Woman in her 50s has been renting the downstairs of a duplex for about four years now. Its our best apartment, with two bedrooms. I come out and mow the lawn and clip the hedges.

She keeps a reasonably clean place and pays her rent without major trouble, and I've seen worse. There have been some issues. She smuggled in a small terrier not on the lease. The dog has not caused damage, and I have fallen into the trap of just not mentioning it, thinking well, at least this way she will clean up the poo. However she's enraging the neighbor by throwing dog poo in the trash, he says it stinks back there. OK.

She also has a dead car in her driveway she won't remove, which is blocking access to the backyard. She had some problems with her stove, which I came out several times to look at, even replacing parts. I finally ended up getting her a replacement glasstop and cleaned it and delivered it myself. But I can't get it in, or her old one out- because of the dead car blocking access to storage.

On asking she says she's saving the car for her daughter, as soon it gets fixed. When? When I have the money. OK, my compromise was, the oven stays in storage until you remove the car so I can get it in. Fair enough.

I don't know how I could be more reasonable.

But then she does the rent thing.

We give all tenants $20 off if they pay ontime. This incentive usually works, and gets them to pay on the 1st and saves a lot of hassle.

After the county doubled taxes on the house, we were forced to raise her rent.

Very modestly, 3%. However now she is paying rent for some reason now, $5 short.

This has happened 3 times now. She pays on time, but $5 under the rent amount stated on the lease. On asking, she explains she miscounted, and then didn't have time to get back to the bank.

The problem is now its $25, right, because it wasn't on time and therefore no ontime discount.

Now what can you do when someone pays short? In Illinois, all you have is the 5 Day Notice. This is the same notice for not paying rent, it says tenant has 5 days to complete rent, or there will be court filing and it will go on your credit record.

Last month she paid $5 short, and the notice was mailed. She finally paid the $5, but not the $20. "The letter was late, I hadn't got it yet" was her explanation. We let it go.

Our reward was this month she paid short again, $5, same story.

This time I said, "If you deposit the $5 by bank close tomorrow, you can still get the discount. Otherwise you will have to pay the $25 total"

She didn't. Days went by and no $5. Which is now $25.

The new 5 day notices now say there is a late fee if they don't pay after the 5 days.

This means she will owe $45 if she refuses to complete the rent in 5 more days.

Here's the issue. You HAVE to have rules, and you have to stick to them. Because once you don't, they won't listen to anything. Once they find out the 5 Day Notice has no reprocussions, they'll start paying half rent or no rent.

The idea of paying $5 short just to cause trouble goes over my head, I don't understand why. But what would you do in this situation?

She's obviously testing the boundaries on purpose. File for eviction for $45, for being $5 short and late? But if you don't, they've basically learned they can pay what rent they want, when they want, and they are in control of the lease. Which is very bad if you are the one stuck with maintenance, taxes, liability for what they do and housing them.

Crazy.

I hear ya. I have to bring myself to get very firm with these types. Actually, no, be very firm with everyone, but, you will find you don’t need the constant nagging and reminders with others.

The dog is a problem though, if you don’t allow dogs, but you let her have one. Tells the other tenants the rules don’t mean anything. I allow dogs, but I only have sfhs so my method to deal with poo is different than what might work in a multifam. I have tenant bag it up, keep it outdoors in a planting pot that has stones or concrete chunks in bottom of pot, so pot doesn’t blow around, then toss in garbage cart before putting cart at curb. Who am I kidding? I’ve told tenants to do that, instead they took a kitchen garbage can, put a kitchen trash bag in there, and used a shovel to dump in the can. No lid on can, no holes in bottom of can. So, on garbage day? Poop soup! So, I completely understand why many landlords say no dogs. Heck, my own daughter would not check up on her kids when they cleaned the yard, and the small metal trash can that had a tight fitting lid wasn’t always covered. Again, poop soup! One tenant did meticulously clean and dispose without all the smell though, so it can be done, just depends on tenant.

My rental agreement says no non-working vehicles, though I did allow one tenant’s son to work on one car at a time. ( not allowed in mycity-stoopid !) But, again, single family home, I made sure he kept it tidy. He did. In fact, had one car that badly leaked fluids, but he got it all cleaned off concrete.

Your Property Manager needs to be

Agree with RB. Your property manager says "You HAVE to have rules, and you have to stick to them", yet ignores every infraction the tenant makes because it's too much trouble.

You get what you allow. You've allowed her to do as she pleases and she's taking you up on it.

Dead car? Move it within 30 days or it's getting towed at your expense. Pet on the premises? Your rent just went up $100. Rent's not paid in full? You're paying late fees until it is.

I don't understand the "Pay Early and get a discount" on rent for the very issues you are citing. The rent is the rent and it is due when it is due. No rewards for doing what is required to begin with...change your lease.

Rent:

NOTICE: RENT is due by THE DUE DATE or there is a LATE FEE of $XX. However, even if the Late Fee is paid, Late payments are a VIOLATION of your lease and late payments can result in an eviction action (cite lease clause.)

Dead Car:

NOTICE: All cars parked on the premises must have tags, insurance and be in operating condition per Paragraph # of your lease (cite lease clause.) You have 10 days (or whatever) to remove the (Make Model VIN#) car from the property, or it will be towed at your expense. Thanks for your cooperation.

Pet:

If this is what you consider an OK tenant, I can't imagine what you'd call a poor / bad tenant. As others have said this is a management issue. You need to put your big boy / big girl pants on & run your rental business like a professional. Tenants with this behavior do so because their LL allow them to do so.

If you don't already have one make sure that you have a clause in all of your rental agreement stating how monies received are applied, you need to add one. Ours basically says something along the lines of "all monies received are first applied to any outstanding bills for tenant responsible repairs, LL provided utilities, tenant damages, past due late fees, past due rent and lastly to current rent.

Aldo, a LL who used to frequent this site had 2 very important rules for being a successful LL. You need to learn & practice them.

1. The LL is in charge.

I have some basic rules in my lease addendum about vehicles, appliance, access and more. In my City, "Any vehicle stored in the OPEN (In a multi-family property) after 30 days the vehicle has to be parked in the garage OR removed from the property. If not, then the LANDLORD will be fined!

So I have a commercial business property with 20 parking spots on one side of the building with locked gates. For a small fee, I agreed to allow those tenants to have their broken vehicles stored there--for only $50/month.

Yeah... I've thought about the whole "if you pay by the 1st the rent is $XX and if by the 5th it's $XX because of how NYS has it's laws and late fees and the fact that you can't collect them if you do take them to court BUT.. it gets too confusing in my opinion.

Rent is due on the 1st and is late after the 5th. That's it. I then send them a "late fee notice" via text (maybe) but depending on who it is (chronic late payer or a newbie tenant) I get harsh quick. If it's someone who rented a while and "oh man, I forgot" ... and they never did that before... I'm skeptical but will (may) let it slide. ONCE.

If it occurs again OR continuously, then we find out what's going on. Different job? Losing hours at work? What... you have to tell me what's going on. It may not "help" and we do what we have to do... but at least we are on the same page so to speak. NO discussion? Then yeah.. here's the notices to start the eviction process. We can discuss in court if that's how you want to play the game.

If I were you ... check your laws but immediately have a conversation with her if you haven't and tell her to cut it out. Rent is rent. this is the amount due and you know it. Can't pay the full amount? Fine... you need to find a place you can afford.

Car? Get it off my property... my lease is clear about non registered/licensed/ broken down vehicles... NOT ALLOWED.

Dog? Not Allowed ... there is a very steep fine and daily charge in our leases. I remind them of that day one (once I see it) and tell them "get rid of it now". No pet sitting, no pet visiting, NO PETS mean NO PETS.

Now is a great time to restructure your lease. While you are upset about these things.

Any animal that is not accounted for means that they are violating the lease. Don't let her sneak anything in. She has a dog, she pays the price for it. If you are a no animal place then that is a violation of her lease.

Vehicles that do not run are not allowed on the premise. If you try and be sneaky about it you violated the lease and pay the price.

I am lucky enough that I say rent is due on this day and is late on the next business day. Mistakes happen, but you need to keep track of it. Late with rent you need to pay the price.

I don't understand the issue. YOU have set the standards. YOU then have let these same standards slide. YOU are wondering what you should be doing.

I submit that the word YOU is used often. We can't help you that much - it will be up to YOU to reclaim your standards. What you described is a future fair housing complaint as you are holding your standards in a standard fashion.

I could write pages on how much worse tenants can be, lol. If you haven't seen such people, consider yourself lucky.

I'm not afraid of enforcing rules, but this is $5 dollars!

I'm sure someone appreciates this. The standard procedure is: 5 day notice for non-payment of rent, then a 3 day Midnight notice posted on their front door. And yes they've been posted over the years, and sometimes the tenant has paid, and sometimes they bolted. Leaving the usual tidal wave of garbage and damage behind.

What is that?

It basically says they must either complete the rent payment in 3 days or be fully vacated from the premises and the keys returned by Midnight on X date. If not an eviction will be filed in court.

That of course is fully legal after the five day notice, because at that point in Illinois, they have willingly forefited their occupancy rights.

But again, you are basically evicting over $5. But what other option is there?

In this case, she will have to pay $45 or move out, after 4 years of occupancy.

What else can be done, if they refuse to follow the lease?

This is what I'm asking. I don't see any other option that exists.

As a landlord, you have the nuclear button or nothing. This is why during the Moratoriums, when you couldn't evict, it basically bankrupted all the small rentals. So that they were all snapped up by corporate landlords.

Deliberately, if you ask me.

You state "I'm not afraid of enforcing rules" but you have allowed her to break the rules by having an unauthorized pet and parking a junker vehicle on the property. You haven't enforced those rules, why should she believe that you will enforce the rule about payments being due in full?

The answer has been given to you many times. Hire a manager or become a manager who doesn't tolerate this type of behavior from tenants.

JP,

Step one: come into the 20th Century. Yes 20th, and PUT your residents on AUTODRAFT. We converted them 30 years ago!

No more hoping and waiting and odd amounts, just TAKE the rent.

No more games with discounts, deadlines, etc, just TAKE the rent automatically.

Your residents actually PREFER it!

Check out ClearNow on this site. A small fee will solve half these problems.

Car? What does your lease say? Give her written notice to remove by ______ (date). Give her 10 days before you tow.

Pooch? C'mon man, if it's OK just start charging her.

My lease is clear: if they sneak in an animal AND I CHOOSE to allow it, the $35/month is charged retroactive to the start of the lease, plus $150 Non-Refundable Animal Registration Fee.

My lease is clear: ANY violation of the lease terms is grounds to evict.

Learn this phrase: we get what we allow.

Get er dun!

BRAD