Tales Of The Rent Man

I had a family who rented a small place from me. There was a mother, father, and young child who had a disease that would keep him from reaching adulthood. These were nice people. The mom was full time care giver to their child and dad was full time bread winner. They had been there quite a while. Always paid the rent on time and never complained.

One month the rent was late. I went out to see what was going on. The mother answered the door. The father had had a heart attack.

It wasn’t my problem, but these were good people. I went into full social services mode even though I had no idea what to do. I got county government involved. Got them some help, including rental assistance. The last I knew, social services moved them somewhere and were taking care of both the father and child. They found a way to provide disability for both and a section eight subsidized home elsewhere for them to live. I spent a lot of time trying my best to do the right thing by them. I still wish them well.

I had another family where the only son was the caregiver for his aging parents. I had visited them several times to see how they were getting along. They seemed nice enough.

One Thanksgiving weekend the son was killed in a one car accident on the interstate. No drugs nor alcohol were involved. I went to see the parents to express my condolences and let them I would do what I could to help them. After the funeral and the rent was getting very late with no word from them, I was obligated to call on them. They told me they had no idea what to do for themselves. I told them the story of the other family I had helped. The man jumped all over me.

“We have our pride,” he shouted. “We ain’t taking any handouts.”

“Then when are you planning to move out?” I asked.

“We ain’t got much money, we can’t go anywhere else.” The wife said. “We only get social security.”

I nodded. “I understand, but the owner of this house has a mortgage payment to make on this house.”

“That’s all you want, you bloodsucker!” The man shouted at me, shaking his fist. “Get the hell out of here!”

“I’m here to try and help you, but you’re not leaving me any choice.”

“We don’t want your help.” He shouted, raising his fist at me.

After taking more abuse, I left and sent them a three day notice to vacate. They didn’t I was left with no choice but to follow through. And so is the life of the rent man.

In the real estate business, an REO property is how they refer to houses that have been foreclosed upon. It stands for ‘Real Estate Owned.’ That means owned by a bank somewhere. Back in about 1988, we got an REO property from a bank client who shall remain nameless even though they no longer exist. This was a collection of six cottages in a section of town known as Sulfur Springs, not a high rent district. Almost all these cottages were vacant. We went there to evaluate what was needed to be done to make them rentable for the bank. They were a mess. They were so bad they had not even attracted squatters. One was occupied by a young single woman and her small child. When I met her and checked out the house, I found she didn’t have a working toilet. She would pee in a can and throw it out. I dare not ask about her child. Of course, I reported this to the bank immediately so we could rectify the problem. They sat on it. They did nothing the first week. We complained and took it upstairs to the bosses. They did nothing either. I threatened them with going to TV stations and county code enforcement. They grudgingly agreed to investigate it. At the expense of losing a large client, we told them that was not good enough. If nothing was done by tomorrow, we would take action and they would see their name splattered all over the media. That’s what it took to get them to take corrective action.

I found out that the REO departments of banks in those days are where you ended up when your banking career was dying. The other people in that department were entry level. It was their trial by fire to see if they were cut out for the banking world. We lost the account and not a minute too soon if you ask me. This was one of my early introductions to the rent man business.