If you have an extra room in your house, renting it out can be a great way to bring in some extra money each month.

What would you do if you were renting out your extra room to a guy who was constantly having guests over even though you told him that should only be done rarely?

That is the situation the landlord in this story was in, so after the roommate said he would have anyone he wanted over, he started taking away perks.

Check it out.

You want to have girls over all the time? Ok. Have it your way.

THE SETUP:

I have a 2 bedroom house.

I decided that I wanted to rent out the other bedroom in the house to make some money on space I wasn’t really using after COVID.

So I fixed up the place really nice:

The tenant gets:

• Private, semi-attached bathroom (bathroom is actually outside the bedroom, but I put up drapes between the bedroom and bathroom so tenant can walk between without me seeing)
• Common consumables! (I pay for toilet paper, paper towels, laundry supplies, kitchen supplies, etc.)

I create the lease.

The lease is very barebones.

It is important to put details into an agreement like this.

It just says “you get a room at this property. You pay this much per month. Landlord covers all utilities. Your lease is X months long.”

I created the ad.

In the ad I mentioned how “it’s ok to have guests over, but keep it to no more than twice per month”.

I did not put this into the lease agreement.

You can see where this is going.

I do a showing for a prospect, T.

I tell him the guest policy and he seems just fine with it.

I do the rest of the showing and all seems grand.

He signs the lease agreement and moves in.

THE PROBLEM:

The first month is grand.

Anyone can fool someone for a month.

But eventually you return to bad habits.

His bad habit was women.

He would have women over 4-5 nights per week.

I did not appreciate this.

Hopefully he will be reasonable.

I pulled him aside to tell him “Hey, you’re having a lot of girls over. You need to reduce how many girls over or, if you’re willing to pay a bit extra for having all these girls over, I won’t say a thing.”

He initially agrees with it.

The next day, he calls me down and asks to speak with me at the dining room table.

It’s T and his girl du jour, G.

T begins arguing, “How can you ask for more money when that’s not in the lease agreement? You can’t ask for that.”

I told him the guest policy was in the ad and that we spoke about it when he came here.

He said, “Yeah, but you can’t ask for that. If it’s not in the lease agreement you can’t do that. The guest policy isn’t in the lease agreement either, so I pay rent. I can have over whoever whenever I want.”

G piped in, “You just need to take the L on this one and write better lease agreements.”

I replied to G, “You’re not on the lease agreement, so I don’t care what you think about it.”

I turned to T, “It was in the ad. We also talked about it when you came here. You knew about this.”

T replied, “Woahhh man calm down. It’s just six months man. That’s my lease term. I’ll be out of your hair in six months.”

I replied, “Why can’t you stay at her place?”

G said, “That’s none of your business.”

Why is she even there for this little meeting?

“Shut up, G. I don’t care what you think. You want a problem, T? You got one. This is not cool and you know it. Why does she have to be here 5 nights a week? She practically lives here. I signed a lease with you, T, not with her. Why is she here?”

He shrugged, “Can’t help it. Not in the lease agreement man. That’s what lease agreements are for.”

I was infuriated.

We talked about this.

He’s choosing to follow the lease agreement.

Okay… fine… what’s a guy to do?

I want him gone.

I don’t want T & G teaming up against me in my own house!!

They walked upstairs and turned on the loud music in their room.

Later in the evening, G was downstairs cooking something on the stove by herself using my pots and pans.

She’s cooking for herself in my house!

She’s not even a tenant but she sure is acting like one.

G tried striking up a friendly conversation with me, but I just gave her absolute silence for 10 minutes while I cooked.

I took my food upstairs.

This is war.

I’m going to follow the lease agreement TO THE LETTER.

If I advertised a feature in the ad but it wasn’t in the lease agreement, that thing is GONE.

THE COMPLIANCE

Every day I took something away.

This is a smart move.

I first started by removing all the common consumables from the house.

He texted me later, “Man, you removed all the consumables? You need to come down on the rent.”

I replied, “Not in the lease agreement.”

He said, “It don’t got to be like this.”

I removed the drapes between his room and the private bathroom.

I took away the chairs for the dining room table.

I then shut off the clothes washer and dryer (circuit breakers were in my room) and left taped up the location of a local laundromat.

Wow, now this is just getting gross and hurting himself.

I also became an absolutely filthy roommate.

I didn’t clean anything. I left bags of garbage wherever I felt like.

I never cleaned the kitchen and left the sink full of dishes. “Please man can you clean up”

“No.”

I had maid service.

Cancelled that.

He had to know the answer.

I informed him of the change. “Can you come down on the rent, man?”

“Not in the lease agreement. You agreed to a rental price.”

“C’monnnnnn”

I turned off the breaker to the stove and left out a wall outlet single pot electric plate for him to use.

I turned off the microwave. Not in the lease agreement either.

I actually started feeling bad for him.

G started coming around less and less as I made the living situation worse and worse.

Finally, he texted me, “Do you want me to move out?”

I replied, “Yes, when are you leaving my house?”

He said, “End of the month. You’ll let me break the lease?”

At least he is gone.

I replied, “Of course.”

He left at the end of the month.

I had my house back.

I made for sure to make my next lease agreement way more specific about EVERYTHING.

Being a landlord isn’t always as great as it may seem, many tenants can be terrible.

Let’s see what the people in the comments thought of this story.

This person says renting out a room is a bad idea.

Here is someone who thinks the landlord was too strict.

Never create a contract manually.

It is never that easy.

This person says to consult an attorney.

This was just a bad situation for all parties involved.

It was never going to work out well.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a rude customer who got exactly what they wanted in their pizza.