I’ve recently had a couple of experiences that have made me feel like a bad landlord. I always try to be fair and accommodating of our tenants, I feel that is one of the benefits of renting directly from a property-owner, rather than from one of those big super-complexes. It has always worked well in the past, but there’s a fine line between being a jerk and being too lenient. Our first really bad landlord experience came with the moving out of the tenants in apartment two. If you can remember, they moved out of state after being long-time renters in the building. They were very good renters, always paying on time and always upfront and communicative. Nice people who were pleasant to talk to and we were sad to see them go. Unfortunately, their move-out didn’t go so smooth. They had a TON of stuff (one of the downfalls of having large storage units for tenants is that they can fill them up), two small kids, a dog, and a cat. Moving was hectic and they were ill prepared. There was also a HUGE blizzard the weekend they were moving, so they were hurrying to get on the road. They ended up leaving the apartment pretty dirty, and overfilling our dumpster, as well as the dumpster to the unit next door. The trash removal company refused to dump either of them, so Mr. Savvy and my brother had to go over and clean up all the trash, and move a lot of it to the shed we have on the property. Luckily, they were able to find room for the entire overflow (at this point it also included one week of trash from both apartment buildings – 12 units total), and the trash removal company dumped the dumpsters. Mr. Savvy has been going back and moving trash from the storage shed to the dumpsters every week in order to get it removed. Luckily it has been damn cold here, so there’s no stink. We spent a lot of time cleaning and removing trash. We also had some items we had to pay to have removed. I ended up keeping their entire security deposit ($275 – this was collected by previous owners, we charge one month’s rent now). We figured out how much time we spent cleaning and prepping, and paid ourselves $20/hour, and they owed us money at the end (we didn’t ask them for payment of the difference). We also had some cleaning supplies we had to purchase. The second experience is related to our other tenant who moved out in December. She broke her lease early, but we were able to fill the vacancy. I am charging her mileage, advertising, and an hourly rate for showings. It ends up being about $170. I didn’t want to charge her, but I consulted our lawyer, as well as a couple other landlords, and they all told me that it was very reasonable. I guess most apartments charge one-month's rent for finding replacement tenants. She’s also getting a check back for about $200 of her December rent, since the new tenants moved in in the middle of the month. I guess I shouldn't feel too bad. I don’t like feeling like the landlord that nickels and dimes their tenants on security deposits, but I also realize that we are in this as an investment. I am trying my best to be fair.