Things Tenants Do to Annoy Me (or Make Sure I Won't be Granting Them Any Favors).

1. Lie. What really gets me about this particular item is the tenants know I am 1,700 miles away. So, if they tell me the ugly truth, not much is really going to happen. At least not right away. But, by telling me a stupid lie, not only are they guaranteeing something will happen. But, it won't be pretty.
Case in point: if you don't have the rent money until next Wednesday. Just say so. Telling me you just stuck the check in the mail last Friday when I will actually be receiving it next week, only bugs me--especially after I repeatedly go to the post office to check. You are then officially branded a liar. I don't trust liars. I don't bend over to keep liars living in my home. In fact, I encourage them to leave.

2. Ignore me. If I am trying to get in touch with tenants, and they don't return phone calls, letters or e-mails, I will go to more extreme measures. This includes (but isn't limited to) hiring people (such as Red the process server) to check out if the tenant has moved. If they haven't he will then slap a legal-looking notice on their door.

I have also been known to call the local police department and ask for a welfare check on an unresponsive tenant. That got a return phone call from the wayward tenant pretty quickly.

3. Not give me a way to contact you. I prefer three methods of contact with tenants. Mail, phone and e-mail.

In fact, I have a new unwritten rule: I don't rent to people who won't give me their e-mail address. If you have a Facebook account (and I now check), you have an e-mail address. I promise not to pepper you with chain letters, urban myths and jokes that have been recycled cyberly for the past 10 years (though the one titled "You know you live in Arizona when..." is pretty entertaining). In fact, I promise not to contact you at all if I don't need to. All I am asking for is a way to have a discussion if something breaks or there is a problem.

4. Don't expect me to solve your problems. Dear tenants who have lots of bad stuff happening to you: It IS your fault. You are responsible for your own mess. You are the foremost expert on your life. Figure it out and get back to me.

Ms. Betty's comment, asking me how she was supposed to pay the electricity and the rent is classic. Or even more outrageous, Mrs. Spring's comment asking how she could possibly pay her security deposit when she had to buy her 4 year old granddaughter a present was beyond bizarre. Sadly these aren't the only ones to burden me with their conundrums.

5. And speaking of burdening, dear tenant, don't. I don't want to hear how all your bills are due on the same day and that's why rent is late. I don't want to know about how you have to pay for school supplies for your children and that is why you can't come up with a portion of your rent--let alone ALL of your rent.

While we are on this topic, let me ask you this. Would you want me calling you right after you sent in your rent check and say, "I have a problem, I spent your rent money on a fabulous vacation and now your home is going into foreclosure, so it looks like you have to move next week."?

Let's live by this simple rule; My problems are mine; yours are yours.

6. Bouncing checks. Keeping a check book is simple elementary school math. Addition and subtraction. I understand sometimes we are all human and checks bounce. But it better not happen more than once.

7. Holding my rent hostage. This has happened once. The tenant in question was upset because I didn't make some minor cosmetic repair to the home they wanted made. So, she didn't pay me. I never agreed to the repair (a patch of drywall wasn't repaired expertly and they wanted the whole thing done again--even though it was behind their sofa and had been like that since before I bought the home). This happened in Arizona. In Arizona it is illegal to withhold rent for any reason. Even for a stupid $50 drywall patch. The tenant finally saw the whole thing my way when I sent her the Arizona Landlord-Tenant Act. 

I am sure there are other things that irritate me to no end as well. But, these are the biggies. It is amazing how far I will give for someone who can manage to avoid the list above.