A former property manager from Washington, D.C. recently posted this rant about a problem tenant:
“We had a tenant who had issues and liked to start problems. We believed at the time she may have been a prostitute and drug and alcohol abuser. We tried everything to get her evicted, but because D.C. is so tenant friendly, it was impossible. When she got mad at our office she would turn on her water, block the drain, and flood the apartments below her – she lived on the third floor. She did this three times in six months. We were left to pay for and clean up the damage and we still couldn’t evict her. One day she got into an argument with a gentleman outside of her apartment door, in the hallway. It turned physical and she pushed the man over the railing. He ended up dying. Still, we couldn’t evict her.”
There is no way for us to verify this story, but if you are a landlord or property manager and you are not doing background checks on your potential tenants, you are rolling the dice BIG TIME!!!