I had a tenant who set a time to move out, but when I arrived to get the key, he thought it was a different day! Below is the story of what happened, along with a short tour of how he left the unit in the video.
Not Paying Rent
I once had a tenant who decided he didn’t want to pay his rent anymore. It happens; I get it. It’s part of being a landlord.
Now I tend to be patient and don’t go immediately to the 10-day notice. Instead, I try to figure out what’s going on. Is this a one-time problem? Or is my place no longer a good fit for them? I usually find that if I respect them and communicate well, they’re pretty open with me. We can come up with a good resolution without having to take any legal action.
In this particular case, I probably waited a little bit too long. Still, after a few phone calls, a text message, and an email, and not getting any response, I posted a termination notice on his door that he needed to be moved out by the 7th of the following month.
That got his attention.
He called me and let me know that he would be moved out by 5:30 on the 7th, which at this point, was only 4 days away.
Cool, we got a plan.
The Move Out Day
The 7th comes, and I arrive promptly at 5:30. I knock on the door, he opens it up, and bleary-eyed asks, “What’s up?” You’re kidding me, right? I’m here to do the final checkout. What do you do in moments like this? I can see just enough into the unit to tell he’s not moved out yet.
Here we go.
I tell him, “Well, I’m here to get the key, because you’re moving out.”
I kid you not, he goes, “Well, I don’t move out until the 7th.”
To which I reply, “Yeah, I know. Today is the 7th.”
He says, “Nah, today can’t be the 7th. Let me see your phone.”
I’m thinking, “Well, I’m not giving you my phone.” But I show him the date on my lock screen. Sure enough, today is the 7th.
At this point, I can panic in his eyes, “Oh my gosh, I totally screwed this up.” He says, “Oh… well… gimme 30 minutes, and I’ll be moved out.” Again, I can’t see everything, but I can see enough to know he needs more than 30 minutes to move out!
Changing Plans on the Fly
So much of being a landlord is thinking on your feet. I wouldn’t have ever guessed that he’d forget what day it was and not move out, which is why it’s so important to have your philosophy as a landlord figured out. So that when these situations arise, you can put them quickly through that filter and decide what to do.
In this case, I knew he wouldn’t finish moving out in 30 minutes. He would leave me with a truckload of stuff I didn’t want to deal with. So, I decided on the fly to say no to 30 minutes and instead give him another 24 hours.
When I finally got the keys, I’m not going to say my plan fully worked because I still found many items in the unit and the shared hallway, but it was less stuff. It’s almost as if he didn’t quite get far enough through the cleaning process and just gave up to meet the deadline.
That’s my story. Sometimes you have to deal with tenants who have no idea what day it is, and sometimes you eventually need to take stuff to the dump.