I hate my rental house

[kwando]

Don't fucking scare me like that!!! I'm putting my house up for rent. I have in my lease that I can stop by anytime within reasonable hours. Plus my neighbors all know me and will call me at a drop of a dime. But I hope that my tenants are good, I know them. Have been at their current house and it's spotless.

Why did I rent it? Can't stomach selling it and "loosing" money (6-9%) in fees.

[TheGrey]

I'll post some pics when I get them off my camera; the main bathroom is a wreck. How in the hell do people live like that or the smell of pet urine...WTF! It's been a long ass day so I am done with it. I just had to mail the summary tomorrow.

Home Depot sells some excellent stuff called Odoban- that's take care of the pet urine. Use a black light to find any stains.

I'm sorry you're going through this- I'd write a rental contract that outlines everything you think should be common sense (use of trash bags, no garbage down the disposal, pet messes must be cleaned up within X hours, etc). Make sure a walk-through is required before they leave. In this market, you'll find renters easily.

I'm guessing they've lost their security deposit and their pet deposit after that list!

[ben4372]

If I rented out a property worth 6 figures to anyone, you betcha I would be really ... really involved.

Try finding a 5 figure rental round here. On a serious note. People can be terrible. I bought my house as a foreclosure. Main water shut off then they busted the valve. Extra plugged up sewer, line needed replacing. Everything stripped. Last owners were animals.

[BushMasterBoy]

Can you do a credit check before you rent or is that illegal? Also a background check for criminal record?

[Irving]

If I rented out a property worth 6 figures to anyone, you betcha I would be really ... really involved.

That's the wrong attitude for a rental. Rentals are for making money, period. Stuff is going to get broken and trashed, guaranteed. If your heart is attached to your rental (like if it was your first home), it will be very difficult for you.

[Irving]

Can you do a credit check before you rent or is that illegal? Also a background check for criminal record?

Absolutely. That is common practice, and making the applicant pay for the background check is pretty standard.

[BigBear]

People are filthy. Every time I have to go in to someone's home, I am surprised and disgusted at how humans can live...

[MED]

Can you do a credit check before you rent or is that illegal? Also a background check for criminal record?

There are several services that do criminal and credit background checks for landlords; anywhere from $25-$75 depending on what you want done.

How much are you looking to unload it for? What area?

Sorry I missed this. It is near AIrport and 6th in Aurora. I owe around $156,000 on it. If I sell, the price depends on how close it is to "as is". I need to clear $10,000 after the sale for taxes and such. I may have somebody I know rent it.

[Jer]

I had something similar in one of my rentals including photos dated before they moved in and photos the day they moved out. I had signed documents and everything you need to protect yourself as a landlord... right? Wrong. I ended up in small claims court with the lady even admitting that they had done the stuff in the photographs. The only piece they had was an 'email' supposedly between them and myself claiming I was going to return their deposit in full. It was literally a piece of paper printed out from what looked like MS Word that was supposedly an email between them and myself. No header. No details. Nothing. That was all she had. The husband didn't even show up. I brought my LEO buddy because he was in town and he wanted to see them squirm since he was privy to the evils they had committed and wanted to see the slam dunk case first hand. Judge went into his chambers after listening to both of us (including her basically admit to all the damages being committed by her and her family) and then ruled that I was to refund their security deposit in full because I lead them to believe I would as was evidenced by the 'email'. Dafuq?!?! That was the day I decided to never rent a house again. I haven't. I sleep better now. It's just not worth the stress.

tldr; Don't rent houses in Colorado because it's not 'if' you get effed by a tenant but when and how hard.

[RCCrawler]

Your list doesn't seem too bad. I used to own a good sized trailer park that I owned most of the trailers and it also had about 10 apartments. I've got stories for days.

Here is a quick list off the top of my head:
-One tenant removed the top 1 foot of drywall from the entire apartment and filled the walls with trash/dirty diapers/animals feces/food scraps.
-One tenant had so many cockroaches I went into the bedroom, pulled the sheets back and the ENTIRE surface of the bed was covered and scattered.
-Had several meth labs busted by North Metro task force.
-Evicted one guy that was a major drug user. Had to clean apartment and removed over 200 used syringes. I also think this person didn't take their trash out once for the entire 2 years they lived there, every spot you could fit a piece of trash was packed full.