Our First Set-Out

Just before Christmas the time had come for us to do our first set-out. First, some history about this tenant. When we took over the trailer park this particular tenant was under eviction. They were about $800 behind. At the last moment they came up with the money. Two months later we started eviction again and once again they came up with the money. Well here we are in December and they are once again behind. I did a search on the local county website using his name. (Boy, I love the Internet!!) His name popped up about two pages of stuff. Drug charges, bounced checks, evictions, all kinds of stuff. Just since he has lived in this trailer park he has been evicted 11 times!!

He has been served his 10 day eviction. Of the $550 he owes he paid about $400. I think he thought we would stop the eviction. We didn't. We served him his notice to vacate in 24 hours. That set off a fire storm of phone calls to my manager. They didn't understand why they had to leave. "We paid $400, isn't that enough?" They actually asked for their money back! The set out is scheduled for 9:00 on Friday.

Friday morning my manager said they called and had the money. He told them he would have to talk to us. He explained that we told him not to accept their money and that they were going to have to leave. My manager is awesome!!

At 9:00 we all loaded up and along with the sheriff and showed up at their door. They had nothing packed. His wife was at the door with the rest of the money clenched in her hand. Before we went to their place we had decided to let them stay since it was Christmas. We had a 20 min stern discussion with them. We told him that if it wasn't for Christmas he would be sitting out in the street. I think having the sheriff and a crew of guys behind me scared them. We told him we knew about all the other evictions and that we weren't doing this anymore. I explained that if he doesn't pay his rent on Fridays by 6:00 he will be evicted. I told him not to show up on Saturday morning to pay his rent. My manager is not to accept any late payments from him.

Deep down I am glad we didn't kick them out. I couldn't imagine what it would have been like to set them out in the street at Christmas time. As a landlord this is the absolute worst thing that I have to do. I am pretty sure that we got the message across. I believe next time they will move and we won't have to go through this. Only time will tell..