Tenants - drugs and alcohol

I

INVSTOR

Curious on other landlords views.

Does it concern you if your tenant uses drugs or alcohol?

Eg. PM does inspection 9.00 am - Tenants drinking or drugs sited.

I'm fairly uncomfortable with tenants using drugs as I feel it could become a downward spiral and lead to financial issues/social problems/damage to property.

If I have a couple of tenant applications and one applicant smells of alcohol I take that into consideration and see it as a negative.

I have heard PM's state before that they aren't concerned what tenants do in their leisure time. I do get concerned as they'll be spending their leisure time at my property.
 
Not necessarily alcohol as drinking doesn't mean misuse, but I might tip the drug use in my property to the police and discontinuing tenancy. Simply not comfortable with drug use, you never know who's going to knock their (my) property door when problems occur.
 
and I know what is their first priority for money and it isn't rent.

Alcohol not too much of an issue but if they come to an inspection drunk then they aren't for me.

If a PM sees drugs at inspection I would report it to police.
 
My background is social work and unfortunately i have seen people do terrible things when their need for alcohol and drugs (and no alcohol is not less addictive) becomes more important than just about anything (rent, kids, food, etc).

Tread with caution.
 
INVSTOR said:
Curious on other landlords views.

Does it concern you if your tenant uses drugs or alcohol?

Eg. PM does inspection 9.00 am - Tenants drinking or drugs sited.
Click to expand...

Yes - that would bother me. They should wait until after midday.

No - it would concern me and purely for the reasons you've outlined.

Cheers

Jamie
 
The police smashed the door down when raiding my rental property. Was a search for drugs. They missed the door on the first attempt and put a nice size hole in the wall too.

I dont mind if they drink (turning up drunk to the inspection is a bit different ) but drugs bring problems i dont want to be happening at my property.
 
A drunk tenant at a morning inspection is a bit of a concern!! The drugs would also concern me. I would be keeping a close eye on things, was the property clean and tidy etc? Perhaps termination at the end of the current lease to catch things before they spiral out of control. Sadly addiction really does ruin lives and as knightm said, these things begin to take priority over EVERYTHING else in their lives.

Sometimes (as in MRO's case) the police do more damage than the tenants :(.

I had the misfortune of moving into a rental that had previously been rented by people with a drug problem. The house was filthy and we had some people (rather rough looking) come aggressively looking for money from the old tenants. They left rather quickly when my husband pointed out they had the wrong people but it was a tad scary! You might need to consider future tenants too!
 
Sez said:
I had the misfortune of moving into a rental that had previously been rented by people with a drug problem. The house was filthy and we had some people (rather rough looking) come aggressively looking for money from the old tenants. They left rather quickly when my husband pointed out they had the wrong people but it was a tad scary! You might need to consider future tenants too!
Click to expand...

One of our tenants was found to be selling drugs from one of our apt buildings. We evicted him, and then put a note on the outside of the door, notifying his 'customers' he was no longer living there.

We tell our tenants that we do not tolerate drugs and will be evicted.
Because of the town, we do this on a regular basis.

We will not accept applicants who say they have a prescription for 'medical marijuana'. We just don't care. (there is no medical marijuana in our province)
They can go somewhere else.
 
I had some lovely ex-tenants who were alcoholics and drug users. Inspections didn't reveal any 'drugs', however the garden and subfloor were littered with empty bottles, cans, bottle caps, tenants clearly drunk/stoned, house in dirty state.

Eventually had to evict them due to having multiple pets, unpaid rent and the house was left in a dirty state. Upon renovating and removing a built in robe, I found a syringe, spotted a purposefully bent spoon in the garden and 'fancy' glassware tossed under the house subfloor along with soiled clothes.

During their 9 month tenancy, they were also burgled (luckily no property damage), set my rangehood on fire, burnt a bathroom sink and a screen door was torn off, damaged curtains, destroyed the garden, stole light bulbs, terrorised neighbors. One of them was brutally beaten by someone he knew too which resulted in blood on the rear deck.....good thing the hospital is about 5 mins away.

All in all- they are problematic so keep a close eye on things. It's more than likely going to turn sour at some stage depending on how 'heavily' and 'functional' they are really.
 
Considering Australia has quite a high % of recreational drug users compared globally, I think you'll find a lot of our tenants may/are casual/recreational drug users.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/ne...979809971?nk=a2a44013606ce3e3bbbabe1346186d1b

1/10 people being regular users of marajuana, they really wouldn't bother me to be honest - but needle junkies etc are something to avoid.

I've found drug paraphenalia in some way, shape or form in most of the properties i've purchased for renos. From needles, to holes/patched holes where carbon filters were installed for growing ops etc. And of course the usual bong on the coffee table during purchase inspections.
 
I also don't know where you would stand, if you knew they were using/dealing and not report it, down the track.

I did hear once that under the law if there were drugs on my property I would be held liable first and would have to prove it was the tenants, never sure how that worked with a rental property.
 
Used to find them all the time people used to hide the bong and all the gear behind the "HWS"upstairs ,sometimes when you replace the system
you would find drugs hidden when I was in business,i use to just put it all back where I found it,never said nothing to anyone ,after all the first person they would come looking for would have been me..
 
CJay said:
I've found drug paraphenalia in some way, shape or form in most of the properties i've purchased for renos. From needles, to holes/patched holes where carbon filters were installed for growing ops etc. And of course the usual bong on the coffee table during purchase inspections.
Click to expand...

In one of my properties where a previous tenant had a hydro set up (only saw it unassembled) there is a perfect hole in the corner of the room - cut through carpet and floorboards. At first I thought it was from a mouse but way too neat. I was trying to work out if that was part of the setup? Purpose of doing that- retic? He was begging for insulation which I thought would help produce a better crop and a stupid question when it already had insulation. :)
What is a carbon filter?
 
Units lived in by druggies and alcoholics can be very disgusting. The worst one though--and this happened to my dad--was that the authorities found out that one of his units was being used to store dead bodies and then ready them for burial purposes. Imagine all those bodily fluids going down our drains. Yuk.
 
INVSTOR said:
In one of my properties where a previous tenant had a hydro set up (only saw it unassembled) there is a perfect hole in the corner of the room - cut through carpet and floorboards. At first I thought it was from a mouse but way too neat. I was trying to work out if that was part of the setup? Purpose of doing that- retic? He was begging for insulation which I thought would help produce a better crop and a stupid question when it already had insulation. :)
What is a carbon filter?
Click to expand...

I wouldn't think that would be a hole for a carbon filter, more likely to run a water line. The filter holes I've seen in properties have usually been circa 30-45cm in diameter.

A carbon filter is used to absorb the smell that cannabis plants give off to avoid detection. Apparently growing them in bulk can make them quite pungent, and can be smelled from the street. They usually mount them in the ceiling, with ducting vents.
 
Drugs

There is a clause somewhere in N.S.W. Resi Lease, which sounds a bit like

The tenant agrees not to do anything illegal.. etc etc.

I cant see that there is any room for interpretation on that one.

I hope this helps

Cheers Seaford Sunshine
 
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