Name Calling as Tenant Selection
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by Robert L. Cain, Copyright 2006 Cain Publications, Inc. When a smart landlord rejects an applicant he or she has an intelligent, business-based reason for doing so. It has nothing to do with name calling. “Huh?” you ask, “what does name calling have to do with tenant selection?” You’d think, absolutely nothing. Yet I have heard landlords say they want to rent, or refuse to rent, on the basis of an epithet. Usually it has to do with someone's race, religion, or national origin. You know the litany: “I'm not renting to any ____.” You fill in the blank for the racial, religious or ethnic slur. Well, if you really want to prejudge and call names, I have some you can use, and they make impeccable business sense: deadbeat, property trasher, filthy slob, drug dealer, thug, sleazeball, crook, miscreant, gang banger, hoodlum, degenerate, bum. You don’t want to rent to anyone whose character would fit those labels. You see, those names describe the activities people engage in that disqualify them from the valued category of “good tenant.” It is a well-known fact that there are blacks, Catholics, Jews, Arabs, Hispanics and all kinds of other people identifiable by their race, religion or national origin who are horrible tenants, people whom you would never consider renting to. But the fact that they are horrible tenants has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that they are blacks, Catholics, Jews, Arabs, Hispanics, and so on. It has to do with the fact that they don =t pay the rent, deal drugs, trash property, are criminals, or whatever other things they do that disqualifies them from good-tenant status. It is also a well-known fact that there are whites, Easterners, Southerners, Northerners, Westerners, and even Arizonans who are horrible tenants. That has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that they are white or came from a geographic region of the country, but only that they aren’t civilized enough to be a good tenant. It just goes to show: you can =t judge whether or not someone will be a good tenant by looking at or listening to him or her. Each prospective tenant needs to fill out a rental application in full, with something appropriate written in every space to your satisfaction. You have to see picture ID from all adults who will be moving into the property. You have to be able to verify everything on the rental application. They must have sufficient income. And they must meet your credit requirements. You can’t discover if someone fills any of those requirements by just looking at or listening to him or her. But you sure can if you have a rental application and verify everything. Want to call some people names? Go ahead. But make sure you have the evidence that the people you are calling names deserve them. No sleazeballs are going to rent from you. |