“Five percent of the population gives the other 95% a bad name.”
I’ve heard that phrase applied to so many groups and I’m sure you have too. Name the population sector and it has its bad part of town.
As an exercise and to make my point we could go around a room spitting out specific groups of people that have made headlines by the bad behavior of a small number of their population.
Today though, I’m going to aim my 5/95 sights, with a twist, on a group of people that you’ll probably be surprised by; investment property owners. Specifically, investment property owners that engage in the short-term rental industry. The twist being that my 5/95 ire is aimed at the folks that they rent to, but it’s 100 percent of the investment property owners I’m talking about.
A little background here.
Three years ago, the house next door to ours became a short-term rental. Since that moment, a parade of renters have come and gone. The vast majority have done so with little or no interaction with us.
But 5% is 5%.
The most common thing we endure is noise. The rental house sleeps a bunch of people so that’s often what rolls in on random Friday afternoons for the coming weekend. People coming up north for the weekend celebrating their arrivals and reunions with the others shouldn’t be a problem for those nearby. That part I totally understand. When the celebration continues into the wee hours of the night and causes us to close windows and crank white noise machines to cover the intrusiveness I become less understanding.
Our neighborhood is rural and we have done a pretty decent job making our property look nice. A few years ago we purchased the vacant lot behind our house and have spent time planting trees, bushes, and flowers on it to make it look good. So good, I guess, that frequently, renters help themselves to strolls through that lot. Nothing catches your eye like glancing out the window to see strangers casually wandering around your yard. Best part is though that when we’ve gone out to ask them why they’re out there, the reply generally includes some version of “it just looked so inviting.”
The fact is that it is inviting but the last thing I want to do is adorn it with a fresh supply of “Keep Out” and “No Trespassing” signs.
About a month ago a family of renters drug out the kayaks that come with the place. Apparently two kayaks were not enough so they helped themselves to three more kayaks from the property across the street. Members of our neighborhood watched dumbstruck as the group paddled en masse out into the middle of the lake. The good news was that nobody drowned. The bad news was that one kayak is still missing. The worse news is that once again, the renters could not have cared less about somebody else’s property.
I hesitate to vent this all here; I’m not, by nature, a whiner. The short-term rental issue is one we all grapple with vis-à-vis property owner rights and the principles of what exactly comes with property ownership.
Throw all that out the window, I say, because here’s the burning question. Why would you own a piece of property then rent it out to strangers knowing that 5 percent of them will be lousy “neighbors?” Does considering this an investment property insulate you yourself from being a good neighbor?
If you think it does, I think you’re 100% wrong.