I've been a landlord since 2000 and I'm not quite sure how many tenants I've had over the years, but I can tell you being a landlord evolves each year, and last year I learned more valuable lessons.

Bought a single-family home out of state.

Strategy was to buy and hold

Hired a local agent her name is Tina to help with the screening for good tenant – keep in mind that our search was at the beginning of COVID where people were staying at home, there was the potential for anyone to lose their jobs – so the hunt for good tenants was a bit challenging.

Tina processed several people but one couple in particular sounded solid.  She collected all the necessary supporting documents, application, prior rental history, work history, bank records, etc.

Tina had done a thorough job of collecting all the information we needed.  We reviewed it together and I agreed on the 3 adults and 1 child.  She collected the first, last and security deposits.  All money was validated and in a local bank – it wasn't cash.   Why was that important to me?  I needed to know they had money in the bank to sustain their obligation on a 1-year lease. 

April 18th, 2020, my tenants moved in.

Communication lines between me and the tenants were good.  I had offered them the SimpliSafe security system since it was already in place, but they declined.

Over the next month, they had a couple of minor maintenance issues and all were resolved quickly.

May 18th – one month to the day they moved in.  I received a phone call.  The neighbor was calling to report that the FBI and DEA had the house surrounded and guns were drawn.

I told the neighbor that when things calmed down to go talk to the arresting officer.  She did and we found out this was a drug deal gone bad.

I called Tina up just to validate the software she used or the process she used didn't have some kind of flaw.  She re-ran him again with the same result. I by no means ever accused her of misleading me but rather was on the hunt to figure out what had gone wrong, so that I wouldn't do it again!

Later that evening I went online to the local arrest records to look up my tenant – there he was!  3 felony charges for drugs and weapons.

The next morning – I looked up my tenant again and I noticed something that caught my eye.   The picture that was on his arrest record the night before was different than the one I was looking at today.  That told me he had a prior arrest record and NOW I wanted to know why this didn't come up when Tina did her thorough search.  NOW, I wanted to talk to the arresting officer!

I called the office that I thought had arrested him but she said no and transferred my call to another office that had arrested him.

When a guy picked up the phone, I started to tell him that I was the owner of house out in a particular area and he finished my sentence by telling me my exact address. And then he laughed.  I said are you the e arresting officer?  He said, yes.  I said, yes, sir that house is mine and I'm the homeowner and I'm a lot confused with what's just happened.

I told him, I live in Florida but sir, I hired a local real estate agent in your area to help me with the screening process and as far as I was concerned I believed she had done a very thorough job in the screening process.  His reply, well she must not has been as thorough as you thought.

I said, but wait a minute, now I'm concerned because I KNOW he has an arrest record and I want to know why it didn't show up.  He said, how do you know he has an arrest record?  I said, because his picture last night and this morning are different – I know that means he has been arrested before.  He laughed at me and said that I was funny and I was very intuitive to have figured that out. 

He said Yes, he had been arrested before.  Then I asked why didn't it show up?  He said, its not public knowledge and it won't show up because it was hidden from the public view.  He had a special name for why it was taken off his record, but I don't recall what he called it.  He wasn't at liberty to tell my why he had been arrested, just that law enforcement were the only people who could see it.

I asked him if he could tell me what all went down.  He said the male was selling and distributing drugs, he confirmed it was marijuana and not pills or another form of a drug. Apparently, they have caught up to Florida standards is what I was thinking.   He said, they had been watching him for about a week.  I said yes, about a week ago a neighbor had reported suspicious activity  and suspicious vehicles late in the night.  But it wasn't enough to alert me as they technically weren't doing anything wrong.

He then went on to ask me several more questions and if I had his bank records.  I jokingly said, yes, I have his bank records, but are you who you say you are?  He said, ma'am you called me.  I said I know, I was just checking…

I said yes and I have an application and all the documentation we gathered.  He asked that I send it all to him.   

About 30 minutes passed and he called me back to let me know that we had done everything right – those were his exact words.  This guy just had never been caught.

I then contacted my lawyer, my lawyer sent them a letter basically stated that getting arrested for a felony was good enough to evict someone at any time, but especially during CoVID.

At the end of all of this, they found $140k in cash inside the home, cameras pointing on every door and window, guns inside the home and in his possession, a minor child was involved.  He went to prison for felony drug charges.

They were out of my home by the end of May and forfeited their security, first and last month's rent.

The moral of this story is always have your ducks in a row and surround yourself with good people doing great work!  Tina saved my ass in the end.

Ask yourself, do you have what it takes to be a great landlord?  This is one of many stories I can share about being a landlord.  It takes patience, due diligence, a hard work.

If you think you want to be landlord but are hesitant to start, reach out to me at Fearlessinnovator.com.

Fearlessinnovator.com/freebook