Rental Roller Coaster

Snapshots of our tenant search for Rental Property 1:

Potential Tenant 1
"We would be interested in looking at the rental however we must be upfront, we are not interested in providing banking history, references, (income verification, credit information) etc."
UM.... OK... NEXT!
______________________________________

Potential Tenant 2
Me: "Do you have any pets"
Them: "No... just a labrador retriever".

What?! ok... see... ma'am... here is what "no" means...
As it turns out, I was willing to compromise on the "no pets" rule, but things didn't work out with them for about a half dozen other reasons. Nonetheless, in the end I still had to ask myself, would I really want a tenant who has that much trouble with a simple yes/no question? I can see it already:
Me: Did you send me the rent for this month?
Them: Yes, I certainly did. I will put in in the mail next week.

Huh?
______________________________________

Potential Tenant 3
With a verifiable six-figure salary, this tenant checked out perfectly and we were just an hour away from meeting to sign a lease... until I received this phone call: "I'm going to have to come by and sign the lease in the morning instead. My dog is at the vet with a really bad tooth ache [sidebar... what is up with the dog stories?] and the vet just called. He needs me to come by right away."

The next morning he doesn't call. So I call him by noon, and sense the panic in his voice right away. I proceed to get a dramatic story about how his top manager has quit on the spot and his business is suddenly falling apart. "I have to move back to North Carolina. I'm sorry but I've gotta back out of our deal."

Good grief. If his business is truly in tatters, then I feel for the guy... But I still cannot believe that I was a dog's tooth ache away from at least having a $1200 security deposit to hold onto. Geez Louise... a dog tooth ache? Come on.
______________________________________

Potential Tenant 4
"... we love it and we have $500 to put down today. We'll have the rest of the deposit and first month's rent by February 1." And so I run the application, credit, and profile check. Here's what follows:

Me: "turns out, based on our calculated ratios, you guys have insufficient income for the required rent amount" [... oh... and then there's the thing you alluded to in your application about building car engines on the front lawn. But of course legally I can't hold that against you.]

Them: "Insufficient income? That's not a problem. We'll be running (an unlicensed and therefore illegal) daycare out of the home once we move in. [Worried about being sued for accident liability? You should be. And nevermind section 14 of the lease that forbids running a business out of residence...] This will bring in another $1200 per month easily. I would've told you before but, you know, it's under the table. I don't claim it on my taxes or nothin."

Yet, they could not understand why I couldn't base the application acceptance on money that can't be claimed and "doesn't really exist." Um... NEXT!
______________________________________

Potential Tenant 5
OK... this happened like 2 hours ago, and has me on the verge of including an IQ test with the rental application. This past Saturday, this guy checked out okay and proceeded to sign a lease and pay a "hold fee" to secure the home until his move-in date. Seemed like a nice enough guy and I would've bet my paycheck that we had us a superb tenant for at least the next 2 or 3 years. So for 3 days I'm on cloud 9... ready to finally turn my attention to Rental Property 2 and put this circus to an end. Until this morning's conversation:

Note: the following must be read with thoughts of the most overly drawn out southern slowspeech accent you can possibly think of.

"This past weekend my daughter disrespected me and my wife, which is her step mom... and so they got into it. And then I got into it too. Then her mom came into town from (different city) to see what was going on... and we got into it too... then I ended up beating up on her mom (admittedly not his exact words... but hot dog... that is pretty doggone close to what he said) and so now my daughter is moving out again and I'll have to pay $600 in child support all over again. So now I have no more money and need to get out of the lease if you'll let me."

WHAT?! Talk about being blindsided. After dealing with 1000 crazy people over the past 3 weeks and thinking I finally found the sane one of the bunch, my heart just dropped while I tried to process what he was telling me. I wouldn't have seen this one coming in a million years. I promise you, I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried. And this doesn't even scratch the surface of the countless number of bizarre people that never even make it past the first phone call or email. Man, YouveGottaBeKiddingMe.

Who signed me up for this twilight zone episode? How did I get such a good seat on this Bizarre Rental Roller Coaster? And when (oh when) do I get to get off?

Good grief.