So who got the tenant from hell this month? I had them, then they passed to another. But the real question I want to ask is "Why don't landlords screen tenants effectively anymore?"
A few years ago if someone wanted to rent they would fill out an application and a landlord would check them out before renting to them. You would call their previous landlord, see if they had any evictions, pull their credit, check their police record, etc. until you had a well screened tenant. If I had a bad tenant, I would tell you if you called me, a kind of heads-up to another landlord kind of thing.
Now, we get a bad tenant, we take them to court and evict them. Mysteriously they move out before the hearing, on to some other landlord. But the issue is that no one ever called me from the new landlord checking them out. So, bottom line, someone now has that tenant without knowing the plague they will bring with them.
So why is that? Are we too busy to check out tenants? Do we rely on computerized checking programs that spit out a number and say they are approved? Are we too desperate for a tenant that we don't even care? Its baffling!
So, as a professional property manager let me give you some advice. In most cases no tenant is better than this tenant! Make sure you screen your tenants. If you have a manager and they rely on computer scanning that does not place calls to a previous landlord, get a new manager! Computers do not screen effectively and only tell you what has been filed as a public record, and many tenants know this so they move before court. Unless you want this tenant next month, screens your tenants!
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