I hear a lot of stories about awful landlords, but this is a story about an awful tenant.

If you ever think about renting out a room in your house, think again. Depending on who you rent to, it could be a nightmare.

In this story, one couple decides to rent out a room in their home to earn some extra money. It went well for awhile, but then they got a tenant who kept causing the neighbors to call the police with noise complaints.

That was just the beginning.

It got worse when the tenant’s lease was up, and he refused to move out.

But when he finally did move out, they did some digging and got revenge.

Keep reading for all the details.

Sketchy tenant skipped town owing several months’ rent and stole our Keurig. We tracked him down and ruined his career!

I’m changing names and cities and even occupations around slightly, for obvious reasons.

I’ve lived in the Los Feliz area for ten years now. I came to LA from Oregon to attend college. I never did finish college but I did meet my husband here. I’m 34 now.

My husband “Jim” (41) and I run a small craft store. We also play music in a band. Jim is also an architect part time.

Neither the store nor the band earn a lot of money, but it’s enough. We mostly depend on Jim’s architect job. Still we could use more income so we decide to take on a tenant in our house.

Her husband did a lot of work to get the place ready for a tenant.

We bought a two bedroom bungalow where one of the bedrooms actually has its own private entrance.

My husband made alterations to make it its own small apartment, since it already had a private bathroom. It didn’t initially have a shower but my husband built one for it.

There was no proper kitchen but my husband fashioned a little nook where he installed a mini fridge, hot plate, and microwave.

Over the past four years we had a couple of really nice tenants, usually college students who stayed for their year long lease, then moved on. Everyone paid their rent on time, and didn’t ruin the room.

The next tenant wasn’t a college student.

“Kevin” was a different matter.

Kevin was this thirty year old bartender who worked at a local club. He seemed clean cut and like he wouldn’t cause any trouble, and since he was older than the college students we had before, we assumed he would be even more responsible.

We couldn’t have been more wrong.

After about four months that passed without incident, suddenly Kevin began to be a terrible tenant.

First of all, he was loud.

He’d play music really loud late at night and make our neighbors call the police (we live in a quiet neighborhood).

He’d bring home women, which is his right because it’s his home and he’s paying, but they’d talk SUPER loudly late into the night, and drink out on the porch, and once again cause neighbors to call the police because they just wouldn’t shut up.

I talked to Kevin about it, and he laughed in my face.

He kind of had a different attitude toward my husband when my husband confronted him about it, because Jim would break this guy’s jaw. But even though Kevin apologized, a few days later he’d go right back to doing it.

But noise wasn’t the only problem.

He also got into the habit of smoking marijuana on the porch, and would smoke so much of it that the neighbors would once again complain.

He would pay his rent, but instead of paying it on the first of the month as one might expect, he was often late by several days, or would ask favors from us that we would take half the rent on the first, the other half on the fifteenth, to coincide with his paydays.

He would often pretend to have paid and claim that he left the check under our door when that was clearly a lie.

We accommodated him and tried to be patient.

This is weird.

He was only on a six month lease so after those six months, my husband told him he had to leave.

Kevin complained that we were being judgemental against him.

Kind of weird seeing as how we are all White in this story, but Kevin fancies himself to be Black for whatever reason and talks with a ridiculous, almost cartoonish attempt to sound like a 1970s Blacksploitation movie.

On some days he’d try to talk like he was Shaft and on other days he’d talk with some failed Tupac impression.

They set a date that he’d have to move out.

Anyway…

So he said he’d move out, but that we had to give him time.

That’s fair enough.

We gave him all the legal papers that said he had to vacate within a certain number of days.

He definitely took his time moving out.

At the end of that time, he still wasn’t gone and he didn’t look like he had plans to leave.

He would rant about squatters’ rights and all that.

This whole time, he would continue to play loud music, smoke weed outside, bring home his women and talk loudly late into the night, and make a nuisance of himself.

Finally, after six months had passed and he had been staying half a year without paying us a cent, he moved out.

They never plan to rent to anyone ever again.

My husband and I learned our lesson.

He knocked down the wall he built and now we live in a two bedroom small house again, to ourselves.

But Kevin didn’t leave in good order.

He snuck out because he knew he owed us several months of rent. He left no forwarding address. He stopped answering texts.

They had to clean up after him.

What he did leave was a huge mess.

He also stole a nice Keurig coffee machine that we put in his apartment for his use, and he also stole the mini fridge and microwave. He left the hotplate but he pretty much destroyed that too because it looked like he tried cooking drugs on it.

It looked like he picked up most of his personal stuff, but his clumsy, sloppy self didn’t check behind all of his little nooks and crannies, and we saw he had abandoned lots of his little drug paraphernalia. Bongs, what looked like glass for smoking crack, and whatnot, even a small bag of grass.

We boxed up all of these little items in a single box and labeled it with his name in case he ever wanted to claim them.

They wanted to track down Kevin.

My husband also went to the local courthouse to see about filing small claims on Kevin, but we didn’t even know where he lived now.

My husband isn’t a narc type who snitches, bless his heart. He was of the opinion, oh, this is a learning experience, let’s do differently from now on.

But I’m not that way, and I don’t want us to get ripped off without a bit of revenge.

Kevin never really told us exactly which bar he works at, because he’s a lying little weasel, but in his loud conversations late at night while he’s off talking like he’s Charles Friggin’ Barkley I overheard him name the bar he worked at.

She talks to one of his coworkers.

So one day about five days after Kevin left, I drove over there and ask about him to the people who work there.

I don’t let on that I’m one of his former landlords. The new bartender girl assumes that I’m some sort of jilted lover, and I roll with it.

She empathizes with me, and in talking about what a jerk Kevin is, she lets me know that the whole time he’s been in the LA area, he’s been going to school to become a licensed vocational nurse.

I tell her that he blocked me on social media.

Wow! She was really helpful!

No problem, she tells me! She whips out her phone and shows me his profile, which is set to private, but she is friends with him on social media.

I see that he moved to Nevada and is now practicing as an LVN at a clinic.

I thank the girl and go home.

Now that I know where he works, I call the clinic and casually confirm that Kevin indeed works there.

She verifies where he works.

My guess is that Kevin probably had to take a drug test to get his job, but he still had friends over at his place doing lots of illegal stuff. Or maybe he had someone take the drug test for him, who knows.

I find out the name of his supervisor, and once again calling the clinic, pretending to be a customer, I casually confirm that this man is Kevin’s boss.

I then take the box of Kevin’s stuff with all of his drug paraphernalia in it to the local police station, with the explanation that Kevin used to be a tenant of mine and my husband’s, but that he abandoned his quarters and also this box of his personal effects.

I look like friggin’ Kindergarten teacher and to the cop it’s obvious I have no idea what any of this crap is.

The police officer agrees to handle it.

I tell the police I have no idea of Kevin’s forwarding address, just his address of employment, and oh! I even have the number of his boss.

“I don’t know how these things work, officer. Could you handle it?”

“Of course, miss. That’s our job.”

Never Miss a Story

Sign up to get our BEST stories of the week straight to your inbox.

So, a month later, my husband and I are still out a Keurig and six months of unpaid rent from Kevin.

She decided to call Kevin’s place of employment.

But, calling the clinic again pretending to be a relative asking “may I speak to Kevin?”

I find out…

“Oh, Kevin doesn’t work here anymore. Didn’t he tell you? He got fired.”

Sheesh. This secretary kind of overshares, but it works out in my favor here.

Now, about the drugs…

I also found out by talking to that officer again that the marijuana wasn’t such a big deal, but that the possession of the hard drug paraphernalia was a big misdemeanor.

My husband, who knows about what I did by this time and is fully on board, comes with me to the station and we sign an affidavit regarding what we know about all this crap in the box.

They had contacted Kevin, and under pressure from the police in ours and in his new state he finally admitted that the items were his. After, of course, trying at first to lie and claim that the drug items were mine and my husband’s.

Scumbag.

It gets better!

So now the misdemeanors are on his permanent record, rendering him unemployable in his field.

We also found out his address, and he was served with papers for small claims court for several months’ worth of rent, theft, and damages.

He was a no show.

Automatic victory for us.

She went back to the bar where Kevin used to work.

We’re not holding our breath for this loser to actually pay us our money, but still, it felt good to win.

My husband and I went to the bar where Kevin used to work, and since she recognized me, the new bartender girl gave me a big hug.

I admitted I wasn’t a girlfriend of Kevin’s but that he was a tenant who screwed over my husband and I.

The girl thought that what I did was great to get him busted. Speaking of busted, he was charged with possession at his new apartment and is in jail.

Her husband is ready.

She did say, aren’t you scared he’ll come back to get revenge?

My husband laughed and said “I hope he does, because if he tries anything…

I’mma break his freaking jaw. You’re friends with him on social media. You can tell him, I’m waiting.”

Little 130 pound cracked out midget Vanilla Ice looking goof lol I hope they have social media in prison.

Well, they certainly learned the hard way that older doesn’t mean wiser when it comes to renters. At least he finally moved out. They definitely did a good job messing up his life, but it was well deserved.

Let’s see how Reddit responded.

This person thinks gathering evidence was key.

Another person would’ve handled it differently.

This person doesn’t think the husband would really hurt Kevin.

Another person thinks Kevin needed a lawyer.

Kevin clearly wasn’t that bright. He also clearly left on very bad terms with his landlords and left them with evidence of his illegal activities.

She did a good job tracking him down, but she couldn’t have done it without the help of Kevin’s former coworker at the bar.

Talking loudly turned out to be his downfall. If he hadn’t been so loud, she never would’ve known where he worked and never would’ve had a way to contact him.