A while ago, Rachelle from Landlord Rescue published her Tenant From Hell story over at Money Smarts Blog. I responded with mine, about the tenant who tried to fight me over a security deposit dispute. While this story involves a creepy roommate, he did live in my house and pay me rent, so let’s stretch things a bit and call him a tenant.
Shortly after I bought my house in 2008, I was on a bit on a kick to try to minimize all my expenses. Maybe I was scared because my mortgage payment was so much higher than it ever was when I bought any of my rental properties. Maybe it was because I was scared that self employment isn’t the most stable of incomes. Once I crunched the numbers, I realized that with both a basement and upstairs tenant, I could have all my expenses covered, effectively living for nothing. Having a great basement tenant made me think of how easy the whole situation would be, especially considering how little time I spent at home back then. So I put the word out.
A couple of weeks later, I was introduced to a junior high teacher. In his early 30s, J.E. seemed like a great choice of a roommate. He was pleasant, respectful, as well as professional and a bit of a geek. He came highly recommended from a teacher I know. While he seemed a little weird, I dismissed it to trying a little too hard to make a good first impression.
It started with most Friday nights when J.E. would want to “go get a case of beer each and get completely hammered.” Now I have nothing against a casual drink, but I am completely against drinking for the sake of getting drunk. I told him this, yet he kept persisting. When I asked him why he wanted to get drunk so bad he replied with “so I can hit on women without making an ass of myself.” Let’s let the irony of that sink in for just a second.
Okay, so he’s a little awkward around humans, especially the ladies. That’s not the worst thing in the world, right?
A couple of weeks after that, we decided that we’d invite some people over to watch the UFC fight. I invited about a dozen people (of which 11 showed up, totally surpassing my expectations of, oh, about 2) and J.E. invited, well, nobody. While watching UFC J.E. did the following:
a) Asked about 80% of the people in the room if they’d like to hang out sometime.
b) Commented many times about how he could see a certain fighter’s “package” through his tight shorts. It got to the point where I questioned his sexuality, mostly to shut him up.
c) He sat very, very close to somebody’s girlfriend, while the boyfriend was sitting barely 6 feet away.
For the next couple of weeks, I had to endure relentless teasing for living with such a creepy roommate. But that was only the tip of the iceberg.
One day, he didn’t go to school. He wasn’t sick, so naturally I was confused. I chalked it up to taking a personal day, maybe to deal with some sort of stress he didn’t want to tell me about. I didn’t really sweat it, until it happened for the next 3 days. Then I happened to spot him going to a lawyer’s office. And to top it all off, he didn’t come out of his room.
Finally on the 5th day, there were boxes stacked up by the door. I knocked on his door, no answer. I told him that I was going to sit on the couch and I wasn’t going anywhere until he came out and told me what was going on.
Eventually he came out. To make a long story short, he was accused of something (he refused to tell me what) that was very serious and the school basically fired him over it. He said he absolutely didn’t do what he was accused of and it was all a witch hunt to get rid of him. After going to a lawyer to see what his legal rights were, he decided to just leave town. 12 hours later, J.E. had left for good. He had been in town for a total for 3 months.
I heard rumors of what he has accused of and let’s just say it wasn’t good. I sincerely hope they weren’t true. And since then I’m avoided the roommate thing. Having someone in my basement is enough thanks.
Oh dear goodness.. that story takes the cake!
I wonder what he was accused of…
At least you lived mortgage free for three months!
I'm in the process of gutting out the new house I bought and I can't decide whether I want a 2 bedroom basement suite or change it to a three bedroom.
If I do the three bedroom, there will be three roommates living with each other.. that means three personalities and potential weirdos!
I hope to share some tenant from hell stories (well maybe not?) if I get any.
Go with the 2 bedroom I'd say. Less roommates is a good thing. You'll make more money with a 3 bedroom though. It's tough to say whether the extra cash is worth the headaches. Maybe for you it is, but I decided it wasn't.As for what he did, I just hope the rumors weren't true. If they were, well, that's just bad.Good work buying a place with a basement suite. Well done.
I think most places here in Vancouver have basement suites. Actually in Burnaby (a suburb of Vancouver) had TWO basements suites! Both were equally huge.
Yeah, we decided to go with 2. Less personalities is better. Maybe we'll be lucky and get a nice stable small family or couple.
To be honest, the most shocking part of this article was the fact that you have 11 friends! 😉
Kidding!
I think it's hard to separate good tenants from not-so-good tenants when they mostly appear pretty normal. I mean, nobody is perfect – if you look hard enough, then no prospective tenants will make the cut.
Great story – if nothing else, at least it ended fairly quickly. Most renter stories are protracted events where a drawn-out eviction is part of the process.
Mike
You nailed it. Every tenant is going to do things that annoy you, things that are only magnified if they live with you. So you either put up with it or stop putting up with it. I learned that I'm okay with someone in my basement, but not living upstairs with me.
I have some tenant from hell stories too. So much so, that I started a whole new blog! Can I please reprint your story? It would be on mytenantfromhell.com 🙂
Absolutely! I have another tenant from hell story here:
Go ahead and reprint them both. I'll have to add mytenantfromhell.com to my reader.
http://financialuproar.com/2010/06/09/my-worst-te…
There's my other tenant from hell story 🙂
Thank you! Your repost is scheduled for February 15. I'll link back to the original story.
“Once he learned that one of my friends worked at a certain grocery store, he changed his shopping habits to ensure a grocery store meet-up” — hahaha, I purposely avoid grocery stores where I know people. Poor guy was probably lonely and just wanted friends.