Yesterday while posting a P/Q notice, the door was open and I noticed where my tenant of 5 YEARS has moved out without notice. They did take their furniture with them which was nice, but still why do tenants skip out on you when you least expect it? Today, the abandonment notice will get posted and photos taken.

A month ago, the same thing happened with another tenant. No notice, they just leave whenever they get ready and could care less about the possibility of ever getting their deposit returned.

My only assumption is these people have creditors galore chasing them and changing addresses (and cell numbers) is one way to (temporarily) get the debt collectors off their backs.

Wow. 5 years. I can't imagine. Although our 2 year resident left, I can more understand his conduct (GF died in the place) but not your guy's...and why not a simple text to you..."I'm moving..."

WMH,

Last October, I had a skip-out where the tenant left everything they owned,...even 2 sets of car keys and food in the frig. That was an all day clean-out for my crew. It took 20 large plastic bags to stuff all of the clothes in and 4 pick-up truck loads to move the junk to the Salvation Army.

Roy, I think you may have guessed their reason for taking off correctly.

In July we had to do an eviction on a tenant who had a very good paying job at the Medical College. This couple made five times the rent in income.

When we walked in to do the eviction, we found they left everything behind. I mean everything; furniture; clothes still hanging in the closet (some new with tags), kitchen items (some never used), food in the frig (the latter I could have done without as I learned the power had been shut off a week and a half earlier for nonpayment), cleaning supplies, a shot gun, childrens toys, etc. etc..

Doing an eviction in mid July in Georgia with no power ain't no fun either!

There was a notice on the front door from a Rent-A-Center regarding owing back payments for a bed, 55-inch TV and lap top computer. I called them and they came to pick up the bed (the TV and computer had disappeared) so at least we didn't have to haul that to the curb.

Going through the box of unopened mail left inside were many overdue notices regarding medical bills, utilities, other furniture companies, etc. etc.. I guess they figured if you don't open the mail it doesn't exist?

So if the bills pile up high enough some folks figure they simply move to avoid them.

Gail

I just called the water dept and this tenant had called the water dept. last Friday to have the water service discontinued. That is all of the proof I need to prove Abandonment.

Don't feel bad, Roy. I've had it happen a few times too. Not recently though, thanks to tighter screening standards. Still, people sometimes make choices that make no sense to me.

It's not just tenants either. A gal at my church woke up one morning to find her husband of 4 years "just left." According to her, it was a total surprise. They hadn't had any knock down, drag out fights or arguments. Some financial stress, but nothing serious like a job loss or pending foreclosure. They had a daughter together. He disappeared: no forwarding address, phone number disconnected...gone. He only took a few hundred bucks cash and a couple changes of clothes. Maybe it was a mid-life crisis and he found a young money mama somewhere to spice up his life. Maybe he got some bad medical news and never shared it and decided it was "now or never" to start checking off the old bucket list.

Roy---you should at least report his debt to the credit reporting agencies which you can do through this site---no judgment needed.

I have done this on occasion when a tenant literally "disappeared" ---at least I have the satisfaction knowing that it is out there on the credit reporting sites and it will follow them around.

From time to time someone on this site will tell a story about a long gone deadbeat tenant all of a sudden wanting to pay to get the credit report changed to "paid"--like they are trying to buy something or pass a background check for a job or something--you never know!

When you really look at the situation didn't you make out great?

Five years of solid rent and not one day you have to waste evicting the person.

Roy,

Same thing happens to us. Sometimes it is at the end of their lease but usually it's whenever the mood strikes them. We had a lot of this back when Internet chat rooms were the thing.

Had a resident who went in for surgery but never came out. No family to give us any notice or clean up. Their employer would not give us any information but after repeated calls and requests the employer finally said you might want to check the obituaries.

And some people may have been threatened so they pack a bag and run.

Bet makes a great point. Sometimes we can get one more payment through auto draft.

Friendly nudge: In regard to the ZT discussion you would have known about this seven days ago, one fourth of the month.

Like Lee said in his ZT post this gets easier when you finally get mad enough to say I'm not going to let them take advantage of me anymore.

We always file. It goes on the record and we can work toward getting payment. Sometimes we just get a check with interest out of the blue. With basic cleanup and repairs added to the bill it will be more than just the rent.

BRAD

Roy, why not sue for $550+clean up+legal fees+ whatever else that you are out?

If I file for eviction, that means I can't clean and re-rent the house until the Writ of Possession comes. That is a minimum 24 days here. If the deadbeat wants a court date, add another 2-3 weeks to the 21 days.

This is 3 bedroom house in a good neighborhood. I can re-rent this house as soon as I get it cleaned out and repainted which is less than one week. I can collect 1/2 rent for August and be back in the game. Filing for an eviction on an empty house would be plain stupid.

My biggest issue with suing any deadbeat tenant is that even though I may win the case and get a judgment,...MY TIME in dealing with the court system is never

recovered. If I were add 6 hours of MY TIME @ $100.00/hour to what the tenant owes me,...the judge would laugh me out the door! I would rather spend my time in getting the house fixed and re-rented than wasting MY TIME at the courthouse.

Now, if the tenant left owing me thousands of dollars in repairs or back rent, yes, I would spend my time in suing that worthless SOB.

I agree with Roy about chasing the deadbeat. I can recover for the rent for eight days of August, but not for the 30 days and certainly not September. Plus court costs and the amount by which the cleanup exceeds the SD. But MY time will not be reimbursed, and MY time is valuable to me.

So I would get in there immediately, clean it up and get a new tenant in as soon as possible.

Sid and others,

When someone's credit rating is well below Par, (fico 550 or lower), another ding on that credit rating is not going mean a hill of beans to this person. So why should I waste my time in reporting these folks to a credit bureau?

This tenant paid me rent on the due date for 60 months straight and not one time did they every call me to fix something. That is the 'big picture' here and I hope I can find another tenant just like this one.

Roy, I think in some instances, these folks know they are stiffing you, and they are trying to assuage their guilt by kidding themselves that they are leaving behind these treasures that you can sell for a huge amount and make you whole for their arrears. Is a psychological defense mechanism that plays into their impulsive tendancies "let's go to Vegas, baby" mentality.

I've only had one person leave everything. And I mean everything. ID documents, clothing, furniture. Was just totally weird. This was a few years ago. Then the guy called like about a year later wanting his stuff. I actually still had most of it in my storage, just hadn't gotten around to tossing it out.

Told him he could come get it. He never showed up, never called again. I finally tossed his photos and sold or threw out the rest of the stuff. I rode his bicycle for several years. I have his desk lamp lighting my computer as a I type.

Another fellow was a fine tenant. Then one day I realized I hadn't seen his car for awhile and I noticed his electric meter was missing. (The ElectCo pulls the meters here.) So I made entry. Vacant unit, with a few pieces of furniture left. Wiped down the unit, posted the door for 5 days and rerented.

Strangest story though - I once went to a sheriff boat auction in Newport Beach CA. There was about a 30 foot sailboat on the auction block. Nobody wanted it because it was trashed. After the auction was over one guy offered the auctioneer $20 for the boat. Sold! I was curious so went to look it over with him. As we went inside it was like the owner left in the middle of a meal. There was food on the table. We asked if he'd been arrested or something. The deputy said no, they just found the boat like that after non payment of slip fees.

As we went through the boat we found about 600 feet of new anchor line (like $1 a foot) anchors, all the sails, electronics, in short, everything you'd need to sail the boat. I should have bought it, scrapped the crub off the bottom, grabbed some friends and beer and sailed it to Mexico! Then just given it to the first person we found and caught a flight home! LOL

Learned a great life lesson, when a great opportunity or adventure slaps you in the face you need to go with it! :-)

I often ask myself.....should I throw good money at bad?

They just don't want a lecture, or confrontation. Running away from problems. Like NE said, because they are tenants.

Sorry to hear you lost a great tenant like that. Try not to take it personally. They are just worried about themselves.

I had one that left all the keepsake pictures of her kids and lots of personal stuff.

Lots of people have mental problems. They may have messed up their medications or had some psychotic episode.

Moving is hard. Easier to just leave and start over.

Just had a tenant move to a new unit in the same building. Tenant threw away most of their stuff and bought all new stuff.

Is it worth filing and pursuing?

LLs lose a ton of money by not managing the move out.

My move out statement would look like this:

$550 Rent

$150 Late fee

$550 Rent during the required 30 day notice period

$150 Late fee

$1000 = 4 x $250 per room to repaint

$200 Cleaning

$200 Repairs to resident caused damage

$1100 Early Release Fee

$250 Filing Fee

-550 Deposit

_________

$3450 Total Due plus court and atty costs if they do not pay.

BRAD

Key point: Our screening criteria includes GARNISHABLE? so we only rent to folks with jobs.

Sure, they can lose those jobs but we do not start with known non-collectible applicants.

Lisa,

Scroll down to JUDGEMENTS by LEE[IN] AUG 6.

Brad20K,

AL there are a few reasons they do this. #1 being when -- just starting out in life-- no one ever rolled up that news paper and slapped them across the nose. (like you'd train your puppy)

#2 They are not made to pay what they owe because LL's don't think it's worth it. Think Brad and a few others pointed out why you should pursue.