A bad tenant can be the worst nightmare of a landlord. If a tenant does not pay his monthly rent, they only lowers your rental income but also makes it difficult to meet your necessary expenses like mortgage, taxes, and repairs. If you do not know what to do to force a bad tenant out of your rental property, here are some of the common tricks that landlords have used in the past to achieve this goal. Some of these tricks can be considered dirty in present times and you would find it impossible to use them today. Some of them are also hilarious but worked very well in old days to force the tenant to finally move out of the property.
Removing the front door
Can you imagine that there have been courageous landlords in the past who removed the front door form the unit of the bad tenant? With no door in the home, tenant and his household items became visible to everyone else and he was embarrassed to stay any longer inside the property. This is an audacious move that can take any tenant by surprise.
Changing locks in the unit
This is another trick to cause discomfort for the tenant. If the tenant is not paying rent, you can change the locks and refuse to give new keys to him until he paid his dues. You can change the locks when he is out so that he remains outside and cannot get access to their belongings.
Turn off the utilities
This is a trick that can annoy any tenant and force him to move out of your rental property. In old times, landlords often turned the HVAC off making the conditions inside the unit inhabitable particularly in winter months. However, there is a problem in this trick that it can cause the pipes to burst if you live in an area with very low temperatures.
Turning off water supply
This trick can be very frustrating for the tenant as they will find no water inside the toilet even if they manages drinking water from outside. Many landlords used this trick in the past to force a bad tenant out of their property.
Blocking the sewer line
This is a very cruel trick that requires blocking the sewer line coming out of the unit with a large object. If the toilet stops draining, the tenant will find it unbearable to live inside because of the stench accumulating inside the unit. Of course, this trick left behind a huge mess for the landlord after the tenant moved out.
We would not suggest any landlord to apply any of the tricks mentioned above to force a tenant to move out of his property. This is because your tenant can drag you in a lengthy and tiring battle in a court of law citing cruel and inhuman treatment. There are many attorneys waiting for these cases to pick up and sue the landlord on behalf of the innocent tenant who is being victimized by the landlord. Imagine you standing in front of a judge and explaining why you removed the front door or shut off the utilities. You will find that using any of these tricks will land you in a bigger trouble with the law rather than solving your problem.
You will come across many well-wishers who will give you all sorts of advice to get rid of a bad tenant. However, it is better to use alternatives like cash for keys to get your bad tenant out of your rental property. Another way is to put in place a great tenant screening system to avoid these bad tenants.
If you’d like to talk more about property management, or you need help with Everest Property Management, please contact us at Everest Realty.
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As a top producing Realtor and Property Manager; Terry specializes in sales, extensive construction homes, rentals, REO’s, short sales, and all aspects of Real Estate. After graduating the University of Michigan with a master in MBA, Terry continued his endeavor and now has over 15+ years of experience in the Real Estate world. If there is anything that has to do with Real Estate and sales, you can always be sure of Terry to provide important, specialized knowledge.
