Landlords R Us

I am in an interesting role of late. First, I am helping a friend find a tenant for her rental. She has certain reasonable standards. For example: no pets. Which is a great rule as far as I am concerned. In her case, she has a specific reason for this rule. But it shouldn't matter why she says no pets. It is her house. She's the boss.

She is also pretty particular about who is renting. Someone who hasn't paid their mortgage in 16 months and then feels they can somehow cough up enough every month to pay the rent doesn't exactly make a great first impression. A couple of poker buddies who need a place to crash, yet don't know each other's last names, don't sound like good long-term renters.

Monday I got a call about her home from someone who didn't impress me in the least. First, he referred to himself as "Mr. Jones." This guy was younger than me and we don't live in a culture where we refer to each other by surname. I gave him the "landlord won't rent to someone who has pets and anyone who has had an eviction" spiel and he said, "say what?!" When he passed the rest of my preliminary screening process, I had nothing left to do but pass him on to my friend, the landlord.

As a licensed agent, I can't discriminate on her behalf. I can only facilitate. Legally I can't even give her my opinion. Nor can I tell her to discriminate with bozos who use the phrase, "say what?!" She, however, can turn down the guy for a myriad of reasons. If I were the landlord I would turn him down just for his lack of manners alone.

In addition to my friend, Jack and I are working on renting out our home. Of course, we have it for sale too, but as we haven't had a lot of bites (though I hear Mr. Cummings still has some interest--so I can only pray we will get it rented before he gets around to making an offer).

Our tenant pool hasn't been real promising. Felicity called me wanting to know if we took Section 8 and was huffy when I told her no. Wanda was none-too-happy I told her I didn't take renters who have had felony convictions. Today, Jack is showing the home to two separate parties. According to him both parties fall somewhere between marginally promising to slightly appealing. Last I heard, we aren't taking pets either.