Protecting your Sewer...?

I have a landlord friend who rents out to section 8 tenants. He likes the gov check…but on the neg.side…he has some very high-maintenance tenant problems.

On one property…a disgruntled tenant poured “Hydraulic Cement” into one of his bath room toilets. The guy had to dig up one the bathroom floor and redo the piping. (dayum…) Major mess and $.

IN the above example…is there anyway to prevent this effect from taking place?

Any type of insurance to cover vandalism by tenants?

While there could easily be insurance cover, it will become very expensive for the insured if they keep making claims. Insurance is based on the average number of claims. If one customer is a high risk customer, they will either find their policy is terminated or they will have to pay up.

The best way to reduce the cost is to avoid the tenants who are causing the problem. Or you have to charge them a lot more, maybe more than the HUD rate, to cover the damage they will produce.

There is no silver bullet here. If you rent to people who cause problems you better price the rent to cover the costs. Just because HUD will pay the rent does not mean it makes sense to take the tenants.

I am not saying that all tenants on some form of government assistance are going to be an issue. You need to screen the tenants carefully and keep the winners. Like being a landlord without a government check.