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Tenant wants to break lease becasuse she doesn't get along with neighbor!

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papashaq

Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? WI

Hi all, I have a tenant that lives in a house next to a duplex that I own. She and one of the tenants in the duplex do not get along. From what I understand there are name calling and childish acts going back and forth between the both of them. I have talked to both tenants and told them to ignore each other and do their own thing. The tenant in the house has 9 months left on her lease and she wants to move. She owes back rent and I think that this is her way of not paying it, but I could be wrong. Either way she wants to break the lease and thinks I should let her out with no consequences.

Do I have to let her out because of the neighbors harassment? Is it my job to babysit the two neighbors, I mean am I legally obligated to do something in the situation when two neighbors don't get along? Or is this something the police should settle? Thanks in advance.
 


HomeGuru

Senior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? WI

Hi all, I have a tenant that lives in a house next to a duplex that I own. She and one of the tenants in the duplex do not get along. From what I understand there are name calling and childish acts going back and forth between the both of them. I have talked to both tenants and told them to ignore each other and do their own thing. The tenant in the house has 9 months left on her lease and she wants to move. She owes back rent and I think that this is her way of not paying it, but I could be wrong. Either way she wants to break the lease and thinks I should let her out with no consequences.

Do I have to let her out because of the neighbors harassment? Is it my job to babysit the two neighbors, I mean am I legally obligated to do something in the situation when two neighbors don't get along? Or is this something the police should settle? Thanks in advance.
**A: sue the one tenant for the back rent. That should be your primary concern.
 

papashaq

Member
email from one of the tenants

Yes, I am going after the money, but not sure what to do with the neighbor situation. Here is a letter from the tenant in the house that I just got, the tenants in the duplex have lived there for 13 years and pay the rent diligently, and I don't foresee them going anywhere for awhile. The house she lives in is hard to rent for what she is paying. How would you handle this letter if you got it from one of your tenants?

--- On Mon, 10/20/08, Tina <tenant in [email protected]> wrote:

From: Tina <tenant in [email protected]>
Subject: East ave residents
To: [email protected]
Date: Monday, October 20, 2008, 1:57 PM

Ok Jason so the good news. It looks like by the end of the week I should be able to give you my remaining balance.!!!!!!! Yea.!!!
Now...On to crazy people. I understand you can only do so much as a landlord. But You must also understand that It's also your job to ensure theres no trouble going on on your property's. This is how my Sunday went jason. Your a dad so maybe you can relate. A police officer show up and tells me duplex tenant has called them and notified them that my children had pee'd on her plants. Ok so I am in no way making excuses for my boys..they can be....boys.lol to say the least. They admited to peeing on a plant by where the x-tenants on otherside of duplex used to live. X-tenants on otherside of duplex used to let them pee on the side of the house during the summer. Anyways. First off...she had to call the cops for that? who does that? She couldnt come over and tell me? I did nothing to these people.
The cop said he had talked to her and at first she pointed to our plants..which i dont care if they pee on to be honest...still unexcusable. The cop further said she didnt appear to be "all there" and reassured me their would be no charges done but maybe a referaal to social services for her!!! lol..Which i thought was great..still. not my point.
After the officer had left I walked over to the alleged plant and was going to write duplex tenants a letter of appoligy and offer to buy them new seeds or plants or whatever. Even thou I was pissed she called the police on my 7 and 4 year old instead of walking 6 feet over and telling me what was going on. When i walked over to the plant the tenant from a another duplex nearby was there...they were his plants!!! They werent even hers. She lied just to start **** Jason. This is immature and dumb. Im tired of it. Please understand im not trying to bitch at you. I appoligize if its coming off that way.
Im not going to sit around and wait for her to pull something else..so I know your not going to ask them to leave but Im asking for you to let me out of my lease then. I love my house. I love the space and besides them i love the neighborhood. I cant deal with this anymore. I havent complained about all the other **** they've done in the last weeks..until this.
Their sending their dog out to tear up my garbage. They throw beer canes at my truck. they say crude things to my children in the alley. They leave their radio on full blast for hours when their not even in the garage. See how immature this all is? The older man seems nice and I can say Ive never seen him or heard him do anything negaitve except for the dog tearing up my garbage..Him and his son were standing there egging him on to tear it up.
I understand that with the past couple months i havent been an ideal renter because of my $$ situation. But I am a good renter and try to upkeep my home. I do like it here Jason. I know an ultimatum wont work because you cant just kick them out for being *******s. But please understand..I cant live there like this. Always worring whats happening to my truck or said to my kids. They've gone beyond the limit.
 

FarmerJ

Senior Member
Papa as the others said go after the one who owes you . As far as the two who cannot get along send them both a civil but FIRM letter telling them both you no longer wish to hear any more about the bad behavior of either of them. Tell them that if they must call the police regarding disturbances to do it or learn how to ignore each other OR you will have no choice to end the drama by not renewing leases for both of them. Send the letters via confirmed mail delivery. Dealing with them as if they were group home residents who needed a clear consequence for bad behavior may be the answer. This way it is all about wise decisions , If they know the consequence of decisions that are not wise ( bothering you about such drivel) they might decide to act like the adults they are supposed to be and shape up. IF they wont stop the drivel then get rid of both of them.
 

cabanks27

Member
Landlords are not babysitters, and you are under NO obligation to make these two residents get along. If someone is violating the lease agreement, you have the RIGHT, not obligation, to terminate the lease agreement through the proper channels. If the resident who wrote the above, grammatical error peppered email wishes to move, she can either pay the termination fee (if you have one outlined in the lease) or suffer the consequences (court, collections, etc.)
 

MaximumAsh

Junior Member
Like most decent people, you probably have the urge to try and help out, at least some small fashion. You don't want your tenants unhappy, or your properties to be known for having problem residents. However, as others have said, it's simply not your responsibility to try and keep things civil between tenants. You're welcome to try (via letters or phone calls, etc), but honestly you're just involving yourself in a situation that you'd likely be better off avoiding.

Refer the tenant to local authorities for any nuisance complaints (the dog, the noise, property damage like throwing beer cans at her vehicle). Your only responsibility is to maintain your duties as a landlord. Those duties do not include peace-keeping between neighbors/tenants. You might be tempted to contact authorities yourself, but you should not as the issues are between the tenants. Unless they do something that affects you (destruction of the property, etc) you should probably just stay away from the issues and worry about collecting that back rent.
 

Hot Topic

Senior Member
Not a smart idea to post Tina's private email on the internet. Check out quincy's post on the matter at the defamation/libel forum titled "is posting an email to the web libel?"
 

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