We are almost a year into owning the duplexes. We have had lots of ups and downs with these 4 units. Lots of "old house" problems that needed fixing right away, time spent painting and fixing up, bug spraying, carpet cleaning, lawn mowing, etc. Our first renter called about 2 hours after we put the sign in the yard and was ready to move in that day. We couldn't be luckier.
Except now, said renter got a dog, has had 3 break ins, has people constantly "hanging out" at his house, and now isn't paying rent.
Two notices to quit, lots of calls and texts, time wasted waiting for him and being told by his friend that we weren't allowed in the house - we were through being the nice guys.
We filed papers at the courthouse and had a court hearing this past Tuesday. It was our first time dealing with this and the process was a little intimidating. We asked lots of questions and figured it out by experience.
We sat waiting for the judge to go through the formalities. We then had time to discuss things with "the other side" to work things out. So out in the hallway we went to see if we could avoid a hearing. We listened to his sob story and gave him a week to move out (being that we are either really stupid or very generous people with good hearts) and have a continuance next week for the judge to hear our case if our renter doesn't follow through.
Ugh. There has been a lot of stress, worrying, and frustration through this whole process. But we are learning as we go and finding out that being the nice guy only gets you so far.
My husband likes to give people the benefit of a doubt. I, on the other hand, think rules need to be followed and if you don't, sorry. I think there are pros and cons to each way of thinking...but in this case, enough is enough.
Hopefully, everything will work itself out. No more mess with our renter because he WILL move out and we will just learn from this experience.
And it will never happen again...right?!?!
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