The Bully Tenants Part 2...

If my first story hasn't put you off the renting business, you might consider this one.

Normally I find students more respectful. Typically 90% of them are and then you get that 1 out of 10 who is a real prick. Then they involved their parents and that's when you start to understand where they got it from.

My biggest problem with students is they treat the deposit as rent. So 2 months before they move out they stop paying rent and if you haven't been checking you will find out that they are moving out tomorrow and you are left with a pig dump and a huge electricity bill.

But I am more vigilant, and I sought to educate my student tenants about deposits. Because I know some of them will continue their study overseas where they deal with landlords and the law which gives no leeway. So be lenient with them today and they will get into trouble tomorrow.

I have a meter installed in every room to calculate the air-cond electricity usage so that it's fair for all the tenants. I had this tenant who rented a single room from me for just over a year. After six months, he seems to be not using his air-cond at all. Then one day when my contractor serviced all the air-conds, he told me the meter was broken. When I confronted him, he said he was not aware it was broken because he hardly turned on the air-cond. But what his housemates told me were different. His air-cond was indeed turned on every night. So it is obvious he has not been honest and the fact that every month he reported only a minor shift of his meter despite the meter not moving at all confirms that he has been trying to hide the fact his meter was broken.

So I had the enviable role of having to recalculate all the share of the electric bills again backdating 6 months. It's impossible to do it accurately and to be fair I discussed with him the methodology. But he tried to impose his method instead which was clearly in his favour, peppered with insults and rude words on me when I refused to accept them. I had no choice but to told him to leave. Then I had phone calls from his father, which was initially very cordial. However he started to impose his conditions and what he termed as win-win situation, actually is win for him only. I have to calculate his bills before I refund his deposit and to be nice, I actually refunded half of it so he can pay his new landlord. To chase and pressure me to release the other half, every single day both father or son will sms or call me, called me a liar, money sucker, uneducated, mother fucker and everything they were brought up with. They even claimed they have consulted a lawyer and have a strong case to sue me for the balance RM550 (RM370 after bills deducted)!

It's not always you come across such people but you'll definitely come across them if you are in the business of renting. I myself have had a fair share of these characters but to be fair, I've seen some very unreasonable landlords as well... more on that later...