Tales from the Landlord: The Nephew

I run a small real estate development company, which means I can’t afford any full-time employees. I can sub out some of the building management to other companies, but not all of it, so I often find myself on the frontlines of tenant relations, dealing with some pretty bizarre activity. Today was no exception.

At 12:14 PM, my uncle, combing the local police blotter as part of his civic duties, discovered that an arrest was made of a man claiming residence at a building I run. My uncle passed along the intel to my dad, who then reported the perp to me. When I pulled up the picture of the guy online, I didn’t recognize him at all. Never seen his face or name before. Trying to stay optimistic, I first thought, maybe the guy was just giving a fake address and knew this was a commercial building? Or, maybe the police took down the wrong address? Then I thought, uh oh. We’ve got another squatter.

The buildings I work on tend to be what’s called “mixed-use”, which means that there are usually some retail units downstairs, and some apartments upstairs. Even though the buildings are all in nice towns, it doesn’t matter. Weird shit is always going down in the apartments. And every now and again, some tenants let other people move into their apartment without telling me or the property managers. Actually, this kind of thing happens a lot. A respectable tenant, who is very nice, signs a lease promising to be the only occupant, but eventually lets a degenerate buddy, or in this case, a troubled nephew, stay with him. And these mystery guests usually cause a lot of problems.

The nephew, who was arrested for possession of cocaine, among other things, had been crashing with the tenant for a couple of weeks. The tenant, and I believe him when he says this, was trying to do the right thing for his relative, giving him a place to get his act together, but it backfired on him quickly, ultimately ending in the nephew’s arrest. Now the tenant is in violation of his lease for having an unsigned roommate and I have a potential shitstorm on my hands.

Normally, these situations turn into a total mess because the tenant isn’t so willing to correct the issue, and it takes months to get the squatting roommate out of the apartment. Especially if it’s in Massachusetts, where people can jerk the court system around to keep extending their unlawful stay. Fortunately, today’s incident involved a very nice tenant and the problem was resolved in a few hours. The nephew will no longer be at the premises, and the other tenants don’t have to be concerned about him. At least that’s what’s been promised. We’ll see. Let’s give it a week.