Just read the "Fair Tenant Screening Act" of Washington State. Holy crap! There's no way I'd be a LL there!

Kind of a little goofy if you ask me. I tell all prospective tenants our requirements but the company that we use actually comes back with a "recommendation". We do a credit and background check (nation wide). The only ones that we will actually look further into are the ones that come back with the recommendation from the company as "accept" ... anything other than that, we pass.

I don't know why you wouldn't tell anyone who is applying to your property what your criteria is (min 3x the rent as income with proof, pets (or no pets), first and SD due at or before lease signing. I will get into the criminal history if they ask (such as we don't do a flat deny if there is one, we look at what it was, severity, how long ago, any recurrance, etc) with the only exception being a Sex Offender... we do deny those. Same with BK - auto deny if within so many years, etc.

Outside of that... they decide if they want to roll the dice and see what happens. Most know what's going on with their backgrounds or credit so if they apply and think "oh, you don't really check" they learn that we do.

The politicians are listening to the tenants that have bad credit, criminal history, etc "cry" because they aren't able to get an apartment but they don't say "why"... just that they are being discriminated against because of it.