Dealing with Idiots

Okay - before anybody gets too carried away, let me say up front that I am the biggest idiot of all for putting myself in this position.

Above my office building I have a small apartment that I rent. I also own the building next door with an apartment above it. I have a partner in that building. I let him choose the tenant - he chose a shirt-tail relative and I said okay without checking it out - big mistake.

Unknown to me, she had a couple of cats - and a dog. That wasn't too bad. But, over time she was getting a little behind in her rent - and being the nice guy that I am, I let it slide for a couple of months. Then she gave her notice that she was moving. Said she'd gotten married. Then she left with a promise she'd be back before the end of the month to get her stuff out and catch up on the back rent.

Just before the end of the month she calls my partner and tells him that her husband's ex-wife had run her down and she was in the hospital. She wouldn't be able to make it for a couple of more days, but she'd make up the rent.

Two weeks later and she was going to be late for some other reason. On and on it goes.

THEN I find out that she's left TWO cats up there alone the whole time. Yeah, she's had a friend stop in to feed them. Great. I called my lawyer (enough of me being an idiot) and found out what I needed to do to evict her.

Now I have a storage place full of her stuff and hundreds of dollars worth of damage that I've gotta fix. (You wouldn't believe how bad cats can smell!)