I was curious how some of you handle smoking complaints in a duplex. Both tenants ahve been there for three years and gotten along great, but tenant #1 had her idiot daughter move in and a boyfriend too. After that happened the tenants on the other side have been complaining about smoking inside. They said they can smell it regularly and that they went to talk to the neighbor about it and the daughter answered the door while smoking.
I called and talked to the tenant about it, and after I got another complaint I had a stronger conversation and sent a letter too. The tenant is upset enough that she said she is moving which is a good outcome from this. I’m pissed anyway that they brought in adult children without adding them to the lease and that his car leaks oil in the driveway. So them leaving is OK with me.
The problem is that I never witnessed smoking and couldn’t have taken any action in terms of fees or eviction if it came to that. What I would have done is find another reason to evict, like not accepting a late payment. Was there a way to handle this non-confrontationally and without implicating the other tenant as the one who complained?
Our lease has a clause that states visitors staying on the property for more than 14 consecutive days at a time or exceeding 21 total days per year must be approved by the landlord.
So that’s where I would have hit them for a lease violation. For those type issues though, you’re looking at a 30 day notice to cure the defect. We don’t have a no-smoking clause in our leases, but that would be another way (I’m sure you could smell it if you went over to the property).
Just be careful not to take one person’s word as gospel over another. We just had an issue this week where a tenant in our apt building wanted us to call the police and put a no-trespass order against the tenant’s soon to be ex son-in-law. She claimed the guy was coming over there late at night causing problems. Turns out though (through talking with several other tenants) that it was actually the tenant’s daughter causing problems. The daughter ended up going to jail and the son-in-law was just getting his daughter from the grandmother.
I had already sent a letter addressing some issues with this tenant regarding things leading up to this situation. Seems she is straightening up now.
Looks like they are moving. I never smelled smoking but when I talked to the tenant it was pretty clear that her daughter was creating a problem.
She’s pissed that the neighbors called and decided to move. I told her I would release her from the lease so that she can. Looks like a best case scenario as long as the place doesn’t smell like smoke.
It could be worse…our neighbor’s daughter used to ‘sneak smoke’ out her bedroom window and flick her butts out. Not once but TWICE, she set the mulch to smouldering! Luckily some of us neighbors saw it both times and put it out. The mom was never home and the daughter was a complete ‘wild child’!