On Tue, 1 Feb 2011 09:14:55 -0500, "Robert Green"
wrote:

We've been thinking of renting our current home rather than selling in this
down market while we rent in some of the places we're thinking of retiring
to. Unfortunately, movies like "Pacific Heights" where a bad tenant who
knows all the tricks of staying in a place without paying rent, haunt us.

Yesterday I saw a 'People's Court' episode where a deadbeat had managed to
stay, rent-free, in a Section 8 rental for three years by using a loophole
that says a tenant can't be evicted from Section 8 housing if there are code
violations. Every time he was about to get evicted, he just broke something
to forestall the eviction process, eventually plugging all the sinks with
rags and flooding the place.

How can you drive a bad tenant out from a rental in such situations? How do
you prevent them from completely trashing the place on their way out? I
know that tenants should be checked out thoroughly beforehand, but even so,
people can have no record of evil behavior but still turn evil. While I'd
probably NOT rent to any Section 8 tenants, I could easily see someone
losing their job or some other such tragedy and so decide they wanted to
live in my house rent-free for as long as they could get away with it.

I'll entertain all solutions, even extra-legal ones (as long as I can
implement them without getting caught!).


I can only speak for the laws here in AZ but if you are worried about
being able to get rid of them just rent on month to month leases. If
you start to see problems, either in them paying the rent on time, or
in keeping up the place, just give them their "30-day" notice. If
they stay past that you'll have to take them to court for eviction,
not much you can do about that part, no matter what you do you can't
physically throw people out, only the court can authorize it and then
you have to have the sheriff or constable do it.

Note - 30 day notices can take as long as 60 days, you have to give
them the notice BEFORE the start of the "next rental period". So if
you wait till the 2nd of Jan you have to give them notice to be out by
the end of Feb., not Jan, which will be almost 60 days.