The Joys of Renting

No, I don't mean renting from someone, I mean renting to someone.  Rewind about 13 months and I was looking to rent out a townhouse I own a few blocks from a local college.  I happened to be really busy and didn't want to go long without having a tenant in the property.  I ended up renting it to a family that deep down I knew wouldn't take good care of it.

I have paid the price.  They moved out without notice and left my place in pieces.  It was completely filthy, horribly stained carpet, every surface was nasty, holes in the carpet, all the blinds ruined, and full of garbage.  I wasn't looking forward to it but I rolled up my sleeves and spent all day Saturday cleaning it up. 

I used all the resources I could.  I hired someone to do the cleaning while I moved junk out and worked on shampooing the carpets.  It was an extremely long day and I will never, ever rush into renting to someone again.  I now have about 6 years of renting experience under my belt and I am still learning lessons.  It never pays to make exceptions or take short cuts when it comes to being a landlord.  Here is what I dealt with.

I also used the power of craigslist in order to get everything hauled off.  It really is true that one mans garbage is another mans treaure.  Thanks to the high price of metals and being to able to recycle it and get paid, some nice family hauled off all of the junk for me. They were going to sort through everything that came out, use some of it, sell some of it, and recycle some of it.  Thank you random craigslist family!!