Months ago, I was sent upstairs for a ‘cold body’ check, as we had not seen this tenant in some time. In other words, I had to go into the apartment, call his name and check to see if he was in there: dead or alive. Not funny as I pulled a massive down comforter that was bundled on his sofa and I hoped that he was NOT under it.
I was suspicious, lots of furniture, kitchen stuff, boxes half packed and the medicine cabinet was cleaned out. A few weeks went by, and we heard rumors of California and that there had been some ‘secret’ sales going on; again I went back into check.
Whoa! The Stench!
The bastard had shut off the electric, returned the cable box and had his mail held.
The food in the fridge had fermented. Neighbors came out of their apartments horrified at the smell.
I had to clean out rotten food and yet another stinkee fridge. Yeah, I know, the glamorous part of my job.
Jekyll and Hyde: This tenant was a professional artist, had mood swings, but was often normal. What possesses a person to skip out in the dead of night and leave all that furniture, flat screen TV, quite a bit of art equipment AND over a hundred matted prints?!
Greedy Tenants
Next I was inundated with several tenants laying claim to stuff left behind. Really, the young guy who does not work, does not even offer to help out, expected to be given the flat screen TV? Others asked for the new furniture, still others demanded to shop through the clothing. I suggested they shop at the local Salvation Army, because I have considered donating all this stuff to them.
Overwhelming Stuff
It took me hours of sweat just to empty out his closets and pile the stuff around the living room. In EVERY closet I found a coffee maker: Including an espresso machine! Open boxes of food, greasy pots and pans in the cabinets, and dead flies everywhere.
Eviction
Evicting a tenant, even one who clearly had abandoned his property, can take many weeks, during which time, legally, I could not even go into the apartment to clean the stove. The coup de grâce to this debacle, the sheriff’s department lost the eviction paperwork, so we were delayed another month.
$$ Problems
The owner has lost several thousand dollars in rent, plus legal fees. Several good prospective tenants were lost: and one was a detective–and whenever an officer moves in, all neighborhood crime diminishes. Drat.
I had an overwhelming amount of stuff to sort, pack, sell or donate.
The Computer, the Final Insult
So he left his PC. It was not enough that he disconnected every wire, but he tied them in knots around the furniture legs. Over 30 minutes unraveling and reconnecting that mess. When I finally booted the computer up, I found it completely wiped clean, except for two shortcuts on the desktop: one was whiny letter to the business manager, from several months ago; the other was a shortcut for “Facebook Hacking.” What a child.
However, he did recently download some vile porn, I suspect just for spite. I didn’t open them, the titles alone were revolting.
That deed says more about his character than it does about mine.
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