Since I rent to several students, I rent out by the room, which is much easier and more profitable for me. I recently received an inquiry about a room from a woman, but she sent her questions about the room to me in Spanish.

I told her to translate it to English. She told me the room was not for her, but it was for her nephew. He is 25 and needs a room. Evidently he probably cannot speak English this js why she sent the inquiry. At this point he works under the table and has no paystub’s for proof of employment. She told me I could talk to his boss and he will give him a good report.

He has no pay stubs because he is waiting for his green card. I told her that the company needs to verify all employment with pay stubs. Again, she reiterated that his boss will vouch for his working there and again, I told her that the company policy is that we need to see verification of employment through paystubs

Are any of you getting this kind of inquiry lately? I’m just thinking with all of the influx of migrants we may see more and more of it. Plus, I really want to be able to speak to someone in English, so there are no lack of communication issues, and my lease is written in English!

Long answer--

Previously, I had some H2B visa people who would come from Mexico to work in our local factory. The rules varied, but essentially, they would come when their employer invited them-- in Feb, Mar, or April. Regardless of their start date, they would have to leave the country by Halloween. They would do agricultural work back home from November until their next invitation to return. When they first started, they were allowed to stay 3 months. When I rented to them, they were allowed to stay 6 months. They were working towards permanency. The plus was that they were regulars, hard-working, reliable, and did things correctly, and I respected all that. The minus was that they sent every penny they could spare back home--- so they were very thrifty. Eventually, I got to be too expensive for them. Because they had permanent family in the area, the family members usually translated for them when necessary, but the rules pretty much boiled down to (take care of the house) (pay your rent on time).

I currently have some Cuban refugee grandparents. They're waiting on their work permits. Because they're not authorized to work, it's actually their adult daughter who's on the lease. The grandparents are her guests--- and happen to be in possession of the house, because she and her family live the next town over. In that case, I expect it to work out long-term because they were too crowded when the extended family lived together in the daughter's house, so it's in everyone's best interests to keep me happy. :) The house is tidy and everything is fine.

In October, some of the rules changed with a certain work program, and we had a lot of people from Venezuela come in. I don't know the details-- the local factory stays on the right side of employment law. The Venezuelans have since been joined by Colombians and Peruvians. As a group, they tend to have their financials together, although as individuals, they seem to have a propensity for (a) parking on the grass, and (b) not mowing the grass. If I had 20 units, I could fill every one of them. They generally arrive with absolutely nothing.

This most recent batch of people first seemed to be young single men, with a scattering of compañeras tagging along. More family groups tend to be showing up-- a pair of brothers, a father/adult son/nephew, the dad came first and the mom and kids joined later. Sometimes, when the dad isn't able to pin down family-friendly housing, the mom and kids end up going to be with family elsewhere. Other times, even when the dad is able to pin down a perfectly fine house, the family stays behind.

In general, though, this batch I've encountered over the last nine or ten months has relied on various cellphone apps to solve the communication issues. For example, there's Google Translate where one person types in their question in their language, and it converts it into the other language. But there are also apps where you put your phone over a block of text like you're about to take a picture of it, and it translates the text into your preferred language. Then I have them initial the page to show they understand and agree.

So-- that's the long answer, and kind of a cross-section of the different situations I'm encountering here.

The short answer is-- yes, it's normal for relatives who are comfortable with English or more established to be the information-gatherers or communication points for the ones who are less comfortable or newer.

Additionally, if you took Spanish in high school or undergrad, you should be able to knock the rust off enough to be comfortable with the help of Google Translate filling in the sentence structure and vocab you've forgotten since then. Otherwise, communicating through text run through the translator can help, although their dialects sometimes use unexpected words-- like, I think of "calle" as street, but they use a totally different word and don't know "calle." Likewise, Google Translate doesn't know the difference between "she" or "her" vs "polite you", so when I see them talking about me in the third person, I know it's because they're using more formal language.

Over 15 years ago, we got several inquiries from people at different times who were working under table at same convenience store in run down area close to us. They did speak English but I suspected they were Hispanic though I didn’t actually meet any of them. We too require pay stubs and I told them we have to follow same rules for everyone. Although I didn’t state it, we are also looking for tenants who follow the rules, these people are already not following the rules about paying taxes. Especially after the second applicant, I had concerns about what was going on with this business and would not have trusted what employer said. Business changed hands and we have gotten no other under table employees since then.

I am not at all against helping hard working people find housing. We work some with our local spanish population and we both speak very little spanish.

We have found our locals (mostly Guatemalan) to be hard working family oriented people, the very sort of people who built this country to start with.

I too, am willing to help hard-working people. I’ve actually had several students who were from Mexico, but at least they had a TIN number and they were college students, so there was proof of everything.

The aunt told me that he could pay me six months in advance. I still need to verify employment. Plus, the other students there might have an issue with not being able to communicate their wants and needs to him, and then it could definitely become an issue.

Deanna, thank you for your in-depth and informative reply.

We have a heavy influx of people from the Ukraine region, Poland, etc. Most I've dealt with are young couples with one or two young children. I've found them to be willing to work as hard as they need to in order to be a success in our country and to make a future for their family here. Few even consider returning to Europe ever again.

I rented a room to a young man from Guatemala who is here pouring basements for Pulte Homes. Very minimal English, but great tenant. Didn't smoke or drink, worked hard, didn't steal other people's food, no criminal record and great integrity. His plan is to work here for 5 years, save like crazy, go back home and buy a farm with his savings.

He has since referred five other people to me. I think one speaks English, the others don't. I have chosen to accept Eduardo vouching for them in lieu of the documents I normally require. They've been the best rooming house tenants I've ever had.