Bluesapphire's problem with a tenant got me to thinking about some things that I've seen over the years working in property managment, many of which were not so funny at the time.
Cultural differences: when I first got into the industry my wife and I were on site managers of a rather low end apt building. Most of our tenants were hard working folks with not a lot of money, and really nice people. We had a sizable number of Southeast Asian refugees (this was in 1984) and many of them obviously knew nothing about living in the US. (There are now a lot of cultural organizations that are working hard to close the gap). So this one family moved out, after giving notice. We went in to inspect the place. The first thing we noticed was the walls were black. The seond thing we noticed was the power was off. Then simultaneously we both said "what's that smell." We get into the kitchen and the doors have been taken off all the cabinets (we found them later in a closet), chicken wire was strung across the cabinet fronts which were full of straw and chicken crap. The racks had been taken out of the stove and were sitting on the sink, which was full of charcoal ashes. I'm glad now we weren't in a body removal situation, we found out that Puget Sound Energy had turned off the electricity about a month after they moved in.
Along the same lines a few months later my wife told another of the SE Asians that we were going camping. "What is camping?" The explanation produced an incredulous "you do this for fun?" comment. I guess if you've been in a refugee camp for five years or so, going camping does sound stupid.
Stupid drunks: One group of tenants we were a bit worried about rented the cabana for a large party. We stayed up to keep an eye on things which was no problem until about two in the morning when we heard a female sceaming (happily), my wife says "Lisa's skinny dipping in the pool!" So I get out there and Lisa is indeed in the pool with no clothes on yelling her head off for everybody to join her. She's buck naked, s***faced drunk and about 8 1/2 months pregnant. I told the guy who had rented the cabana that we needed to get her out. His reply was "I trying. I sent Caroline back to our apartment to get a bedsheed or something to put around her. It's like beaching a whale." Eventually about four of us pulled her out and sent her home.
At another building (I was now in supervisory positions) a teenager went out to a party while his parents were out of town. He came home drunk and literally drove his car into his apartment. Apparently he decided he was home and went to bed, leaving the back end of the car sticking out of the bulding to greet his parents the next day.
Stupid white guys: One destroyed three units after trying to clean his motorcycle engine with gasoline INSIDE THE APT. He lived. He also had renters insurance with the same company we had the building insured with, which made the settlement easy from our side. Another guy, trying to start a fire in the fireplace before a big date, needed something to get it started. He was a hunter and reloaded his own ammunition, a can of gunpowder would do the trick. The resulting explosion put him in the hospital and did $5000 damage to the building.
Cars: I've lost track of cars that have hit buildings. In one case two teenagers "talking" in their car late at night managed some how to drive it into the side of the building. The maintenance guy's comment was "well somebody had one hell of an orgasm."
Weird stuff left behind: uncounted polaroid pictures of tenants with no clothes on. A marijuana farm in the attic crawl space, with the grow lights wired into another unit's electricity. Cars, money, guns, jewelry, booze, drugs and two pairs of ostrich skin cowboy boots (retailed for just under a grand at the time), not at the same place.
It's an interesting way to make a living.
On a serious note: if you're a renter, get renters insurance. A decent policy only costs about ten bucks a month. Your landlord's insurance doesn't cover your stuff if something happens, and it also has enough liability coverage to keep you out of trouble if you do something like set fire to the building.