Landlord Products / Services
Well, fuck me sideways. My ex tenants’ got me good this time.
This incident actually happened a few weeks ago, but I’ve only just had time to tell the tale. I’m not sure if it’s amusing or frustrating. Perhaps you should tell me…
I recently conducted a final inspection with a tenant that had vacated and moved on.
Fortunately, everything appeared to be fine; there was no damage to the property (at least from what I could tell), and everything seemed to be clean, so I returned the security deposit. All was good in the hood.
A few days later I went back to the property to do a bit of light maintenance work, nothing major. After I was done for the day, I went to the front of the house to dispose of rubbish into the wheelie bins. That’s when I noticed that one of the wheelie bin’s was filled to the brim. At the top of the pile was an overused “welcome” floor mat, a plastic dish holder, an array of rusty cutlery, and copious amounts of empty plastic bags. I dare not move anything around with my bare hands to see what laid deeper.
I really should have checked the wheelie bins while I was doing the inspection (I usually do), because I had already declared the property as vacant with the local housing office so I could benefit from Council Tax Exemption, but that meant I was going to benefit from bin collection services.
Additionally, I already confirmed with the tenant everything was ok and returned their deposit, so I couldn’t recall them to clean up their shit. My only option was to accept my fate; to get my hands dirty and dispose of the crap myself. To add insult to injury, the rubbish wasn’t disposed into black bin liners, everything was just tossed directly into the bin. Great!
The next day I returned to the property with 3 heavy duty bin liners and a pair of rubber gloves. Item by item, I slowly started transferring everything into bin liners so I could take them to my local skip.
You can tell a lot by going through someone’s rubbish
My tenants clearly loved, lived and shit baked beans and eggs, because the bin was FULL of empty egg shells and bean cans. I also learned the following…
Careless/dangerous
They left a half full gas torch in the bin. Smart!
Sexually active. Nice!
I found an empty box of 12 “variety” condoms.
On a side note, it’s interesting that amongst the different performance types and fittings, there’s 3 “strawberry” flavoured ones.
They like to get freaky!
Laying next to the condoms I found a pack of handcuffs.
I’ll NEVER look at my ex tenants’ in the same light. The thought of them having sex was unsettling enough, but now they’re doing it with hand cuffs and leather gimps suits.
Imagine two people you can’t imagine having sex (e.g. YOUR PARENTS) looking like this:
DON’T BLAME ME! Blame my ex tenants! They did this!!! They did this. If I have to suffer with those horrific thoughts/images, then so do you… I’m taking you all down with me!
Right, I’m off to inflict a head injury on myself. Hopefully that will dislodge my short term memory.
Update
I should have made the following clear. In hindsight, it was naïve of me not to explain the situation properly, because I should have known this blog post would have triggered emotions, particularly in regards to “why” I went through my tenants rubbish.
So just to clarify, and perhaps to sway some of those who are raged, I feel I had to go through my tenant’s rubbish and dispose of it because:
- I didn’t know how long the property would be vacant for, so I needed to dispose of the rubbish in case it started smelling and/or attracting rodents.
- I had to empty the contents of the bin by hand, because as said, the tenants didn’t use black bags. There was no other option. I didn’t WANT to do it, believe me! It took ages! And completing the task blind-folded seemed impractical, albeit more noble.
- How would you feel as a new tenant, if you arrived at a property that had bins full up of stinking rubbish? Bear in mind, when people move into a house, they need the bins to dispose of boxes/wrapping etc.
Disclaimer: I'm just a landlord blogger; I'm 100% not qualified to give legal or financial advice. I'm a doofus. Any information I share is my unqualified opinion, and should never be construed as professional legal or financial advice. You should definitely get advice from a qualified professional for any legal or financial matters. For more information, please read my full disclaimer.
Went to view a house for sale. The tenants had obviously done a bunk and shut the door on the pets. Dead dog in the bedroom, cat in the kitchen etc. NICE
I am having images of old people in gimp suits thanks to you. The vinyl is squeaking against vinyl. Heartless b'stard
Stayed in a hotel (formule1) that had a jizz filled jonny in the bed. Thats worse that a tenants rubbish being in the bin!