Bad tenants suck. They trash your rental property, leave you with months of unpaid rent (and mortgage, insurance, tax & utility bills), cook crack in the basement, invite a rat infestation by leaving their kids' half-eaten pizza lying around, and leave turds in the closet as a going away present for you to find. Not cool.

So what do you do, if you're a landlord, to protect yourself against such savages?

1. Strong Lease Agreement

That crappy lease agreement you bought at Office Depot for $3.99 ain't gonna cut it. Get a lease agreement that's customized for your state, first of all, and make sure it's a ball-buster. Sometimes state government or municipality websites offer them for free, so check there, and if you don't have any luck, a site called EZ Landlord Forms offers a custom lease agreement builder.

As a final note, make sure your lease covers things like late payment fees, cleanliness, and who's responsible for which maintenance & repairs.

2. Disclosures

Bad tenants love to run crying to Legal Aid or some sleazeball attorney when they don't pay their rent and (surprise!) get an eviction notice. So you have to make sure you follow the tangled mess of landlord-tenant laws, and give your tenants a rainforest worth of legal disclosures. Lead paint disclosures are a big one, but some states require others, so find out what your state requires, and don't slack on these, because bad tenants would love nothing better than to take you for all you're worth over some minute legal technicality.

3. Bribe 'Em 

It may leave a bad taste in your mouth, but sometimes it's cheaper to offer bad tenants a deal to vacate than it is to evict them. So head over to your rental, clean the half-eaten chicken bones off the couch, sit down with them, and tell them that if they can be out within a week you'll withdraw the eviction, leaving their credit whole, and you won't get a judgment against them. If you need to, kick in a $75 gift card to Best Buy or something, and if they still refuse, move quickly on the eviction and secure a judgment.

4. Follow Eviction Laws

Every state has different eviction laws, so be careful here. You can hire a real estate attorney or eviction specialist (the latter are much cheaper and usually as good) to do this for you, or you can do it yourself if you're strapped for cash. If you decide to DIY, there are usually waiting periods between when you mail the tenants a notice to vacate, file for eviction in the courthouse, etc., and sometimes special forms for your state. If you're going the DIY route, either get the forms from a fellow landlord or you can get your state's eviction down-low on that same ez Landlord Forms site.

Prevent, prevent, prevent! Follow the rules like a good little boy (or girl), and you'll be able to slam those bad tenants quickly and effectively. If you're lax on this stuff, they'll be the ones doing the slamming, so beware!