Even despite conducting a thorough screening process to find the best tenants, sometimes a few bad apples can get through. After you publish your listing on platforms like Padleads, you can’t guarantee that all the applicants who would reach out to you have your best interest at heart.
There are also times when a seemingly responsible tenant moves in but eventually starts to exhibit bad behavior and causes disruption to other tenants. A tenant nuisance can cause different forms of trouble. They may cause loud disturbing noises, get into fights with neighbors, engage in criminal activity, or cause property damage.
Regardless of how a tenant becomes a tenant nuisance, you have to stop them from interfering with your tenant’s rights and your rights as the property owner or manager by reprimanding them or going through the process of eviction.
Getting rid of a tenant nuisance can be challenging. Luckily, you have landlord rights that can help you deal with such tenants.
What’s a tenant nuisance?
The California Civil Code Section 3479 defines nuisance as:
“Anything which is injurious to health, including, but not limited to, the illegal sale of controlled substances, or is indecent or offensive to the senses, or an obstruction to the free use of property, so as to interfere with the comfortable enjoyment of life or property, or unlawfully obstructs the free passage or use, in the customary manner, of any navigable lake, or river, bay, stream, canal, or basin, or any public park, square, street, or highway, is a nuisance.”
Avoiding Tenant Nuisance through your Lease Agreement
One way you can prevent a tenant from causing any nuisance during their stay in your property is by falling back on your lease.
Have a language in your lease agreement that specifies your non-tolerance of any form of nuisance. You can also add a clause that regulates loud noises that violates the right of other tenants to “quiet enjoyment.”
You could also outline all behaviors or activities that can be considered a nuisance, as well as the consequences of such misbehavior.
Dealing with tenants when they become tenant nuisance
Even though the tenant signed a lease agreement, there’s no guarantee that he will honor the terms agreed upon until the end of his tenancy. If a tenant does violate your policy on nuisance, you have the right to take certain actions to address the issue:
Notice to Cure
Most of the time, a tenant doesn’t even notice that he is causing minor nuisances such as loud noise. If you receive a noise complaint from other tenants, you can approach the noisy tenant or serve him a Notice to Cure so that he is aware of the disturbance he is causing. By doing this, you are giving the tenant a chance to fix the problem within three days or he vacates the property.
Notice to Quit
If the tenant refuses to fix the issue despite being warned, you can serve him a Notice to Quit, giving him three days to leave the property, or else you will file for an eviction lawsuit. You are allowed to directly give a Notice to Quit instead of a Notice to Cure if the lease violation or nuisance behavior cannot be fixed, such as engaging in illegal activity.
Evict the tenant
If a tenant refuses to leave after three days, after getting all the notice, you can already file an eviction lawsuit against him. Just make sure that all the notices were served properly according to the law, and that you did not commit any of the common mistakes that landlords make that make them lose eviction cases.