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Am I being too restricting with my tenant on his visitors?

Asked by csillagfeny (45points) July 11th, 2016

My husband and I live in this relatively new apartment which we’ve bought not long ago, and we decided to rent out ONE ROOM as we have space to spare (and also, a good chance for us to generate a side-line income). Not long after moving in, we found a tenant. We have a tenancy agreement, and one of it contains a clause which briefly talks about strictly no overnight stays, and that he needs to inform us about any visitors. Halfway through the tenancy, he has already broken this agreement once – he brought a girl home thinking that we were out, but instead of feeling bad about it, they proceeded to cook a meal in our house and went back to his room and stayed behind locked doors for 4 hours. The girl only left at 10.30pm. However, after this incident, we have settled it amicably that he has to inform us in the future, and he has to be mindful of his guest’s behaviour (even though he said he was sorry, but he said he was more sorry that he couldn’t enjoy that night because we knocked on his door). I also mentioned that I am not comfortable with his guests cooking in the kitchen, because if anything breaks, I will need to have him liable for it.

Previously, he has also requested to have a movie marathon in our house with a group of friends (about 10 of them). My husband said yes to it without my consent, but anyhow it happened and the house was in good condition after (except for a few popcorn pieces and spill marks on the carpet, which I’ve casually informed him about it and he rebutted me with “yeah I don’t know why there was a carpet in the middle of the living room, right before my movie marathon”). He has also broken a bottle of cordial in the kitchen, which I appreciate him owning up to it (but he ended it off with “that’s because your kitchen is too small”)

Now we are facing another issue (kind of like, when you give the mouse a cookie). He is asking us to inform him whenever we are going out, and what time we will be home, so that he could bring his girlfriend home (his reason was: I do not want my guest/s to disrupt your quiet enjoyment). However, after much discussion, he revealed that my husband and I have out of the house for a couple of hours on different occasions and he wasn’t happy that we didn’t inform him, and he missed the chance to bring his girlfriend home. I told him that I am not comfortable with this arrangement, and would rather that he let us know about his arrangements of bringing her home. Also, I told him that before he asks us about anything, he should ask himself if he would be okay with it, before asking us. I am getting too uncomfortable with him coming to us with questions, expecting a “yes” for an answer and getting all defensive when I don’t agree.

I am someone who believes in giving chances, but this tenant has definitely reached my limits. I am very firm on terminating the tenancy, but my husband thinks we should bear for another half year so that we can continue to generate extra income. For me, I feel that it is not worth it, but I want to gather more opinions on this (whether I am being too restricting, or are we allowing ourselves to be push-overs and should stop doing so). My husband says that if we would terminate the tenancy, it would make more sense to do so, based on the fact that he is overusing the air-conditioning when he doesn’t contribute to the utility bills (turning it on for more than 10 hours on weekdays, 20 hours on weekends, gets defensive when we talk to him about it, but we see no change in his usage frequency).

Do you think I am over-reacting (in this case, wanting to terminate the tenancy based on his requests for having visitors over, on his own conditions)?

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