Renter with a history

storagegirl63383

Is there a way we can make a note pop up saying something like do no rent to this person?  For example, we had a lady come in the other day and I rented to her and I ran a small free background check on her though our state because her behavior was erratic while she was in my office, so I wanted to see if she had been in trouble with drugs or something.  She didn't have a criminal record, but the address on the background case net search stuck out, so I pulled up a log of old vacated tenants, and we had her prior, 3 years ago and had to evict her for living in the unit.  She was a paranoid schizophrenic off her meds and when we called the cops she had threatened me and said that airplanes had been landing at her house and that the cops and FBI had been beating her and that they wanted to deport her, she's an American citizen, so this was all in her head.  So as soon as I saw this I was like oh no what did I get myself into?  If something could have popped up saying that she'd been an issue tenant before, rent with caution that would be helpful, or another scenario if I'm off and the fill in manager rents to someone we've auctioned off in the past, they have no way of knowing unless they were here for the auction or knew that tenant.  Any recommendations?

karen700

We tape a sheet under the desk calendar with names of tenants we don't wish to deal with again. We contact our sister properties via email. I have a "drama" folder I keep on hand in case someone is filling in for me....notes on current drama and the "Please, don't rent to" list.

Orkocean

If they were in your system before and you have a funny feeling about someone you could always just go to the payment screen, click the "show only current tenant" checkbox in the top right and pull up their old account to look over notes. But otherwise there is no sitelink method of a "black list"

skinman

I always ask if they have rented from us before and do what Ork just mentioned... we also keep a running list as karen stated as well for auction names. Ultimately, one can always slip through the cracks.

storagegirl63383

Thanks everyone for your feedback, I will share this with our other stores, I think this was helpful.

i43storage

Orkocean said:

If they were in your system before and you have a funny feeling about someone you could always just go to the payment screen, click the "show only current tenant" checkbox in the top right and pull up their old account to look over notes. But otherwise there is no sitelink method of a "black list"

This is very true and I have used it often; however, it would be nice if when we did pull up prior tenant names, it was highlighted or something so that we wouldn't have to actually go into their record and read notes.

CVSSSTORAGE

i43storage said:

Orkocean said:

If they were in your system before and you have a funny feeling about someone you could always just go to the payment screen, click the "show only current tenant" checkbox in the top right and pull up their old account to look over notes. But otherwise there is no sitelink method of a "black list"

This is very true and I have used it often; however, it would be nice if when we did pull up prior tenant names, it was highlighted or something so that we wouldn't have to actually go into their record and read notes.

I always put DO NOT RENT AGAIN in the payment screen under their ID

teamcapitola

All of the locally owned facilities in our area share an Excel "Do Not Rent" list that gets emailed around as it's updated... it has saved us (meaning me) many times. Anytime we get an inquiry and a name we do a "ctrl - F " in the excel sheet and search for the name.

As far as previous tenants go, I train staff to always search (for previous tenants) in Sitelink first;  it's good practice to link the accounts regardless, and you find useful information...like they left a ton of garbage, or didn't give notice..

Another tool is the local court system. Many county courts are offering online services for free; allows you to search a name and any court cases (or tickets, arrests, etc.)

i43storage

teamcapitola said:

All of the locally owned facilities in our area share an Excel "Do Not Rent" list that gets emailed around as it's updated... it has saved us (meaning me) many times. Anytime we get an inquiry and a name we do a "ctrl - F " in the excel sheet and search for the name.

As far as previous tenants go, I train staff to always search (for previous tenants) in Sitelink first;  it's good practice to link the accounts regardless, and you find useful information...like they left a ton of garbage, or didn't give notice..

Another tool is the local court system. Many county courts are offering online services for free; allows you to search a name and any court cases (or tickets, arrests, etc.)

Great ideas.  Do you look at these databases for every potential tenant or just the suspicious looking ones?  I'm curious to know because I'm wondering what I should tell the potential tenant while I'm looking up his background and he's waiting.

karen700

@i43storage ...I go thru the property do's and don'ts and if I still have hard time finding past info...I tell them the computer is acting up and just took me into another page by accident...then I ask how they found us? how was your weekend? etc. Normally, you can find your drama list by then.

teamcapitola

i43storage  - We can place any requirements we choose for prospective tenants, however whatever we require MUST be applied to everyone.

Our facility now requires a drivers license; we found that in 90% of all tenant issues involved a tenant that only had an ID.

Some facilities require a social security number.... since nobody else does that in my town, I doubt we could do that without losing a LOT of customers.

Since we are doing a "public" search, we do not need to disclose that we are doing it, but we do try to look up everyone prior to renting.