Diabolical Tenant - Posted by Maria
Posted by Maria on April 27, 2006 at 12:21:52:
We moved out of our house in 2003, and moved to another city about 3 hours away. Because housing
prices were still screaming toward the sky, we didn’t want to sell it if we didn’t have to, so we
rented it to a family that seemed nice at the time. The first year there were no problems, and
since prices were still climbing, we signed a lease for a second year. The second year, we started
getting complaints, beginning with the dishwasher. They claimed it hadn’t worked since they moved
in, and they wanted it replaced. Since we lived in another city, we told them to take care of it,
but not to spend more than $300. Well, they bought a dishwasher that cost more than $300, but since
we’d set a limit, they had to pay the difference themselves. We did pay for the installation. Then
they said the pipes under the kitchen sink were leaking, so we asked them to take care of that and
take it out of the rent. That was a couple of hundred dollars. Then a tree out behind the house
broke some pipes back there, and it cost more hundreds to fix that. A pipe in a bathroom started
leaking, and they sent us a bill for another couple of hundred. The final straw was when they called
us and said the pool pump was making noise. Our pool man (we’d been paying him separately) said
they had let the water level in the pool drop too low, causing the pump to burn out. We had just had
a new pump put in 5 years ago, and they’re supposed to last 8 years; this cost us another $600 to
replace. Even though we could probably have argued the tenants were negligent in not maintaining the
water level, we went ahead and paid for that.
Housing prices aren’t rising so fast any more, so when the lease was up this
year, we told them to move, as we were planning to sell the house. After they
moved out, we found out that they had re-hung a door on one of the bedrooms
backward, and one of the rugs had a small stain it. They claimed that they had
re-hung the door backward (i.e., it opens right-to-left instead of left-to-
right) because the light switch was on that side, but when we lived there it was
never a problem to reach behind the door to flip the switch after you entered
the bedroom. In addition, they didn’t paint the door, and didn’t patch the
holes where the hinges for the previous door were. They said since we would
probably paint the whole house anyway to sell it, that they thought we would
take care of it. We took care of it all right. Since they never gave us a list
of “pre-existing” problems when they moved in, as required by their lease, we
presented them with a list of almost 50 problems that we “discovered” after they
moved out, including grease in the stove and soap scum in the soap dish. We
kept their entire $2000 security deposit.
We replaced the carpet in all 3 bedrooms and the hall, because it was all matching
carpet, and we couldn’t replace just the carpet in the one bedroom where there was a stain.
We also painted the entire inside of the house, so it would be easier to sell. Altogether,
we spent close to $5000 on just these two things, which we felt more than justified keeping
their $2000 deposit.
Well, they took us to small claims court, suing not for $2000 but for $6000, arguing that we had
kept their money in “bad faith” because we hadn’t given them written notice about their right to a
pre-moveout inspection, and didn’t itemize costs on the 50-item list when we kept the security
deposit. Because they had named both my husband and myself in the lawsuit, we were able to
delay it by a couple of months – first I asked for a continuance because I was having “medical
tests” that month (which was true), and then my husband asked for a continuance because he
couldn’t get off work that day, and it’s a 3-hour drive to get to court (mostly true too). We
thought we could probably get the house sold and hide the money before our former tenants got
a judgment. After two months with no offers, we lowered the price by $10,000, but it still hadn’t
sold by the time we went to court.
Yesterday, we drove up for our court date, and found out why. When we stopped by the house,
we saw that the former tenant had parked his car on the street outside our house, with signs
in the window saying “I lived here from 2003 to 2006; call me for the inside story”. We had
one of our friends call, and he’s telling people there is extensive termite damage under the
dishwasher they replaced, as well as in other parts of the house, and that the plumbing is
noisy and rotting, and that there may be black mold in one of the bathrooms. I should mention
that one of the problems we listed was that a built-in soap dish was coming loose in one of the
bathrooms. It wasn’t actually loose, but it was missing grout, and there was a half-inch space
between the dish and the wall, which he’s claiming water might have been getting in since before
they moved in. He doesn’t say there IS black mold, just that there might be, because of the
possibility that water has gotten in there. He’s also saying they found rats in the pool from a junkyard behind our property,
and that the floors aren’t level. I never saw any rats, but the neighbor behind us does
have a lot of old cars and junk on the other side of the fence, but I doubt that most buyers
would even look back there unless this nasty tenant were pointing it out to them. And it’s true
that the floors aren’t level in the patio that was enclosed, but it’s permitted, and again, I
doubt that buyers would notice if someone wasn’t calling it to their attention.
In court, it turned out that even though the tenant hadn’t made a list of pre-existing problems,
he had made a videotape, and with all the delays I guess he had time to make DVDs to show on his
laptop and prints of frames on the videos. The judge said they didn’t prove bad faith, but he did
award them $2000, which we have 30 days to appeal, and we certainly will. I’m pretty sure we
can get the house sold and closed in another couple of months, if we can get that car moved. My
husband says it’s on a public street, but I’m sure what they’re doing can’t be just a free speech
issue. They’re costing us money! What kind of restraining order or injunction should I be
pursuing to get them to stop? Is it tortous interference? Can’t we just have it towed? Please help!