Investing in rental property can be very lucrative, but you'll think twice about that after reading these horror stories!
The Most Manipulative Tenant Ever
Paranamir/Shutterstock.com
After the first winter in the house, she emails us copies of her electrical bills and says that the house needs better heating because her bills are too high.
Looking at the bills, we agree that the house must need better heating, and we invest in an expensive system.
She tries to tell us where to put it and we tell her that the installers have designated spot X as the most effective and that we’re not open to alternatives. We instruct the installers to refuse to shift the unit to another location unless they deem it to be superior because she’s not paying for it, we are.
After the installation, the installer says to us, ‘Hey, just to let you know, the reason her bills were so high last year is that she pulled the cat flap into the ‘open’ position and left it hooked up that way all winter.’
Yes, she created a deliberate hole between inside and outside, left it fully opened for an entire season, then complained that her heating wasn’t effective, all so she could score an expensive new heater that wasn’t required.
At this point, I started thinking, ‘Is she really that manipulative? Would anyone deliberately freeze themselves just to make me fork out thousands of dollars for new heating? Is it really that important to her to play me like that, for no purpose?’
Surely not.
Surely, surely not.
Next, she asked for permission to get a dog. We said, ‘yes.’ She then told us she’d purchased a puppy and it would be ready in three months – but oh, hey, that side fence needs replacing or else he’ll get out.
The fence would have needed replacing within seven or so years anyway, so we figured ‘Okay, that’s probably not entirely unreasonable’ and agree. We’re not keen on the way she’s manipulated things by getting us to agree to a pet and then using that to pressure us, but we take the attitude that if we get the fencing job over with now, it’s done and won’t be a problem later.
Then she says that the neighbors are addicts and so she wants the fence extended down the driveway to stop them hovering near her car. We can see her point (the neighbors definitely are criminals and constantly in trouble with the police).
Fair enough, we think, so we say we’ll look into doing that as well.
The addicts are evicted a few days later (hurrah!) and Social Services put the house up for sale.
We put the fence on hold until the sale goes through.
A nice bloke buys the house and starts renovating it for his family. Great guy. We replaced the fence at our expense and he helped with the labor.
However, we’re not learning fast enough. In fact, we are total idiots, because it seems that now she’s not getting that dog after all. The dog ploy was sufficient to get the fence replaced; no dog necessary now.
She has a shiny new fence.
But she’s not happy.
No, she wants that fence extension put in.
‘But,’ we point out, ‘the new guy is a quiet family man and no threat to anyone. There is no need for a fence extension, and so we will not be putting one in. You have a brand new fence; be happy.’
She is not happy.
She sends me a text about a week later saying that she needs the fence extension put in, because ‘The Police are all over and there are dead bodies in the street.’
I’m floored by this. Aside from the now long-evicted ferals, the house is on a nice street mostly populated by retirees. It is not, by a long stretch, any kind of ghetto.
I ring the new neighbor to confirm, and he says that no, there’s no police anywhere and that the street is, as usual, quiet.
He questions whether perhaps my tenant is schizophrenic.
Who knows? Maybe.
I think more likely she’s just compulsively manipulative because she’s got a clear end game in all of this and she’s showing remarkable dedication to coming up with complete nonsense to achieve it.
But anyway, back to the ‘police in the streets and dead bodies everywhere.’
Turns out, there was an accidental carbon monoxide death of two people on a boat moored at the nearby bay, and police were attending the accident.
No crime. Nothing but a tragedy a couple of blocks away, which was being attended to very respectfully by the authorities.
I tell her that no fence extension is going to be forthcoming.
End of story.
Or so I think.
A few weeks later, she tells me that she needs the fence extension because the neighbor’s gate keeps swinging into her driveway and hitting her car.
I pop ’round to speak with the neighbor, and while I’m there he demonstrates that the gate cannot, in any way, enter her driveway, even in a gale, even if he swung it hard, it cannot enter here or there; it cannot enter anywhere on her property – because the gate is inset from the end of the fence and there is no way for it to swing past that point.
At this stage, I told her, through gritted teeth, that I have spoken with the neighbor and that her car is safe from his gate.
In the three years she’s been with us, she hasn’t had a rental increase, and she’s always paid substantially under market rate because it was more important to me to get someone who looked after the property than to get the best price for it.
However, the next time I get some made-up psychotic nonsense from her that’s designed to manipulate me into yet another expensive and unnecessary upgrade, her rent is going to suddenly go up to market comparable.
If I have to put up with any more of her crap, by god she’s going to start paying for it. And if it means that she moves on and I take my chances with a new person, then so be it.
I’ve already checked with the tenancy tribunal here and I can put the rent up by $50 a week to match the market rate without them so much as blinking.
She’s gone radio silent for a few months now. I hope maybe she’s finally worked out that she is on a ridiculously sweet deal and should quit while she’s massively ahead.”
Leaving His Mark (And Some Dead Fish)
canan kaya/Shutterstock.com
“This happened to my friend’s rental. Guy gets evicted. Instead of trashing the place like a normal jerk, this guy cut off chunks of drywall, put dead fish in the walls and sealed it back up. He was a carpenter.
The owners couldn’t figure out the smell for weeks. They repainted, got it professionally cleaned a few times, searched endlessly. Eventually, they figured something died in the walls, and started knocking holes in the wall. Turned out to be that piece of trash move by the tenant.”
Kevin And His Secret Roommate
Dean Drobot/Shutterstock.com
“I was a landlord when my girlfriend moved in with me, and she had an empty condo. First, two renters were fine, but then there was Kevin. Kevin was a single male, had a good income and seemed like a perfect tenant. We get into month three and the rent checks stop coming in. So we go to the condo to find out what is happening. First off there is a nice new flat screen TV, but no furniture and a giant beanbag chair. We ask ‘where’s the money?’ Kevin looks frantically through his Bible and is all like, ‘I lost the money order, sorry.’ Angry, we do a little more looking and it turns out he has a roommate, a silent, muscular man. Ok whatever, but if you have a roommate you got to tell us Kevin so we can put him on the lease.