
Tenants turned my property into a complete nightmare. What should I do?
TBH I thought the kids drawing on the walls would be the biggest problem. Turns out I was very, very wrong…
A few months ago I rented my house out to a family that honestly seemed great at first. Young couple, two little kids, super polite during the walkthrough, always paid rent on time, never caused any issues. They told me they had just moved to the state and wanted to stay in the area for about a year before deciding if they wanted to settle down there permanently
At the time, my biggest concern was something minor like the kids coloring on the walls or accidentally breaking something small. Annoying stuff, sure, but nothing serious.
I don’t live in that area anymore, so I wasn’t around much. Then one night, around 3 a.m., one of my old neighbors called me saying there were police cars outside my house. Apparently the couple had been having loud fights for a while, loud enough that the whole street could hear them, and this time someone finally called the cops because people were tired of getting woken up in the middle of the night.
From what I was told, during the fight the husband shoved his wife into the kitchen glass door and it completely shattered. The kitchen counters were damaged too, and somehow even the microwave got smashed. When I showed up the next morning, the place looked like a tornado had gone through it.
And honestly, the damage wasn’t even the worst part.
The smell inside the house was unbelievable...
There were dirty diapers everywhere and not just a couple, I mean piled up like they’d been sitting there for weeks. The entire place smelled so bad I almost threw up walking through the front door.
The security deposit won’t cover all the repairs needed. I’m still talking to the insurance company about this case and they don’t sound promising… But I’m for sure planning to go after that fam legally for the damage caused, but mentally I’m exhausted already
Every room in that house feels awful now. It doesn’t even feel like a home anymore. It feels like walking into a crime scene…
Lately I’ve been wondering if I should just sell the place as-is and move on with my life. I’ve looked into those companies that buy damaged houses, saw that ready door homes can do it, because I can’t picture myself fixing it up just to hand it over to another “nice family” again after this experience