Reply from landlord: Wow. I had no idea you were moving. When did you give notice?
Tenant: Our lease is up.
Landlord (After banging head against tile wall of bathroom shower where she'd gotten this text early on a Monday): Yes but it automatically renews. You still need to give us notice... Good thing this wasn't the reverse situation. Imagine if I had called up and said, “Hi, I have someone moving in tomorrow. Make sure you're out!” That would have gone over like a lead balloon.
I made the decision right there not to engage the tenant further. You can't fix stupid, so there's no sense in trying to educate them on how the world actually works. Of course they won't see a dime of their security, but I want them far away from my property with the locks changed and the utilities back in my name before I tell them that, so they don't trash the place like a couple of rock stars.
My week was fucked. I had just taken a deep cleansing breath after successfully landing a tenant for the other half of this same house – my former tenant couldn't afford the rent after a job loss and at least communicated with me to work out a solution: http://thisgingerjustsnapped.weebly.com/blog/more-musings-about-rental-vacancies
Then Saturday I had nailed down a small deposit on one of my hard-to-rent white elephants over by Wilkes University: http://thisgingerjustsnapped.weebly.com/blog/the-landlord-triathlon
These units are harder to rent due to the high price, but they are uniquely large apartments in which I pay the heat. Of course now that I have the deposit in hand, we're getting all kinds of leads from the Zillow Rental Manager posting and the fliers I posted around campus – the college kids are starting to look for apartments again.
The point is, I thought I was done! The empties were rented, and now I could get back to my regularly scheduled life. Now the dishes won't pile up in the sink, and I can finally fold that mountain of clean laundry on the guest room bed. Maybe I can even reschedule that facial I had to cancel. Life was good on Monday morning. I bounced out of bed at 5am looking forward to a day of moving forward in my business. And then I got that damn text at 7:25am.
What to Do (and What Not to Do) When a Tenant Moves Out Unexpectedly
Don't threaten. They're going to leave no matter what you say, and you can bet they won't pay you a dime of what you're owed, no matter what dire threats you make. Keep it business-like and friendly. No promises of return of security deposit, but it's OK in my book to lead them to believe they'll get it back. The object of this game is to get them away from your investment property with as little damage as possible, so you can re-rent it quickly and cut your losses. You may even cajole them into giving you their forwarding address, so you can send the “security deposit settlement.” That's the piece of paper detailing what damages, if any, their deposit was used to cover, and either a check for the rest or a bill for the balance not covered.
These geniuses of mine are getting a bill. They left me with a flea infestation! One we did not discover until later Monday night when my husband walked through the unit to take pictures for Zillow Rental Manager. They left the place reasonably clean, for which I was grateful. But the semi-finished basement was obviously where their dog lived. With the main source of meat moved out, the fleas were starving, and jumped all over my husband! Our exterminator couldn't get there until Wednesday morning, so Steve set off some commercial flea bombs. I always suspected that stuff doesn't actually work, and it did not. The exterminator later told me it only pisses the fleas off. Not only did we have to cancel all the showings we booked for Tuesday, but the fleas jumped over to the other half of the double block house, delaying the move-in of my new tenant. So now I had to pay a professional exterminator to spray two apartments, and I had to give my new tenant a $50 rent credit. FML!
I'm probably going to have to buy her a Wal-Mart gift card on top of it. I felt so bad for the new tenant I actually suffered insomnia Tuesday night.
The exterminator came at 7am Wednesday and our handyman vacuumed up three levels of two apartments Wednesday afternoon. We resumed our showings at 5pm Wednesday. We still had a lot of leads from when the other half was for rent. And when I put this one up on ZRM it was better than a flea bomb explosion – so many leads! By Thursday morning I had two deposits in hand, one which I gave back because the prospect did not quite have the income.
What to do and what not to do when a tenant moves out unexpectedly – a review:
*Don't threaten. Be nice as pie. Lull them into a false sense of security that you're really the doormat they think you are and you will give them full security back, and soon. Just get them out of your unit. Then, change the locks and turn the utilities back into your name in case there are any questions about possession. Also, screenshot any text communications. If they're stupid enough to pay to take you to court for their security back, you'll want to come armed.
*Do get in there as soon as possible and assess the damage. Is it showable? Does it smell funny? Are there any bugs? Get all issues taken care of ASAP so you can show the unit. It doesn't have to be perfect, you can show it before it's all repainted. Just clean up the obvious.
*Don't schedule any showings before you do the aforementioned walk-through and have fixed the issues. And if there are bugs, call in the pros. Don't bother with commercially available pest control. It's a waste of money.
*Do start advertising and scheduling showings as soon as possible. You'll want to recoup your losses by re-renting swiftly. If you're lucky you'll land a qualified tenant who wants to move in mid-month, so you won't lose a whole month's rent. Sure you can keep your defecting tenant's security deposit to cover that rent, but chances are you won't be reimbursed for any damages or the time and expense of advertising, so re-renting quickly is the best scenario.
*Don't just take anyone to get it rented quickly. Do your due diligence and select the right tenant. You don't want to have to go through this again for awhile!
Text from a former tenant, 12:26pm, Thursday, August 3rd: Hey Kelly, did you get a chance to do your walk through? I'm sorry for nagging, I just need the security deposit for our new place.
I may just send them a link to this blog post as my reply.