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Woman's House Robbed After Fake Craigslist Post
flanksteak writes "The Seattle Times is reporting that a woman in nearby Tacoma had her rental property stripped of almost everything after someone posted a fake Craigslist announcement that everything in the house could be hauled away no questions asked. When contacted, Craigslist said they would release data about the poster if they were issued a subpoena."
Cleaned it out:
"Nothing for you to see here. Please move along."
This really should be sad. But I laughed.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
XXX#######
Uh oh.
Jeez. It's sad but in a different way. Makes me sad about the nature of man. What happened to common decency?
I wonder what will happen if someone posts a photo on the internet with a personal ad "Hey I'm 18 and hot, come and have sex with me, even if I say no. My address is..."
I hope the people who plundered crap at least have the decency to bring it back if they hear it on the news. It almost makes me wonder how they got into the apartment? Someone ought to be charged with breaking and entering.
I'm a little sorry I didn't think of it first. I would of course use a library or an open wireless AP.
On a related note, I have heard of a story about an ad placed on Craigslist asking for several construction workers for a job and to have their own tools. Workers show up, the guy asks them to deconstruct the house, and leaves. When the homeowner comes home at the end of the day he faces a bunch of angry unpaid construction workers and a demolished house.
That one probably isn't true.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
I saw an interview with this person on the news.
1) They left the doors to the house UNLOCKED
2) They pissed someone off.
Ive often wondered if things like "free transmission behind X house" were actually something along these lines. Neighbours getting even. Its an interesting problem anyway that doesnt really have a solution I can see. No free webmail posts to craigslist?
I could see the same thing happening to any classified ads service. How do you know the laptop your buying is not hot? The car parts you buy? Its not craigslists job to verify every ad for truth. The only thing that needs to happen, is the obviously doubbley duped salvagers give her the stuff back. Imagine how pissed that would make the evicted tenant or whoever.
This is Rob "cmdrtaco" Malda.
I have to get rid of everything in my house quickly, and I'm gonna let it go for free in order to get it out of here fast. Please leave the computers in the back closet though, I use those for slashdot.
Thanks
Rob
I know it's supposed to be "news" that crime continues to exist despite (and sometimes with the facilitation of) the internet, but I can't seem to muster up the energy. I'm sure that when the phone was popularized there were initially stories about how people would use this new technology for dastardly crimes, such as getting pizzas delivered to the wrong address, but do we really at this point need be kept informed of the breaking development that yes, new technologies will be used by criminals as well as law-abiding citizens? Maybe I'm just crabby and this is a good old heads-up.
I went to the city because I wished to live without deliberation.
It's bizzare because it really does fit a classic urban myth profile. It obviously happened and the owner was shook up but it shows why urban myths are often believeable. Gotta wonder why no one that stripped the house questioned it. At least the first few to show up it must have looked like a normal house. It got pretty trashed so the later ones at least had an excuse.
RTFA. This was a piece of rental property that the woman owned. It was empty. None of her personal things were taken.
Hot water heater? Front door (if metal)? These are not cheap items.
I do think that the police should be the ones to handle this situation, and they'll certainly be able to get a warrant on the matter. However, if craigslist users think that this type of post is 'reasonable' to the point of pulling something as heavy as the heater, they better do something about dissuading people from making that type of post, whether it's public shaming, encouraging reporting of too-good-to-be-true posts or whatever else that somebody can dream up. In my opinion it's unreasonable for a classified service not to have some responsibility to guard against abuses such as what occured.
What really is lame is that since the former tenant was family the police are calling it a family feud. Thus, they won't issue the subpoena to Craigslist so that the lady can try and press criminal charges. Which basically means since the cops won't help her, she probably wouldn't even win in a civil courtroom. She'll never be able to prove who made the post without the police - and thus the crime will go unpunished. That's smart - police just are going to leave this door wide open.
Regardless if she is a hated landlord - stealing from another person is pretty low.
I hope some of those people who took things just bring them back.
In the past there have been similar offers from people getting rid of demolishing their houses. Heck, Habitat for Humanity helped strip some houses being demolished for a mall (and they did a really, really good job, all the long lumber recovered). Still remember "Apartment full of free stuff", which was in fact real - note the condition of the stuff wasn't mentioned.
www.voiceofthehive.com - Beekeeping and Honeybees for those who don't.
A lot of renters do not understand what it is to be a landlord or landlady. They want all the benefits but none of the responsibility. The next time you rent a new place don't worry too much about if you meet their standards. They should be just as subject to background checks as the potential renters. Make sure to get references from them at least.
That sounds like a Craiglist ad I saw, except that one was real. I know because I went there and took the plasma television. Funny how two ads can be placed on the same site saying the same thing, even in the same area.
According to several different news agencies such as Fox, AP, etc, the tenant was the woman's sister. The victim evicted her sister. According to one article the police stated that it is a civil mater, a not criminal one.
7 WABcraigslistadLJ.34e92f1d.html).
(http://www.king5.com/topstories/stories/NW_04050
I think that the reaction of most is that a case could be made for a criminal charges however the full details are not out yet. We'll have to wait and see what emerges.
how this will be translated into some sort of attempt to regulate craig's list entries to ensure that the children are safe and no copyrights are infringed or something like that. If YouTube is being sued to police the content on their site, shouldn't Craig's List police their site too?
Call me cynical but I just know someone is going to try this lame kind of reasoning to enact more laws we don't need...
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
It doesn't matter if the door was unlocked, it's still considered theft. You can leave you keys in you car and the thief will still get charged with grand theft auto - though you insurance company might not cover it.
Just because there was an ad on craigs list, doesn't absolve people from breaking and entering, stealing property, etc. This doesn't lie entirely on the shoulders of the instigator. You could do the same thing just as easily by putting up a sign, or standing outside of a random (empty) house and telling people to take everything.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
No no no, you have it all wrong. If you REALLY want to cause them grief, don't post the pic on any of those places until you've spammed it to /b/ a few times!* =)
*Warning: Above link is VERY NSFW most times
The article says it was her home that was vandalized. It also says she had recently evicted a rental tenant but it does not state that the vacated apartment was the one that was struck. It may be that the tenant posted the landlord's home address rather than the property he was evicted from. Or perhaps both the landlord and the ex-tenant lived in the same building and both apartments were hit. The article is not very clear on this point, but calling it her "home" strongly implies it's where she personally resided.
I bet my tenant horror stories much more horrifying than your landlord horror stories. Being a landlord, especially one with multiple properties tends to turn the nicest people into complete assholes.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
s the first 5 seconds of a film uploaded to beasttube.com,
beasttube.... ehwwwww....
I know several people who've been abused through Craigslist -- unfortunately it just proves too tempting an environment for assholes. One friend had his garage pretty much cleaned out (bikes, tools, etc) from a posting on Craigslist saying he was moving and was offering it all free to people who would pick it up.
One friend had her phone number posted when she turned down a second date from some jerk and he posted an ad claiming she wanted men to call her up and tell her how they'd use her -- she was VERY freaked out until I figured out what had happened and got the post removed, then she debated changing her number because guys were calling at 2am and waking her up but I set her up with ringtone groups for which anyone not in the phonebook would get a silent ring. Then she just had to delete dirty voicemails for a few more weeks until the fun wore off and the guys realized she was never calling back.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
This user wants to be modded down. Please mod him/her down.
Table-ized A.I.
Your assuming the person was bright enough to cover their tracks at all.
You mad
In some border states it's illegal to leave your keys in the car.
..it seems the karma wheel bit her in the butt. I mean, she did just evict someone. I suppose the evictee would my first suspect. But, who knows, maybe they're not that dumb.
Wanted: Clever sig, top $ paid, all offers considered.
Has the victim tried to post a new ad asking for her stuff back? The lost+found section?
The title made it sound like someone posted a fake Craigslist ad, pissed off the wrong person who proceeded to find out where the fake poster lived, and then robbed that person. Kinda disappointing it was just some numbnuts who keeps their door unlocked.
Let's see. Brief Synopsis of a great deal of the replies here...
/. especially) should be donating everything they can to help this woman out. It doesn't matter if she is rich beyond means, or if she needs to rent this property to keep from being homeless. Pranks and acts of vandalism like this are not funny. At all.
1: She was an Evil landlord. She evicted someone. She deserved it.
2: Karma returned to her what she deserved.
3: It was a rental property. She can afford to replace everything.
4: She left the property unlocked. She deserved what she got.
5: Crime is nothing new. This is nothing new. Laugh all you want.
WTF people? IF and WHEN something like this happens to you, you will change your tune VERY quickly. What does it say about the state of people today when the biggest mouths all laugh at someone's misfortune, writing it off to just be "Life". People who engage at finding entertainment in the misery of others, are the ones responsible for continuing the misery of others.
Sure it could happen (and probably has) with regular old paper classifieds. That doesn't make it OK. People in the Tacoma area that read this (and those here on
"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." -D. Adams
You have a broken sense of propriety.
A great prank/revenge?!!? Are you fracking kidding me?!?! The tenant was evicted... which TYPICALLY means said tenant didn't own up to their bills or violated some sort of agreement signed when they moved in. I'm sorry, but in no way is stealing a "great prank". Particularly when it involves stealing things like the hot water heater and kitchen sink, things which, without, the home is now completely worthless. You need to seriously rethink what you consider a prank. If it's your buddies calling your girlfriend, you'll pay up in your own hell... but you need to consider the collateral damage. In this case, it's going to cost this lady thousands of dollars. And YOU consider it a good prank? When was the last time you spent thousands of dollars just to pull off a prank (and if you had, where do you work, I could use a job like that)? This isn't funny.... this is the kind of thing that causes fear in our society for people who don't have the means to support themselves. It's the "good" thing to think, "Hey, they're a little down on their luck, let me help". And I really do like to think that way, but it's stories like this that make me think, "They're not down on their luck, they're just out to screw someone." As for the people who went in and took stuff... c'mon people! Use a little common sense! Should Craig's List require a subpoena? Of course! But that doesn't make what happened any better. You've got one imbecile who's mad because (s)he can't pay their debts, and then a bunch of other people who are just, apparently, waiting to prey on a CLEARLY false opportunity. If you're the kind of person who reads that add and thinks "the hot water heater MUST be okay to take" then I've got this great bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. Think of all the money you can make on tolls! It even has a pedestrian walkway! Real cheap, but act fast, the bids keep coming in! Seriously... THINK about anything you see on the internet. This is supposed to be such an advanced society what with our acceptance of technology, and all this shows is that we're too stupid to filter out the crap. If anyone here fell for that add, it's a wonder you're not broke for buying EVERYTHING you see on a T.V. commercial. A good general rule of thumb is if it looks too good to be true, it probably is, and you should do a little research before you sink your time and/or money into it. If you don't believe that, quit your job and go do the "clearly" higher paying job they offer on T.V. to "work from home" and "make millions of dollars". I really expect more from society. I like to think that as information becomes more prevalent, people become more wary... Clearly I'm being too optimistic. Time to call my folks and make sure they're not doing something stupid...
I've posted an ad like this at craigslist before but it was my garage. I even told people not to make too much noise as I wanted to sleep in till 10am. When I woke up, most of it was gone and some nice guys actually took the pile of rotted wood I would have had to haul to the dump!
This is why I don't place any blame on the people taking stuff.
I grew up in the town where the Angel of Death was born and raised. Do we have to drive around in APCs instead of regular cars and sleep in bullet-proof vests? Well, no. So unless you could name a mechanism by which Tacoma makes people dangerous (except that it's a town in the USA), that's not exactly a reasonable argument. I don't question the conclusion of locking the door, but maybe the rationale behind it is more than "we had a couple real bad guys born here". Anecdotal evidence only goes so far.
The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.
During college I lived in what was called the "fruit section" of Bozeman MT, not only because of the street names (Plum, Avocado, Peach, etc.) but also because of the numbers of just plain fruity people living there. Anyway, one day I opened my garage (which was well off the street) to discover a bunch of stuff I didn't recognise had magically appeared -- a set of wheels, a kitchen stove, misc. household goods, garden tools, etc. Didn't appear to be dumped, stolen, nor broken. Landlord said it wasn't his stuff either. I never did find out where it came from.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
This seems to be a variation on a scene from a movie 20-30 years ago (forgot the name) where an ad is place in the papers for people to show up at a house for demolition, and to be paid supposedly afterwards.
Anyone remember the movie?
-Ann Coward, Toronto
I would have to see the actual ad to determine if the scavengers are at fault for destroying that lady's rental. If the ad said feel free to enter and take what you want (no supervision) then the scavengers are liable for not using judgement in determining the validity of the ad.
I think a judge will allow a search warrant for the perpetrators of this act of desruction/revenge/harm. In addition if the poster had a previous history of mischief then craigslist is also liable for paying damages.
So it is not whatever, there is substancial damage over $10,000 and someone is liabel and will suffer the consequences. And if the person who caused the damage is a minor, the parents will be liable for letting their child run amok....
Just thought it might put some perspective in this story. The cops aren't going to follow up on this. They are calling it a civil issue.
Boy do I feel bad now for the poor schmuck who lives at 123 First St., Schenectady, NY 12345
I've been signing them up for junk mail, spam, credit card offers, everything for years now.
Holy shit, Google Maps says that that address actually exists.
Sorry, dude.
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
I live in 3B. We like the free pr0n, it's ... interesting.
This is just so wrong that it's funny.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Law & Order = Ripped From The Headlines
Law & Order: SVU = Ripped From The Pantylines
Law & Order: CI: Ripped From Their Behinds
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
How is identifying ethnicity (a fact) racist? lighten the fuck up.
The woman easily suffered over $10,000 in damages and you're saying, "It's not so bad"?
According to this article, it was her mother's house. Could have been the house that the lady grew up in.
Shame on you for trivializing it.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
>WTF people? IF and WHEN something like this happens
>to you, you will change your tune VERY quickly.
Yep. Nobody is *really* a relativist. The coolest punk
or the smarmiest professor turns positively Puritan
when it's *their* stuff stolen, *their* face punched,
*their* wife raped.
No a great prank is what I pulled on my asshat neighbors. they like to party, they like to have partys late at night and keep me up as well as the neighbors. So I build a nice big subwoofer in my back yard (which buts up near their house) and from 9:00am until 2:00pm I have a very high volume low frequency signal that is randomized (gotta love computers) that is played. this disrupts their sleep bretty bad as it's closer to their house with the crappy 1940's single pane windows, than mine that is all brick and new windows and I'ts very noticable inside the homes.
I notified all the near neighbors that hate them and they all OK'ed it.
Having a fenced yard, and burying it as well as aiming the ports to their house helped quite a bit.
Nobody would have cared about their late night partying if the people they invite did not think laying on the horn and driving over people shrubs drunk was a cool and normal thing to do.
1. At least some landlords are evil money-grubbing dickheads and slumlords. Yes, I've rented from them. I recently had a landlord who specialized in ripping off college kids. Out of six tenants in my building, he sued five of us. When I went to court, the judge told him that his rental contract was abusive and needed to be changed. As far as I know, he hasn't changed it.
2. At least some tenants are evil uncaring assholes who destroy property, refuse to pay their rent, make the landlord go through a costly and slow eviction proceeding, and then disappear to pull the same crap someplace else.
3. The trashing in question apparently stemmed from a family dispute. The owner's mother had lived in the house. When the mother died, the owner evicted her brother and sister. Current thinking is that one of them posted (or had someone post) the fake ad.
4. IMHO, IANAL, a fake post on CraigsList doesn't give anyone legal authority to vandalize a house. The cops in Tacoma can be several miles short of worthless at times (they can't stop shootings on the Hilltop, prostitution pretty much everywhere downtown, etc) and so it doesn't surprise me that they won't get involved. I suspect that the homeowner would have a basis to sue the city of Tacoma for ignoring the issue. You can bet that if the home was owned by a city commissioner, cop, or well-connected businessman, the response would be different.
5. Not all of Tacoma is fucked up, and it doesn't ALWAYS smell bad (often but not always.) Ruston is pretty nice, and you don't have to lock your doors if you live down on Salmon Beach. The Hilltop is fairly bad, and even South Tacoma is a little shaky although Steilacoom and Lakewood are decent.
I'd personally pick Ruston if I HAD to live in Tacoma (or just move over to Gig Harbor.)
I agree, it would only have been noteworthy to mention the ethnicity if it were a white crew, since we all know construction crews are made up of mainly Mexicans, or at least those of us that have worked construction for any amount of time.
A little extra context never hurt anyone though, and I didn't even notice that the first time I read it through, and I am somewhat prejudiced myself. I would posit mentioning the race was more relevant to someone who considers himself to not be prejudiced, as it sure stirred you up.
Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz
Clearly, you do not understand what an eviction is, so let me help you. First of all, a landlord may not evict a tenant. In some jurisdictions, a landlord who evicts a tenant could go to jail. At any rate, he would certainly owe the tenant damages. Look up "constructive eviction" to see what I'm talking about.
Here's how a real eviction works:
- Tenant violates his lease, generally by not paying his rent
- Landlord posts notice on the property to "Pay or Quit" (experienced landlords do this the minute rent is late.. beginning landlords let the tenant be late for a few months before acting). This means the tenant is given X number of days (number varies by jurisdiction) to pay rent or leave.
- Assuming tenant doesn't pay by day X, landlord sues tenant for possession of his property. A court date is set.
- Landlord goes in front of a judge and says why he's suing (tenant hasn't paid rent in 3 months, or whatever), and the tenant can present a defense ("I did pay, here are the canceled checks", or "No, I did not pay, but there was a legal reason for me not to pay and that reason is Y") and the judge decides what to do.
- Assuming the tenant had no legal defense, the judge will order the sheriff to evict the tenant.
- You set up a date with the sheriff for him to do the actual eviction.
- You show up with movers and a locksmith to meet the sheriff at the scheduled time.
- Locksmith opens the door (in case the tenant changed the locks) and then locksmith changes the locks.
- Sheriff removes the tenant from the building
- Movers move all the tenants prized possessions to the curb
- Scavengers take anything of value
- Garbage man takes the rest
At this point, the landlord is out a minimum of one month of rent (it takes time for the wheels of justice to turn) and usually more, plus court costs, eviction costs, locksmith, movers, etc.In other words, if someone's getting evicted, it's for a darn good reason. It must be approved by a judge, and it costs money to do.
As you can see, this lady got kicked while she was down.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
How do you know that the apartment wasn't trashed by the evicted tenant, which is quite a common, and craigslist is just a tool for the landlord to recover that loss?
http://laurieraye.justgotowned.com/
Previewing comments are for sissies!
I've lived in Toronto for about two years now, and I come home to find shopping carts, piles of clothes, and small appliances on my front porch. While the shopping carts are annoying, the clothes and the appliances appear to be in good condition. Very strange people in this world.
I can't believe how many of my peers digress into banal discussions about evil landlords and evil tenants when examining a piece like this. I have my students do case studies every week. When they come across an interesting piece, like this one, that does not immediately seem related to networking or technology (the subjects I teach), I ask them to make the connection for me. That point of connection is usually the main point we, as tech professionals, can take away.
In this case, it demonstrates a flaw in the Craigslist community--an honor-based system--that allows people to post for any address. If anyone can log on and post an ad that refers to any address (e.g. "Change of staff--new office holder wants to redecorate--take what you want from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, D.C.), you might say "didn't see that coming" the first time, but you sure can anticipate the copycats. Think of what the credit card industry went through--once upon a time you could order and have something shipped anywhere. Now, you are mostly limited to shipping to your billing address. If Craigslist were my firm (and for the case studies, I ask my students to put themselves in that position), I would look at devising a way to limit posts to the verified address of a registered user only.
Should Craigslist do this? That's their call. I'm just saying that instead of griping and moaning about bad landlords and rental experiences, we should look at an item like this and say "what can I learn from it." I would not want to risk even implied liability for my company by allowing such fraud to be propogated on my watch. Didn't online firms learn anything from that online check service that allowed anyone to register checking accounts without verifying their owners?
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
I think it was meant to imply they didn't speak much english, which would make the resolution of a misunderstanding that much harder.
That my main takeout from your post is that you misspelled "whooshing" in the sig?
you had me at #!
This is Rob "cmdrtaco" Malda.
I have to get rid of everything in my house quickly, and I'm gonna let it go for free in order to get it out of here fast. Please leave the computers in the back closet though, I use those for slashdot.
Thanks
Rob
As I quickie joke, I was just going to copy-and-paste the parent post, and call this post "Dupe".
However, submitting this post failed with the error message:
This exact comment has already been posted. Try to be more original...
Oh the irony.
Note to metamods: this was a brilliant on-topic post by Tablizer, allegorically enforcing the point of the article. But, the mods are too thick to get that. In these matters, Dumb Moderation == Unfair Moderation.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Actually, I'm pretty sure not, since they clearly say that they do not own or take responsibility for the posts.
Particularly when it involves stealing things like the hot water heater and kitchen sink, things which, without, the home is now completely worthless.
Whoa, settle down, Beavis. Her insurance policy should pick up the damages.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
The landlord was pretty stupid, though. Why did they leave the doors unlocked? If I was going to evict someone, I would be there when the sherrif put them out and then change the locks and lock the doors.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
That's not ironic, it's just coincidental.
For not vigorously prosecuting this. They're sending a loud and clear message that perpetrating this kind of fraud is a-ok. This kind of precedent will encourage all kinds of people to go through Craigslist to extract their petty and not so petty vengence, because they'll rightly believe they can get away with it. This is plainly an example where the force of law needs to step in to prevent one person from violating the rights of another.
Being realistic about our democracy here, if this keeps up people are going to be clamoring for a law to regulate Craigslist and its ilk. The industry owes it to itself to see what kind of self regulation it can put in place to avoid a far worse outcome. I guarantee if Craigslist creates some sort of verification process, it will be far less onerous than anything the gubmint imposes. Will vetting entries be costly? Yes. Will industry crushing regulation be even costlier? Hell yes. Time to put long term profits ahead of the next quarter, guys, or you'll be sorry.
This one really happened. A copy of the newspaper article appears as the last page in the Re/Search book "Pranks". IIRC, the date and specific street address are given.
I felt bad when i read your post as you obviously ran out of page breaks.. here are a few, they are good for breaking up long posts into smaller paragraphs:
Sorry to be pendactic here, but I don't believe your friend was "abused through Craigslist." Instead, he was abused by the lowlife thieves that stole his property. by lowlifes, through Craigslist.
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
World renowned photographer looking for next hot supermodel. Please arrive between 8 and 9 am at {fill in address). Initial shoot will be lingerie. Please come prepared.
Ah yes. Insurance. Free Money! Oh wait, making that claim is going to bump up her future insurance payments a bit, I'd imagine.
Not likely if the doors were left unlocked.
Sometimes a tenant can't afford a security deposit in a lump sum and will build it up over time. Sometimes a tenant will, as you say, cause damage that eats into the security deposit.
At any rate, you are right, the security deposit can help cushion the blow. My guess in this case, however, is that there was no security deposit and that there was significant nonpayment of rent. The reason? Tenant was landlord's sister, and the property was her mother's house. The situation probably got way out of hand before landlord filed. Probably much ill will developed as well: How can you take your sister to court? How could you not pay your sister? How could you charge your sister to live in the house she grew up in? Stuff like that.
There are many, many rules of landlording. The first two are not as relevant here as rule #3 is.
Rule #3: Never rent to friends, family, family of friends, or friends of family.
Landlording is deceptively difficult. 90% of the time landlording is exactly what you picture: Go to post office, pick up rent checks, go to bank, deposit rent checks. But it's that 10% of the time that can really kill you if you don't know what you're doing.
What do you do when you go to the post office and no check is there?
What do you do when a tenant doesn't have all the rent money and asks, "Can you work with me?"
What do you do when a tenant is damaging your property?
What do you do if you have a vacancy that no matter what you try, you just can't seem to fill?
What do you do when a tenant is a bad neighbor (loud, rude, parks in the wrong spot, litters, does amateur auto maintenance on the lawn, etc.)?
What do you do when a tenant won't leave your property at the end of the lease?
What do you do when one tenant complains about another?
What do you do if there's water or fire damage?
What do you do if a tenant has the heat kicked up to 90 degrees with all the windows open where the landlord pays utilities?
What do you do if the tenant doesn't pay his utility bills and the utility comes after you?
What do you do when you realized you've paid too much for a property and your expenses are greater than your rents?
These are just some of the thousand or so things that can happen in that 10% of the time. You would be shocked at the creativity some tenants show. Every time I think I've seen it all, someone reminds me that I haven't even scratched the surface.
Landlording is definitely not for the feint at heart. For those who can learn to do it effectively, however, it can be extremely lucrative.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
I agree. That's the impression that I got. Not speaking English in an English speaking community would make it harder for somebody to raise concerns.
testing out my trending skills
The thing most people forget is that the landlord was a relative. Kicked them out, then sold their stuff to pay for the back rent.(which say, if it was your parents - would probably feel morally okay with - even though it's illegal to do so).
:)
Of course, my guess is that there wasn't a formal rental agreement, either.
So, the scenario:
Parent or relative rents to their semi-deadbeat child or relative.
Said renter, sans a rental contract, doesn't pay rent.
Relative/parent kicks them out and sells their stuff to cover the back rent.(which is an incredibly mean and asshat thing to do to begin with)
(I've had the same exact scenario happen with me two decades ago when I was in college with my parents - though they didn't sell my stuff, they threatened to do so)
Now, what would you do as the person who's stuff got sold? Right - want your stuff back, and want to get even with them, of course.
I tihn the police are right to call it a family feud and leave it alone, because both parties broke the law and are at fault.
But it's funny to read about
My second favorite, though, was the stench of doom.
Someone was mad at their ex and so he got some shrimp from the market and tossed a handful in the curtain rod(inch or so round type), then screwed the cap back on. Stage two was later on - he took a tiny hand drill(sell these at Radio Shack/hobby stores) and made two microscopic holes in it to let air in.
Took her over a year to figure out where the stink was coming from.
I've also heard of people getting dead feeder mice from the pet store - the tiny thumb sized ones and tossing it in an ac vent or behind an outlet or simmilar.
My favorite, though, was the $100 Porsche. Married couple. He was beyond obsessed and she wasn't taking it anymore, so she sold it for $100. (evidently she'd bought it for him or something, so he name was on the title). Moral: be nice to those close to you.
This is interesting because it is an example of a flash-mob. It's more interesting because the mob itself was apparently unaware that they were committing a crime on behalf of anonymous third party. I think it is fascinating that one person did some typing on a keyboard and caused a mob of totally unrelated people to descend on a property and loot it.
"You don't know the POWER of the dark side of Craigslist. Join me and together we will rule Tacoma as father and son!"
-- QED
I believe the proper action for Craigslist is to simply ignore any non-official demands for information.
The only "official" way to demand information is a subpoena or search warrant.
I don't want them shooting off the personal details of every poster each time they get an email claiming to be from "Joe FBI".
Stew
There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.
No, it is ironic.
I saw this on the news the Wednesday night, and there is nothing funny about this. The house has basically been demolished. They took *EVERYTHING* including quite literally the kitchen sink. They even started taking out windows and such before a stop was put to this.
The stance that Craigslist has taken should be criminal. Whoever posted the add deserves no protection, and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Think about it, anyone here could be the next target of such a "Prank".
Not every cynic you meet is automatically dysfunctional.
If we bring back duels to the death for matters of honor, this kind of thing will not happen anymore.
I don't know about the US, but around here the law basically says that a deposit can't be in excess of a month's rent (actually I think it's half a month's rent).
Given that, it doesn't take much time at all to cause more than a month's rent in damage, and if your tenant is getting kicked out he/she might very well be pissed off enough to eat the loss of deposit (hell, if they're being kicked out, it might be that they already owe more than it already) and trash the place. Moreover, as the law does require a fairly lengthy notice/processing period on an eviction, it gives bad tenants all that much more time to do rather unpleasant things to the dwelling place before they are removed.
That's why I prefer roommate situations, technically the roommate by law falls more as an extended guest, and has a lot less protections that get in the way of removing bad one. For the record I have not nor would I kick a roommate out without due notice, except under extreme circumstances... but it's nice to know that if I did end up with a really bad one (dealer, crack addict, psycho or other such) I could get him out. Plus being present myself means that - although I have to deal with the roomie on a regular basis - I have a pretty firm idea of what is going on in my place.