story of a roomer making 60,000 with a local employer. He's actually a supervisor and per the other tenants, he's stays sloppy drunk and reeks of alcohol. One tenant works at a local hospital and told another tenant that he's in and out of the hospital constantly to dry out because he's too drunk to function. It's my residential assistant who's telling me this. He happens to live on the same floor as the alcoholic.

I'm cautious about getting caught up too much in tenants telling on each other without me observing the issue directly as they can position you to get involved in their conflicts. On the other hand, I'm not wanting to have too many people around with "issues" as it's a close environment and those issues affect other tenants. Ultimately, I figure he'll lose his job either due to showing up drunk on the job or not showing up at all due to a hangover. That means the rent won't get paid at some point. Also, fresh in my mind is that the fire I had last year was due to someone drinking and leaving pork chops in grease on the stove. Basically, I'm not set up for deal with these sorts of issues in close quarters.

I'm thinking of terminating his rental agreement. You would never know this guy was an alcoholic either. He presents very well which is probably how he landed the job.

I don't blame you for wanting to get rid of him. If you don't, you may be losing others instead.

I had a neighbor who was a functioning drunk. He worked every day at a very good long term job and was a supervisor. He had the nicest yard and house on the block. He drank EVERY day a gallon of whiskey and then switched later to a gallon of rum EVERY day. If I had to guess, he was never legally sober.

Well, fir me it would depend on whether he acts badly toward the other roomers. He's old enough to legally drink, so I wouldn't get rid of him for that. Wait and see if it causes him financial trouble ie not paying rent.

I agree with what Ken said. Rooming houses are where people who've "bottomed out" in life in some way, or have no money go to live. I had to live in a extended stay hotel for a couple of months while I was working a contract job out of state and there were some strange characters living there.

I've seen people say someone was a "heavy drinker" by which they mean "he drinks more than I think is ok."

So how much does he actually drink? To a non-drinker, one or two beers can cause a person to "reek of alcohol" because their sense of smell isn't dulled and/or they are not accustomed to the smell.

Sloppy drunk is another term that's hard to quantify. Is he falling down the stairs, barfing on the couch, hanging over the toilet for hours at a time? Or does he just smile and giggle a lot after 3 shots?

I would not trust the observation/hearsay only testimony. If someone/several of the folks don't like him for some reason, they could be using his partaking as an excuse to get rid of him. People can be vicious and lie when they want something.

Having known several rooming house rental owners I concur with Ken and others. Its part of doing business in this area.

If it were me I would want to verify the situation before making a decision.

We have a neighbor who is a supervisor for a large local utility. Most eves and all day weekends no matter what time of day I see him he reeks of alcohol.

On Sundays I see him taking 2 recycling cans to the local recycling area that are brimming wit beer cans. I can only assume that he does not want them seen on the street.

What type of drunk is he? Is he a happy drunk or a depressed drunk who locks himself away from people?

If he is a mean drunk or a loud drunk, then maybe he is causing problems for the other tenants.