Landlord Resources / How to Avoid Criminal Behavior from your Tenants

Sally Jo tells her story of her wonderful tenant. A long term friend had a daughter who needed a place to live, so Sally Jo gave her one of her units. The girl was very quiet, always paid her rent on time, never made any repair requests. She moved her boyfriend in a year later, but he was a nice young man and never gave her any cause for concern either. In fact they had lived in the unit for a total of three years and were one of her best tenants, until that fateful day when she received the call from the police department asking her to come to the property. When she arrived, she learned that her wonderful tenants had turned the upstairs of her townhouse into a grow house and a very sophisticated one at that. They had removed all the ductwork in the unit, thermostats, the ceiling in both bedrooms and made various other adjustments to insure proper growth of their product. They were caught because their sprinkler system let go and managed to flood the neighbors unit. Rather than calling the landlord, the neighbors called the police, thus the grow house was discovered. Sally Jo was astonished that her wonderful tenants could have purported such a scheme, but worse yet was the damage to the unit. Could this have been avoided?

Below are some tips to assist in identifying potential criminal behavior:

• Do a thorough background check on all potential tenants
• If additional occupants move into the unit, screen them properly as well
• Conduct regular interior inspections of the property (a minimum of once per year)
• If there is a concern, inspect the unit with proper notification
• Have any maintenance people keep you informed of the condition of your property
• Watch for unusual behavior
• Monitor high usage of electricity or water
• Be aware if there is too much traffic going in and out of a unit.