I had a tenant on a MTM who moved out suddenly after only being in the house for 6 weeks. My lease says a 30 day notice is required but he only gave me 5 days notice and now wants his full deposit returned. Plus, he did not pay October rent and just moved out instead.

The real problem here is this tenant has painted the inside of the house without my written permission. My lease is clear on this. In addition, he has used that very sticky shelve liner paper and did not put it on the cabinet shelves but attached it to the kitchen counter tops Yes, the fricking kitchen counter tops !!!

He moved out last Friday and left the key in the mailbox. I looked at the inside of the house yesterday and sent him a text telling why he would not be getting any of his $750.00 deposit returned. Then the argument started which got heated at times. This was a first for me. Having a heated argument with a former tenant in texting only.

My only question is: how would you have handled this situation if it had happened to you? When someone is calling you to get their deposit returned, you can't just block their number and hope they leave you alone. You have to deal with them in one way or another.

All I would have done would be to respond that I would send him an accounting of his security deposit to his new address and to please give me the forwarding address so I could mail it to him,

Roy what the hay??? I thinkest NE has you pegged on this.

You get your key - change the locks-- why would you even call or talk? Even if you pick up by mistake why torture yourself even talking about the deposit? Why? cause you wanted a hornets nest stirred and now you got it. You had his money and your keeping it!!!!!

Your answer is simple: I'm working on your account and would you give me a mailing address to send it to.

I don't get this feeling, posted here by many, that you need a hot poker in the eye of the tenant. It's business keep it that way.

How did you screen this tenant?

Looking back at your screening of this tenant, do you see clues that you missed?

Did you view their current home before renting to them?

What prompted you to text this tenant about the SD instead of just sending the accounting with photos in the proper time frame?

Did the tenant contact you first about the SD?

I don't discuss SDs with departing tenants. I don't ask for forwarding address if they are not getting it back either. I just do my legally-required Security Deposit Final Accounting, create a signed PDF and email it to them, as allowed by our lease and state law.

I have a current tenant that is as Vee says, likes to heat things up. Yesterday evening I wrote down all the things I think I need say to this tenant, whose life is winding down , family relationships have gotten shaky. Now I'll let that writing sit while I boil it down to the essential things that need to be said. Then I'll let that sit. Most things that need to be said at this point are well-covered by the exiting documents: Notice to Vacate, Pay or Quit, Accounting of Security deposit. More than that probably is best not said/ texted/ printed and mailed, as this tenant seems to be having increased problems with misinterpreting, misunderstanding.

So, I give minimal communication with this tenant, continue to fulfill my responsibilities according to my area's laws and according to my rental agreement. When this tenant does eventually go, I will ask for address to send Security Deposit Accounting Statement and remittance, which will probably be ignored as tenant thinks they are clever. So, I'll text ONCE that security deposit was sent to last known address, so if they want it they need to fill out change of address form with USPost Office. And I'll block their number the first time I get pushback after that. Done! I look forward to being done with this tenant. I tend to be easy-going on returning security deposit, as one thing I sure don't want is any interactions with previous tenants over that. Either they know what they did, or they were pretty good tenants and got most/ all back. If someone is flaky, delusional, I 'd say better to be shed of them than risk some psycho coming back with deadly weaponry over a few bucks.

You wrote: and sent him a text telling why he would not be getting any of his $750.00 deposit returned.

I had a tenant that came with this 8 unit building I purchased from another investor. This tenant, unit #203, was a professional painter. He had lived there over 10 years and was a pack-rat. One day he told me he wanted to paint his apartment. When I looked inside the unit, it was full of boxes piled to the ceiling.

I told him that he had to first get rid of 50% of the junk, then clean the walls with TSP and with me choose the colors and type of paint.

He just got an avocado green latex paint and painted the wood, ceiling, walls and trim with it. No cleaning, no priming, just paint.

Since he had to move stuff around, he realized he could now move. With his 1 week notice, he was out.

While he moved, he took 2 weeks off from work. So I had sent him a demand letter that he ignored.

1) If I painted the apartment myself, I could not recover my labor, only the cost of paint.

2) If I hired a painter, the defense would say I paid too much and they did a Beverly Hills Paint Job in the Projects.

So I hired his bosses paint Contractor Company to paint the unit. No one knew they were painting an employee's unit. MY x-tenant was still setting up his new apartment and wasn't working.

99% of my departing tenants never ask or even mention anything about getting their deposit returned. And 99% of them will not give me a forwarding address, even if I ask for it. However, this one was in the 1% crowd. He texted me 5 day notice last Sunday and moved out Friday afternoon and then started texting me about his deposit being returned to him. He wanted me to Zelle it to him yesterday.

I told him I would I see the house on Saturday and then get back with him. And I did what I said. In hindsight though, I should not have texted him back right after seeing the house because I was pissed off to the max and just wanted to know why he did this. The entire house, top to bottom, had been freshly painted right before he moved in and he was well aware of this.

He did give me a P.O. Box number and I will send an accounting statement within the next 30 days. I hope the accounting statement will put an end to this. I will have to replace the counter tops and have the dark dungeon colored walls repainted. This is not the first tenant to ever do this to me, but it is the first time a tenant did it and then demanded their full deposit back!

"This is not the first tenant to ever do this to me,.....

Is there something that you could do in the future that might prevent this?

Do you inspect their current home before renting to them?

Do you give them the opportunity to view the lease early?

Do you go over the lease with them on lease signing day?

Do you do quarterly inspections?

Do you check previous LL references?

Do you ask for proof of on time rent payments?

How do you screen credit in a class D hood?

6x6,

I can answer yes to most of your questions, however, I did not do in home inspection since this tenant came from another town 70 miles aways.

"It is what it is" and "it aint Rocket Science",

come to mind.

Always entertaining fellow LL's at every level.

Checking the owner of properties in different areas are easy with GIS systems. That’s how you verify a long distance landlord actually owns the property.

Every prospect gets credit checks. Mandatory. If you don’t, then you’re not consistent in your screening. You’d be surprised how many D class buildings attract tenants with decent credit.

And who cares what Zillow says.

Every argument starts with 2 people. Therefore, I do not get involved. Now the tenant is by him/her self and has no one with whom to argue.

If a tenant starts to flame me, I simply block their number. Electronic communication is a convenience for people who know how to conduct themselves in a civilized manner. It's not a Constitutionally guaranteed right.

Also, "all calls go to voicemail." I let them rant for the 3 minutes that my VM will record, then save off the voice to text in case I'd ever need to show it to a judge. To date, it's never been brought up. I've been in the biz 18+ years: never had a tenant sue me over an incorrectly withheld deposit.

The key to eliminating this issue going forward is simple: do not participate in an argument. As professionals, we must keep our calm when the world is burning around us... or at least the tenant's world is burning around him or her. Keep in mind: this former tenant probably treats everyone his life this way. It must lead to a lot of problems and a sad, lonely existence. In a way, I sort of pity them.

I agree with NE on this one.

Roy I recall at least one other past post where you got in an argument with one of your tenants.

You've again allowed yourself to be baited into a situation where you should have known better.

You make the exact same mistake over and over and then come on here pretending to ask for advice. Then you end up arguing with posters on this board.

Roy, even with a bad or no credit rating you can still pick up some valuable information on the lowest level of renters from a credit report. At a minimum, I often find that a past landlord has an outstanding balance owed. Taking someone with thousands owed to a past landlord is simply asking for trouble. Even at the bottom there are better and worse ones. Seeing a trend where delinquencies are all of a sudden increasing is also a bad one. I have seen both of these on credit reports where they have no score.

I see multiple learning points.

If anyone has lower rental units, and I understand why landlords do......understand that with that lower end unit comes more turn over and more hand holding (coaching)

If that coaching doesn't yield you the results you want, you will want to change your methods. I hear many folks online say that they want to automate, but that isn't practical when dealing with folks whom they maybe targeting.

Class C and lower places are not hands off - they are more hands on.

When someone moves after six weeks - I failed.

Ray-N-PA

I would like to disagree with you on something. More turnover does not come with lower end D hood units. Actually it just the opposite because the rents in these hoods are the lowest in town and for that reason, tenants tend to stay put and not move because there is no cheaper place to move to.

This particular house is one of many houses I have in this neighborhood. D hood houses are by far the most profitable houses I have (think ATM machine) and I have become wealthy because of them and from the tenants who tend to stay long term. My previous tenant in this house had been there 7 years before she moved. The tenant before that, 5 years. Again, due to lower rents, tenants tend to stay put and not move.

The only mistake I made this time was renting to a young single male. As soon as they meet a woman who says 'we can live together', it is always the male who moves out early to go live with his new bed mate. That is what happened here.

Was ruminating on my own annoying tenant, dear Beezlebub, this morning. An expression came to mind: Don't let them rent space in your head. Now, I was thinking of this for my situation, but, its probably good for all of us landlords.

Remember, we don't have their sucky lives. Be shed of them and move on. (Saying this to myself.)