Devious Renters

I was recently widowed when I decided I needed a little extra income. We had a mobile home on the backside of our five acre property that we rented out occasionally, but it had been vacant for the past several months during my husband's illness. This mobile home sat just a few feet back from the tree line where our property ended, and beyond that were several acres of undeveloped land. We often talked about having this home removed and relinquishing the rental property.

Much to my dismay, I decided to rent it out again, so I ran an ad in the local community paper.

From all appearances, Chad and Linda seemed to be very nice people and desperately needed a place to live. I felt that they were genuinely truthful so I fore went the background and credit checks. On the weekend they moved in, I was out of town finalizing some unfinished business of my late husband's, so it wasn't until the next morning that I discovered that they were a family of seven. They didn't tell me this when I interviewed them; they said they had two small children, which wasn't a lie, they just left out the part that they had three teenagers. They confessed that they were not truthful because they were afraid of being turned away.

So, being a compassionate fool, I let them stay.

After a couple of months passed they began having trouble meeting the rent. I reluctantly let the first month slide and then began to be very concerned when the second month was due and they still could not pay. Chad said he was between jobs but assured me that they would have the rent by the middle of the month.

That following Friday they went to a Flea Market to set up a booth. They left their oldest in charge of the children. I had no idea that the children were alone until Monday morning the oldest knocked on my door and asked if I she could use the phone to call her parents. She then told me that they do this often, but are usually back by Saturday night. Fearing the worst, I decided to call the law.

While I was on the phone they showed up with a story that the car broke down and they had to walk the thirty miles back home, had no money, their phone was shut off, yada, yada, yada... I was furious; I knew they were lying. I told them this wasn't working and they had to vacate the property. Chad begged me to give them another chance and assured me he was going to pick up his car and would be starting a night job on Thursday. I said OK, but they still had to be out by the end of the month. No more extensions.

A couple of days passed and one evening my neighbor was riding his four wheeler in the woods behind my property. He noticed some strange activity in my renters' backyard along with an old box truck that had been painted over to conceal the truck's logo. Evidently this was brought in when I wasn't home. I had no idea they had a truck in their back yard.

My neighbor said he purposely watched Chad for several nights. It turns out that Chad was stealing computers, car parts, anything electrical and stripping them for their copper wire for recycling. My neighbor told me there was a pile of stripped out appliances and broken glass where Chad tried to conceal them in a deep burn pit. He said he also had a suspicion that the truck might be stolen; so this time I called the law, and sure enough my neighbor was right; but the secret that the truck held was revolting.

The truck had been stolen and painted over to conceal the logo; and not only was it used to hide the merchandise as they were brought in; it was used to store their garbage!!!

They had never set up their garbage pick-up. When the authorities came to clear the contents of the truck, it was disgusting. Rotting garbage!! The smell was awful. As you can imagine, the truck had to be fumigated before it could be taken away.

In turns out that Chad had several warrants and Linda was his accomplice. What a mess. The children were taken away by DCF, and Chad and Linda went to jail, and I was fined by the garbage company.

This experience taught me a very valuable lesson: be smart, especially when you're dealing with rental property. Not only have background and credit checks done, but make sure the proper utilities are set up and most of all: check your backyard!!!