Who is it in the press that calls on me?
I hear a tongue shriller than all the music
Cry “Caesar!” Speak, Caesar is turn’d to hear.

Soothsayer:
Beware the ides of March.

Caesar:
What man is that?

Brutus:
A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March.

Beware the [day after] the ides of March.

No, we don’t mean the George Clooney / Ryan Gosling, but March 15. (Otherwise known as yesterday.) On March 14, 44 BC, Julius Caesar might have told you that Decimus was his very best friend, and Brutus, too. But just one day later, good ol’ JC was singing a different tune: Et tu, Brute?

You know the story. But what you may not know is what this all has to do with leasing.

Appearances can be deceiving.

The people you think are your friends might — literally — stab you in the back.

The tenant you think will be respectful & responsible might turn out to be a nightmare.

Rental horrors could happen to you.

3. Maybe not as clean as you thought…

My parents were landlords. They had what they thought, was the greatest tenant ever (always paid rent on time and with cash). A few months down the road my mom, who worked in the criminal sector of the county courthouse, saw a familiar name on the case-file that came to her desk. Turns out the tenant was a prostitute and she was using the house as a brothel. The weirdest part was the house seemed totally clean.

TL:DR Had a tenant running a brothel out of our house.

2. It’s always the quiet ones.

I rent to a nice middle aged lady. She is a nurse for children with special needs (tourets and similar problems). She lives there about two years with few issues. Then she comes up late with the rent. Tells me she had lost her job. I think no problem, she is a nurse, they are in high demand, she will bounce right back. Next month goes by, no rent. Then another. I am losing patience, and I stop by. She now has relatives living there with a newborn, and a german sheppard that is far too large for the apt. At this point I offer her to just leave after 30 days. I won’t go after her for back rent, just get out and leave by the end of the month. She agrees. I come back at the end of the month, and she is still there with no plans to leave. I explain to her at this point I have no choice but to start the eviction process. It goes through, and the day the judge ordered her to be out, we go to the apartment. I walk in, its empty, which is good. But its cold- and this is midwinter in a northern state. We turn on the heat. It doesn’t warm up. We go down to the basement to check out the furnace. My basement turned into a 3 foot deep ice skating rink as she apparently took axes to my pipes before she left. Ended up costing about $10k to repair everything.

1. Where’s the beef?

I rented a room out for a while to help with my bills. I didn’t particularly get along with this person, which was evident after about a month of him living there. I found out he was in to hard drugs and was bringing them into my house. I had to ask for him to leave. He went without issue, but not before shoving raw beef into the vent in his room, and [peeing] all over the carpet.

Beware the Ides of… Rental Horrors Could Happen to You!