So what would you do?

[Maraya1969]

I'm renting to a woman who was homeless with 5 cats and a dog. She stayed here for free and then for a much reduced rate for 10 month.

So I let her dog out to my backyard everyday. Sometimes 2 and 3 times a day when she works long hours. She has another cat that I have allowed in my side and tried to keep from going out the dog door.

I have built barricades. She has broken every one. I am amazed at how this cat can get out. I have also put her in the back lanai (which still has broken screens) with a leash. She has literally gotten out and about with her leash hanging down her back.

So I just started letting her go. She doesn't go farther than my yard. She is 13. She cries at the side of the door, which is next to me as I am home during the day. Sometimes she bangs the door; over and over. Anyone that knows a cat know how demanding and unrelenting they can be.

So I have been trying to put her back before her mom comes home but I forgot today. All I hear is this woman yelling about how I should just ignore her cries and how she, "Trained her" to be an indoor cat, (apparently she was a stray many years ago so she knows the outside). (I've listened to this woman bitch about everything and anything and now she is bitching about me. I'm really sick of it)

I'm not going to sit here and listen to that cat cry and do nothing. When the dog cries I get up and let him in my side and out to the back yard. The woman likes that. But this cat she wants me to ignore.

Oh, and she made a barricade to her side so when I opened up the door earlier today it moved a fence she had laid across the door. What the Hell she expected me to do with the dog is beyond me. I said something to her about this and I think she had forgotten I let her dog out everyday. Some days she asks me if she is going to be very late.

I feel bad for those poor animals over there.

I wish there was a way for me to record the cat crying and then play it through the air conditioner so she can try and sleep to it!

[VarryOn]

1. You are a very patient landlord...

She can walk all over you only if you allow her to. It sounds like you've gone well beyond what any tenant should expect (e.g. letting her live free or at a discount, helping take care of her pets, listening to her cats, etc.). And she sounds like a total ingrate. Ungratefullness is one of the most ugly traits a person can show.

With five cats and a dog living indoors, I'm sure the place is quite pleasant selling.

I'd give her a verbal warning. If nothing changed, I'd give her something in writing, and next I'd evict her, following local laws and the lease you had her signed.

Good tenants are a God-send, and bad ones like this are of the devil!

[Karadeniz]

2. This sounds like reasonable advice.

[Sherman A1]

3. Agreed

it is indeed reasonable advice and I hope that it is followed.