I agree. There's no excuse for violating someone else's property. I can't understand what these folks are thinking when they intentionally destroy someone else's belongings - particularly when they have been good enough to offer their home to them. Sorry to hear about your crummy renters, BR. I have a similar experience, and unfortunately it involves family members, so it's a sticky situation. This past weekend we had a birthday party at my home for my sweet 2 year old grandson's birthday. My ex passed away last year and my grown sons asked if I minded inviting that side of the family to the party. I said sure, though I had some reservation about my ex's sister and her family; she has 6 children, ranging in age from 14 to 24. The reason for my hestitation was the memory of those six kids when they were little - they could totally destroy a house in 10 minutes. I finally put my foot down and stopped inviting them 10 years ago when I ended up with broken lamps, food ground into the carpet and the house looking like a disaster had struck. Fast forward ten years to this past weekend. To my horror, these "kids" are still the same terrors they were years ago, only worse because they're much bigger! The 13, 15 and 18 year old got into a food fight inside the house while we were all outdoors. I didn't realize anything had happened until the door suddenly opened and these three terrors came flying out with yellow red and blue cake icing all over their face, hair and clothes, laughing and screaming and running down across the lawn. One of still had a chunk of birthday cake in his hand and the other had a sandwich chock full of mayo that he proceeded to throw at his sister! I jumped up and ran into the house and was totally horrified! I'm talking cake icing running down the walls, in my new beige living room carpet, on the kitchen cabinet - talk about wanting to throw up...aargh!! I looked over at my grandson's Nemo birthday cake and was further horrified! These teens had literally ripped chunks of birthday cake and grabbed huge hunks of icing from the tip of the cake. I was so upset I burst into tears. About 5 minutes later they came flying back in the door - the only thing that stopped them in their tracks was me in the doorway ready to slap each one of them! The 18 year old girl had the audacity to ask me (after a shallow apology) if I wanted her to help me clean up the mess! Her mother strolled in about 5 minutes later (the fact that it took her this long to react probably tells the story) and very non-chalantly told the three that it wasn't nice to act this way in other's homes and that they owed me an apology. That was it - she then picked up a dishrag and began to wipe down the wall. I was so upset I walked outside, where my entire family stood with their jaws dropped - they couldn't believe what they had just witnessed. To top it off, after cleaning up the mess, this group of terrorists stayed about three more hours, laughing, running around and acting like nothing had happened. All of this happened with ME there - as well as 30 other guests! Think what it would be like to have THIS family rent your place! Needless to say, I told my sons that never again in my lifetime would I invite these slobs to my house. My sons felt terrible for having suggested I invite the "other" family.
Make me want to go check on our condo to see what's going on when we're not there. But of course we won't. But we're definitely considering taking it off of the rental market. We've had a few bad experiences where we were glad we weren't there to witness it.
