Maybe eviction isn't such a bad idea after all

I must admit, in a lot of ways I'm too soft on tenants. I'll let them sweet talk me into a longer deadline for their rent, and I'll believe the excuses. But this time I've let things get out of hand. I have a tenant that is now three months late on their rent. Three months?!? You're crazy you say. The first month I let them get away with it because they had to be temporarily relocated (more on this later) but even though the hotel was being paid for they claimed that they had a number of unanticipated food expenses. So I guess in return for them not complaining I gave them some leeway. The second month was an extension of the excuses from the first month. Now it's the third month and I had to say enough is enough.

I've heard a lot of horror stories about evictions. Oh, it takes months to get them out. They will trash your place out of spite. They will find some reason to sue you. God only knows what else. So I started feeling quite helpless, as the rent wasn't coming in, but eviction seemed quite daunting.

But as mentioned, I had had enough. So I did some research. In CT, it can in fact be a long process. You have to start by serving a "Notice to Quit", which is kind of the nice version of the letter to get out. You have to give the tenant at least three days (not counting the day it is served or the day they move out) to get out. If that doesn't happen, you have to then go to court to file a complaint, which is then given a new date and has to be served back to the tenant. If that still doesn't get them out then they can request a trial, and then it starts getting long and ugly.

I spoke with the tenant first and told her that this just couldn't go on any more. That didn't seem to sink in so I went ahead and had the Notice to Quit served to her. As you can imagine, she was not pleased. Lucky for me she left me a long winded voicemail where she more or less incriminated herself on a number of items. Save that for later.

But then something strange happened. She seemed to have accepted her fate and said she would be out by the end of the month. Could this be a trick? She went further by saying it would be ok to show the apartment, and she would still try to get the back rent. What have you done with my tenant? I knew she was crazy but this was not what I expected.

But I may be talking too soon. We'll see what really winds up happening in a couple of weeks. But if it does go well, I probably won't be so afraid of the eviction process in the future.