The Story of the “Haunted" Rental House

I was told a very interesting story by a landlord a few years ago and thought I would share it as my last few posts have been about property management, apartments, and rentals. Be warned: it is pretty crazy and astonishingly, a true story.

The Story of the “Haunted" Rental House

A landlord rented a home to a female member of a tribe that had a casino. Each member received a portion of the casino profits. The tenant had stable income and good credit. It looked like guaranteed income to the landlord. Unfortunately, the best laid plans of mice and men. . .

After signing the lease and moving in, everything went well for a couple of years. However, the tenant married a man of dubious background (i.e. drug dealer) and did not add him to the lease agreement. Please note that there was already a local drug dealer who lived two doors down from the landlord’s property.

With the new husband competing with the local drug dealer, things got a bit out of hand and from hearsay, it appeared that the local drug dealer shot a hole through the front door of the landlord’s rental property, right next to the peep hole where the new husband would have been looking through. The wife went ballistic and moved her family out (less her drug dealing husband) during the middle of the night—with no forwarding address.

The tenant’s sister then called the landlord and asked if she could rent the home. She was receiving the same amount as her sister from the casino proceeds and could pay the rent. She also did not have a drug-dealing husband. The landlord agreed, and collected the rent. The next month when the rent came due, there was no word from the sister. The landlord drove over to the property and discovered everyone had moved out—except a guard dog that was being held within the fenced-in front yard.

The landlord called Animal Control and asked them to remove the dog from the premises. The sister had moved out of the property and had apparently abandoned the dog at the home. Animal control said they would leave a notice on the door and be back in five days to pick up the dog. One of the neighbors took exception to the landlord calling animal control on his friend’s “cute, cuddly little” dog and tried to start a fight with the landlord.

During this debacle, the landlord finally decided he really needed to get this property repaired and rented out to someone who was not involved in the drug trade. One day later the landlord arrived at the home and the dog was gone. Evidently whoever owned the guard dog got the message. The landlord discovered, from some of the nicer neighbors, that the sister’s brother (who was not on the lease) owned the dog and had been staying at the property after the sister had been scared off by “things moving in the night.” The neighbors said the brother thought the house was “haunted.” The landlord wondered if the “things moving in the night” were bullets being shot through the front door by their drug dealing competitor.

The brother left several pennies with the head side down (i.e. trying to place bad luck on the property) and had a “ghost consultant” contact the landlord to help him “rid the house of ghosts.” The landlord got a good laugh at the ghost consultant. Long story short, he rented the home to tenants who already lived in the neighborhood and knew about the local drug dealer.

I contacted the landlord of that specific property a few years later and he said that they haven’t had any problems with the property since the last “series of unfortunate events.”