Rookie Landlord

[Snakeadelic]

BigV, I've been in the same apartment for coming up nine years the middle of this October.

If you don't use a property manager to screen tenants, here is my advice:

1. Get and check rental references. If they're youngsters without a solid history, get and check character references as allowed by local landlord-tenant laws.

2. DO NOT allow subletting. Ever. Look up AirBnB horror stories to learn why.

3. Consider pets carefully! A well-behaved dog or cat is no big deal...but if someone has 3 enormous dogs, you can probably kiss any fancy landscaping goodbye. If someone has more than maybe 3 cats, odds are there will be litterbox usage failures (a/k/a the "Say It With Pee" school of communication). Medium and large parrots are extremely loud and can be astonishingly destructive. Even cage/tank pets should be considered carefully; rodents can get loose and wreak havoc on wiring. Fish tanks that aren't properly assembled & maintained can start fires or break and ruin carpets and the flooring under them--I'm allowed to have my small snakes without a pet deposit, but the complex does not allow birds or any size of fish tank at all and requires a pet deposit on rodents last I checked. I could get evicted if I got caught with a betta in a nano-tank on my computer desk!

4. Be especially careful to check references and stories and such during the summer! Families with kids often won't move during a school year. Also, be careful about how many kids vs. how many rooms--many states have laws establishing at what age mixed-gender kids can no longer share a room. When I lived in Seattle-ish years ago, when one kid hit 5 they could no longer share a room with a sibling of the other gender. And kids can be every bit as destructive as pets, but you'll get NO sympathy evicting a family with little kids no matter the damage they do to the property.

That's what I can think of off the top of my head.