I just read an old story from January 2017.
It starts out:
“A Sioux Falls man’s home has been trashed by renters who have a history of destroying property.”
My first question is why did he rent his home to people who have a history of destroying property? And the answer is that he did not conduct any type of background check i.e. tenant screening.
The article continues:
“When you walk into Andy Gibson’s rental home on South Euclid in Sioux Falls, there’s trash and damage everywhere. He’d just remodeled the home and now believes the damage will add up into the thousands. Eight months ago he rented to George and Jennifer Zimmer and everything went okay for a while – but then he says they stopped paying their rent. He just had them evicted and that’s when he discovered the state the home was in.”
It goes on:
“They haven’t had water for two weeks. They’ve been peeing and pooping in the toilet for weeks. It hasn’t obviously flushed. There’s dog and cat pee all over from wild cats,” Gibson said. “You can’t get the smell out of your clothes after you’re here for a while either.”
That’s just awful! If this was my property I would have literally lost my mind.
The Article concludes:
“There’s even an entire website dedicated to the couple, who have seven children, where landlords share their stories called The Zimmer Experience. Gibson wishes he would have run a credit check or even just Googled their names. He suspects their landlord reference was fake.”
I also wish that Gibson would have run a credit check. I agree that the landlord reference he received was probably fake (JUST MAYBE!!!). The Zimmers have probably been evicted from every single residence they have rented. This article definitely demonstrates the necessity of running background checks (credit reports and eviction database searches) prior to renting your property to complete strangers.
Here is the link to the full article which includes pictures of the trashed house.