One of my tenants keeps filling up our dumpster with cardboard boxes,

She has been warned that she needs to break them down,.she never does,

So it gets prematurely filled,. others can't then put their stuff in it,..The trash people will not pick up anything around the outside of the dumptster,and charges 350.00 to pick up any and also any extra pick ups.

The offending tenant has a very entitlement additude that if she pays rent, she doesn't have to do any extra work,

She also ignores any charges.

I would like to get rid of her ,but this is Ma,..not easy, cheap and tenant can cite reasons to not be evicted.

Any suggestions?

I hired a retired tenant, for $50 per week, to break down boxes and remove the mailing labels for evidence. So this one tenant, who keeps on buying stuff thru Amazon, just puts the empty boxes in my blue bins, filling 2 to 3 bins per week. Won't break them down.

So I had the retired tenant who breaks down the boxes tell the offender that she will pay her week;y %50 salary.

So I did the unthinkable. I accumulated 1 months of boxes, like 60 plus and delivered them to the offending tenants boss's office.

It's no wonder that people don't like you. If you spent half the time you say you do with these activities you could double your wealth.

Why in the world would you disrupt commerce like this?

Carol, judging by this & some of your previous postings, you need to develop & use a better lease. If you don't already have one, I highly recommend getting a copy of H John Fisher's book Property Management Manual For Massachusetts Rental Owners (//www.amazon.com/Property-Management-Manual-Massachusetts-Rental/dp/0692293353). It was written by a fellow LL from western MA & is designed just for MA LLs. Another excellent resource for us MA LLs is joining & becoming active in our statewide LL group ://masslandlords.net/.

As far as her ignoring the charges for not complying with your dumpster rules goes, what does your rental agreement say about this? If your present rental agreement(s) doesn't already address how payments are applied, you need to add a clause like that to all of your rental agreements at renewal time and for any for new occupancies.

Do you have actual proof that her boxes are the issue? That could be things like pictures of the boxes with her name on them, surveillance camera pictures of her putting the unflatten boxes in the dumpster or even just a text response where she admits that she did it or something similar. Once you have this then you need to issue her a notice to cure this behavior.

Whenever I have a tenant who does this, I do the following.

1. Give them a warning by speaking to them either in person or on the phone.

2.Follow up our conversation with either an email or a letter & include a highlighted copy of the part of their rental agreement that addresses this behavior. This is the only warning that I give them.

3. If it happens again, I send them a bill for it along with a highlighted copy of the part of their rental agreement that states how monies received are applied. If they don't pay this invoice, then this amount is deducted from their next regular rental payment & they are sent a statement showing that the rent is short. If they don't make up the shortage in a reasonable time say 7-10 days, I issue a NTQ for nonpayment of rent & follow through to either get my money or get my unit back. Of course, if they haven't paid the entire amount owed & the rent becomes 30 days late, a late fee gets added to their balance. FYI for non-MA LLs reading this by state statue in MA a LL cannot charge a late fee until the rent becomes 30 days late.

As you mentioned it can be time consuming & expensive to evict a tenant in MA. IMO if you don't get this & the other issues you've posted about under control, you'll definitely be a very unhappy less profitable LL.

Aldo, a wise LL acquaintance from this site shared his two rules for being a successful Landlord.

1. The Landlord is in charge.

2. The tenant is not in charge.

Once you learn & follow these two rules, you'll find that even in a super tenant friendly state like MA, your life will become much better.

So, Carol put on your BIG girl pants & take back control of your rentals.

Knowing how to handle a tenant who violates the lease should be #1 on every landlord's list of things they need to know, because without firm control of the landlord / tenant relationship, there's no reason to be a landlord.

I don't know MA law, but folks here seems to think it's mostly liberal / favors tenants. If that's the case, then probably you will need to get an attorney who is the legal equivalent of a pit bull... someone so mean that YOU don't even like him or her, but you like the results the attorney achieves. Have them handle this problem tenant for you. Take notes about what happens and learn, then next time you can DIY.