My wife has a house of her own in Houston. But we have been staying at her family’s home in Sugar Land. This is because she has been renting it out to a tenant for the past while. However, he recently became a terrible tenant. Chiefly because he hasn’t paid the rent in three months. Well, he tried to pay, but he used a counterfeit money-order, so that didn’t go so well.
At one point we went to check on it and discovered a river flowing from the backyard out to the street. Their dogs had chewed a water pipe and it was gushing water. It was difficult to discuss with the tenant because they hide in the house. Fortunately, they had neglected to change the combination on the door code, so we used that to check if they were okay due to the water issue. That brought them out of hiding and we were able to effect repairs.
We eventually were able to get them out legally. My wife got a court order, but they seemed agreeable to leaving beforehand so the police were not needed to be involved. My wife is a professional and kept a cordial relationship with the tenant and never sounded angry, so thankfully he didn’t do any deliberate damage. He does look very sketchy with plated teeth and many rings.
The non-deliberate damage was still traumatic. They let the dogs defecate on the carpets and had made no effort to clean it. They let their child use markers on the wall. Air conditioning filters were never replaced. Cheap security cameras were installed with screws that had become stripped.
The pool was a swampy mess. Apparently the pool cleaner had decided to move away several months ago and had told the tenant, but the information was never passed along. We also think the tenant was messing with the filters.
The tenant left on the first of the month, and we witnessed the departure as my wife’s family wanted the locks changed immediately. I saw them pack some of their belongings (the girlfriend was wearing an ankle monitor) but they left a lot of stuff behind. We used their contact information to try to arrange for them to take it, but they have never responded.
Over the last month we have been trying to clean the place up. All of old furniture was placed in the garage. While going through the drawers of a dresser, there was a semi-secret drawer that held a lot of (presumably) fake identification. There was also a notebook with names, address and social security numbers of multiple people. My first instinct was that this should go to the police, but my wife has more experience in this matter and had been proven that the police will not do anything.
In the meantime we have replaced all the carpets, and even put some nice new flooring in the master bedroom. It is almost looking livable.
Apparently the garbage collection here is very good because they actually will take large pieces of furniture, but only two at a time. So when we go to the property to do some cleaning, we try and go the day before garbage collection so we can slowly get rid of stuff. We did keep some of the smaller stuff to take to goodwill, but the larger stuff would cost too much money to transport.
One day, we left out an office chair in the morning, and then noticed it was gone an hour later. In this neighbourhood, people will take things before garbage can collect them. So, we put out a small chest of drawers to replace the chair. Soon a couple came in the car and asked if they could take it. Great! Did they want the two bigger chest of drawers? They did! They did several trips to collect them all, but soon the biggest pieces in the garage were gone.
Since then I’ve seen a clearly broken (grass cracked) flat-screen TV disappear. An old monitor soon followed. The garage got cleared up quickly with that.
Then a friend of my wife had some relationship difficulty and wanted something to occupy his mind, and he offered to help us move. We rented a U-Haul and were able to completely empty the storage lockers and bring them to the new place in under four hours. We just dumped everything in the garage, so we still need to place things inside, but the house is starting to look habitable.
My wife has a new pool guy (actually her original pool guy from awhile ago) and we saw him taking care of the pool. It is looking much better. However, my wife was trying to impress him with her Vancouver knowledge of cannabis. Note: Do not argue with your pool guy about cannabis.
I think the biggest barrier to moving in right now is internet access so that we can do our jobs. That should be happening early next week.