As a landlord, everyone loves to hate us. I mean, I understand why. Easy target, economy sucks, and most landlords are the worst (we try really hard not to be). It's just frustrating that everything eventually boils down to people saying "Landlords are scum" to everything we do.

One of my tenants hasn't paid rent in months. We took a chance on renting to them as they were a young couple very close to expecting their first child. They didn't have much, no family to rely on. As a small family business landlord, we like trying to help people and we are able to do so every once in a while, so we approved them and their rent is well below market rate and we don't do increases. As their one year lease was nearing the end, I didn't want to renew (as they had consistently been late and owed back rent), but my parents did because they really wanted to help them. So we waived all of their late fees and let them use their last month's rent to catch up to be in compliance so the lease could renew.

Now they're four months behind with seven months left on their lease. We're in the middle of the Eviction Diversion Program right now. If the tenant owes less than $3,000.00, the City will pay their back rent, as well as an additional month of rent so the tenant has breathing room, which is very nice of the City, but we've been in this for almost two months and still haven't gotten anything.

Went to the building recently to perform the annual fire alarm test and I see a GoPuff order sitting outside with their name on it with a brand new $60 Bluetooth speaker in the bag, as well as other items. I brought the bag in so it wouldn't get stolen and I'd certainly never say something to them about it, but it really hurt to see that. I try and tell myself that they could've had a gift card or something, but they probably didn't.

I doubt that they'll start paying after we get done with the EDP. And we can't evict until three months after the EDP closing date.

ETA: Out of the $1,400 they've accrued in late fees, I've waived closed to $1,200 of them. I've stopped waiving them.