Mr. Shanty's Bright Red Flags

A week ago, Carolsue held my Leeds house open in the futile hope of finding me a renter. Sadly, the only serious bidders were folks who live on that street, in search of a new landlord.

Currently, they are living in a broken-down shanty and paying $500 a month. Could I match that? Nope. I don't have a shanty. Nor will I. (Even in Birmingham, where the cost of living is pretty low, $500 is still a screaming deal--or, in this case, the house is falling apart).

Though it was mutually established early on that Mr. and Mrs. Shanty were not going to rent from me, Mr. Shanty was very friendly. I admire him for knowing his financial limits and not going with the unrealistic hope that he could scrape by each month. Though I didn't tell him, that is one of my red flags for tenant failure.

Mr. Shanty hit two more red flags as well. The first was telling me lots of tales of how he and his immediate landlord don't see eye-to-eye on his currently living conditions. However, according to Mr. Shanty, this isn't his fault. He said he saw this house in the dark, so he didn't know how run down this place was. I didn't point out that he could have seen the property in the day light. Anyway Mr. Shanty is moving because the house is a dump and the landlord is a bad name, Mr. Shanty felt we were on familiar enough terms to share with me.

Another red flag is the overly chatty tenant wants me to really like them. This comes in a variety of categories, but generally, even before they move in, they offer special obscure favors that have nothing to do with where they live. Mr. Smith offered to handle any singing telegram needs I might have. Early on, Ms. Betty gave me an unsolicited offer to collect my rents, telling me, "It wouldn't be a bother."

In Mr. Shanty's case, he has offered to clean my gutters, lay carpet and install a dishwasher (though I am going to take him up on this one once I have a tenant for the Leeds house). Mr. Shanty has called FIVE times in the past week, asking if I had any side jobs for him. Granted, I was suffering from the flu and didn't get to him right away, but one voice mail would have sufficed.

When I called Mr. Shanty back on Saturday morning, he regaled me with many additional stories of his handyman attributes. Then, he dropped the bomb. Mr. Shanty asked if I would be interested in buying a home that I could rent back to him for $500.

Um... probably not.