Yes, and no. Check your state laws for the procedure to be followed. In California, we must inventory the items left behind, store them safely and notify the previous tenant. After I believe 17 days if the value is less than I think $700, the landlord can do whatever they want. If the value is over $700, then the landlord must hold an auction And give the proceeds after expenses back to the tenant.

Listen to what Jim has posted. Once I evicted a mixed race couple with 3 little ones. Besides torching my unit they left their junk behind.

But what I did was the following:

I had pictures before I rented the unit to the couple.

Pictures during the tenancy. And pictures after the eviction.

But what I did, which no one ever does, Is I had pictures of the Sheriff's lockout. I could not take picture of the Sheriff's faces, But I had pictures of them walking into the the unit and checking everywhere for people. I was able to take pictures of their Badges and Name ID, which matched the documents given, Possession of the unit back to me.

Six months later my x-evicted tenant used me in small claims court. Show pictures of a Christmases party in the unit. There was a big screen HDTV and $5,000 worth of Rent-to-own furniture. Judge ruled against me immediately.

I raised my hand and asked for 5 minutes to defend myself. I said I had all of the tenants furniture loaded onto my truck in the courts parking lot. My Ford F-600, 18 x 8 x 8 steak bed truck, with a tarp over everything. But during the lockout, I have documents with the SHERIFF'S BADGE AND NAME PLATE, GOING THRU THE UNIT LOOKING TO LOCK OUT PEOPLE. In the background of my pictures is the tenants furniture and condition. The pictures they provided was from 3 years ago. Since then Rent-to-Own, who stopped receiving payment came to collect everything. When the door opened and they saw the condition, it was a total write off. They left everything no junk. That was over 2 years ago. The judge looked at the current pictures and agreed, it did not match the tenants older pics.

The Judge, Court security, my x tenants and myself walked to my truck where I took off the tarp. The Judge saw that everything was junk and asked my tenants where should I drop of their treasures. My x tenant said, they did not want their junk, they were after a $5,000 payout. And walked away.

So with the lock out and proof of the condition when being evicted, I still had to hold onto the tenants junk to prevail in court.

Since the the pandemic, I had over 20 tenants live without paying rent. I rented over a dozen Self Storage units and housed my tenants stuff in 27 gallon totes. Over 1000 totes in storage.

I gave every tenant the ability to reclaim their junk, but they had to pay my cost of storage and remove their stuff in one afternoon.

One tenant got free legal aid to win a judgement against me. I had to all my x-tenant the right to collect her stuff, 97 totes at 27 gallons each. She had from Wednesday thru Friday to accomplish this. I hired people to man her storage locker, giving access from Wednesday 7am to 2pm, Thursday 7am to 2pm and Friday 7am thru 2PM. The x tenant showed up Saturday at 10:00am, and I refused to give her access.

instead I loaded all 07 totes onto a JB Roofing truck with a conveyor. I drove to free legal aid and from the alley and using the conveyor, I dumped all 97 totes onto the lawyers parking lot, fenced in.

Short answer: Yes, I can, because Texas allows me to.

Longer answer:

In Texas, my original lease said something along the lines of, "Tenant must take all possessions with them. The landlord will dispose of any items left behind."

That worked just fine for me-- it was mostly broken tvs, a chin-up bar, trash. Up until I had a custodial grandma with a prescription drug problem I didn't know about, and CPS was going to take her grandkid from her. Then she fled the state in the middle of the night, leaving behind everything that couldn't fit in her car.

That was also when I discovered that Texas didn't have a definition of abandonment. I took that one the slow way, through the courts, regaining possession and getting the right to sell her abandoned property to recoup my losses. And I made sure to modify my lease so that it would be very, very clear how I needed to handle it if someone ever fell off the planet in the future. I defined abandonment, I clarified what would happen to the property after abandonment, and I asserted a lien on all non-exempt property and the right to execute such lien under (circumstances). But I could do that because my state didn't already have its own ideas about what happened under such circumstances.

Another thing to remember is that, at least around here, it's the Justice of the Peace who's the one enforcing a lease. And the JP isn't required to have a legal background at all. So even if your lease says x, y, and z, and x, y, and z are compatible with state law, if you ever get to the point where you have to argue it in court, if you have an inexperienced non-attorney judge who handles very few of these cases, they're going to totally ignore what the lease says, and they're going to ask the JP Hotline for advice on what's normal under (circumstances) and proceed with the generic advice of people who haven't seen the lease.

You thought RJ's story was wild? Bless his heart, he's just playing checkers. I've been playing 4D chess in the eviction game. You talk about pictures? That's quaint.

I once evicted a couple – let's just say their domestic disputes made a UFC fight look like a polite tea party. Three kids, unit trashed, and they left enough "heirlooms" to fill a landfill. But I'm not RJ.

My "before" pictures? They weren't just standard snaps; I had a 3D laser scan of the empty unit. Every nook, every cranny, digitally mapped to the micrometer. During tenancy? I'd send in my "HVAC inspection team" – they're actually drone operators with thermal imaging cameras. Not just checking for drafts, mind you, but for unauthorized hot tubs, grow ops, or secret tunnels to the neighbor's Wi-Fi.

The Sheriff's lockout? Pfft, amateur hour. I had bodycams on me, on my assistant, and on a specially trained pigeon carrying a miniature GoPro. We couldn't show faces, but we had full 360-degree VR footage of the deputies clearing the unit, complete with a voiceover documenting badge numbers and the exact timestamp of possession transfer. Think "COPS," but with better production value and legal precedent.

Six months later, guess who shows up in small claims, looking for a $10,000 payday for their "lost treasures"? The tenants! They present pictures of a "family gathering" in the unit, boasting a 120-inch curved OLED TV and bespoke, artisan-crafted furniture. Judge, bless his impatient soul, starts to lean their way.

I raise my hand, calm as a monk. "Your Honor," I intone, "I believe my satellite imagery will paint a clearer picture." I pull out my tablet. "Here, Your Honor, is a thermal signature of a large electronics package, consistent with an HDTV, being removed from the property by Rent-to-Own's truck... three years ago, before this 'Christmas party' even took place. And here," I slide a thumb drive across, "is the forensic analysis of their image metadata, proving those photos were taken from their previous address in 2020."

The judge's jaw drops. My ex-tenants are sweating. "Furthermore, Your Honor," I continue, "my deep-learning AI, 'ClutterBot 3000,' has cross-referenced the 3D laser scan from move-in with the post-eviction drone footage. It calculates, with 99.8% certainty, that the volume of 'junk' they left behind exactly matches the density profile of compacted refuse, not 'rent-to-own furniture.'"

The judge, intrigued, asked, "And the items, sir? Are they still available?"

"Indeed, Your Honor," I replied, "they are currently secured in my climate-controlled, RFID-tagged mobile storage facility parked directly outside the courthouse."

We all troop out. I press a button on a remote, and the side of a massive, custom-built articulated trailer silently glides open. Inside, illuminated by LED strips, are neatly stacked, transparent, hermetically sealed cubes, each containing the exact remnants of their "treasures," sorted by category: "questionable stain fabric," "broken plastic bits," "unidentifiable sticky residue." Each cube has a QR code linking to its historical chain of custody documentation.

The judge surveyed the pristine yet utterly useless contents. My ex-tenants just stared, defeated. They didn't want the junk; they wanted the payout. They walked away, utterly speechless.

Since the recent global unpleasantness, I've had over 50 tenants try the "free rent" gambit. Fifty. I've now invested in a fleet of automated storage pods – solar-powered, GPS-tracked, and climate-controlled. Each pod automatically segregates tenant belongings into bio-degradable, recyclable, and hazardous waste categories. We're talking over 5,000 cubic feet of meticulously indexed "former tenant property."

I offer every tenant the "right to reclaim." They simply need to log into my secure blockchain portal, verify their identity with a retinal scan, pay the actuarially calculated storage costs in cryptocurrency, and then arrange for automated drone retrieval of their specific pods within a 4-hour window.

One tenant, a particularly litigious sort, got legal aid and won a judgment for access to their 150-gallon "collection" of artisanal soap scraps. They had 72 hours. I provided the blockchain access. They struggled with the retinal scan, then the crypto payment. They claimed my "system was too complicated."

On the final day, precisely at 5:00 PM, my fleet of autonomous retrieval drones activated. Guided by laser, they flew the 150-gallon storage container directly to the legal aid office, hovering precisely over their outdoor "client meeting area." From 100 feet up, a trapdoor opened, and the soap scraps, individually wrapped in tamper-proof, biodegradable pouches, rained down like oddly scented confetti.

Legal aid filed a police report for "aerial refuse bombardment." I faxed the court a copy of my blockchain ledger, proving their authenticated access attempts and subsequent failure to comply with the 4-hour retrieval window. The judge, a wry smile on his face, squashed the complaint and ordered legal aid to pay for the cleanup.

You learn to automate, document, and perhaps, just perhaps, embrace a little bit of theatrical flair.

While that story was good and all there were no comments degrading race. Nor was there anything about SWAT and you kicking a judge in the face.

Ts: Don't be scared by Robert's & Jason's stories.

Listen to Jim & Deanna.

Gonna have to come back to the fiction reading as I don't want to miss it.

Jim is correct but in practice I have reasonable communication with the tenant and throw everything out. $700 is a really high bar for used home goods.

When I have had issues is the past where everything was left behind, usually everywhere I took pictures of the squalor and then tossed everything.

You need to look up OH laws on that.

For me, once the deadline has passed it is all mine, the good and the bad. Very seldom is any of it good.

If I do find a gem here or there I donate it to charity. I am not messing with trying to have a rummage sale where I spend all day having people haggle over a two dollar item.

File on him unless you have become a charitable organization and you want to deal with his mess plus lose rents.

Each state has its own requirements. In Pa act 129 outlines abandonment of personal property. In our state, since keys were turned over, you have to give them 10 day notice to reclaim or you will throw the stuff out. Duriung that time you have to store the items in a reasonable fashion.

So what is reasonable?

He chose not to pay August rent and is now begging you not to file an eviction?? Don't let his problem become yours, or you'll be eating September rent as well. Go file today. Well, post your three-day notice (which will give him five days) and file the eviction next Wednesday. Dont' wait! He's already gotten two weeks of free rent!