Why I hate being a landlord, Part 548

Tomorrow is the first of the month and the due date for our renters' first monthly rent payment.

Tomorrow is also a postal holiday, so today's mail was the last opportunity for their rent check to arrive on time.

Naturally, there was no rent check in today's mail.

Now if I were starting a new rental relationship with a landlord, I'd be keen to make a good impression and prove myself a reliable, responsible tenant by making damn sure the rent check arrived early - not on or soon after the due date but a day or two early. So I don't understand the mindset of people who don't view their contractual obligations with the same degree of seriousness as I.

So this leaves me struggling with concerns that we have just turned our house over to a pack of deadbeat squatters who will have to be evicted. Their lack of responsiveness and follow-through worries me. They failed to respond to an email and a phone call earlier in December. They also wanted early access to the house to do painting and other cosmetic work. We okayed the request, but they never showed up to do the work they said they wanted to do.

The rental contract stipulates that they will owe an additional $125 if the rent check doesn't arrive by next Tuesday's mail at the latest. I hope it doesn't come to that because my experience is that small claims courts are notoriously unreliable when it comes to enforcing terms of rental contract.

The crumb of good news is that my father-in-law reports the plumber - who promised to be at the house two days ago - is working in the basement this morning to repair the fractured PVC outflow pipe from the sump pump.

My father-in-law also reports that the renters have begun the move-in process, which we authorized, and their stuff is scattered all over the house.

It has not escaped me that I am worrying needlessly, based on the Tenant from Hell who made renting my mother's house a long-running nightmare. The check is probably in the mail and they'll probably pay on time, every time, and be ideal tenants.

I hope so. I really do want to be able to relax about this and focus on other things.