The Craziest Stuff I've Ever Seen A Tenant Leave Behind

[00:00:00] This week's Listener of the Week is Sarah Beth Morris. Sarah, thank you for leaving us a five star review. And for those of you listening, if you leave us a five star review below, you might be next week's Listener of the Week. Week. Week. Now. This is the season finale of season three of Commercial Real Estate Secrets, so I figured we'd have a little fun.

And we're going to dive into a story that wasn't fun when it was happening, but really made for a heck of a story on the other side. I was sitting in the office, I don't know, maybe five years ago, and we got some paperwork straight to the office door. Paperwork goes to the boss and the room goes quiet.

Long story short, one of our tenants who had a security company was really running an illegal gambling ring and [00:01:00] sex club in the warehouse. We kind of have this motto, like, let the tenants be, live and let live, so we aren't, like, inspecting the 110 tenants that we, uh, That we lease and manage their properties.

We kind of just let them be and if you know, we call it live and let live. However, this is when we get to really eat our live and let live motto. So long story short, we have to evict the tenant. It's all this drama. The, the, uh, city of Denver tried to seize the property because they were trying to blame us for the sex ring.

It was bonkers. But the craziest thing I've ever seen left in a warehouse has to be. A sex club. And let me tell you, there is nothing like standing in an old sex club with your father. [00:02:00] That's right, my dad and I looking at each other. One of us was standing in the pain room. One of us was standing in the pleasure room.

Staring at ourselves, thinking, how in the world did we get here? Now, some of you might think, how in the world did you get there? And, what people really think is that real estate can be a set it and forget it sport. And it can be, right? Specifically, if you want to hire a property manager and leasing agent, it can be.

Obviously, you need to watch the numbers because... If I had a dollar for every time I heard a property manager was stealing, I would have at least five hundred dollars. So you gotta watch, but you have to real, you have to understand that sometimes the set it and forget it aspect of warehousing or commercial real estate can be a good thing.

or a bad [00:03:00] thing. So, sometimes, sometimes we get left with stuff.

Earlier this year, we had a tenant flee in the night. 2, 000 square feet of space and a tenant didn't leave any, excuse me, didn't take any of their belongings. They just left everything in place and then Bounced. So the rent doesn't come in by the 5th. We're calling. All the emails are bouncing. Then, you know, somehow we get in touch with them and we find out they've gone out of business.

They've abandoned their unit. And we go into this unit and it's a full business in place. I could not. There was thousands and thousands and thousands [00:04:00] upon, uh, of dollars of supplies in there. There was a 15, 000 printer left behind. There was a 75 inch TV left behind. There, it, and the worst part was they said, Okay, well now you need a junk removal company to come take it.

But there were so many... Like brand new, really high end electronics that ultimately would have gotten put in a dump. So then it became a race to figure out people to take all these stunning brand new electronics. You would not believe what we find left in warehouses. All right, I'm going to tell you another good one.

We one time rented to a tenant. The economy was bad. And when the economy gets bad, We get nicer to people who we generally wouldn't rent to. This was [00:05:00] a group that bred cichlids. What are cichlids? Cichlids are these little fish. So the warehouse was filled with fish tanks breeding fish. And you see the issue with fish breeding is that when the tenant stops paying rent and bails, you have to get rid of it.

You have to evict them. You don't always have to evict them, you know, but in this case, we had to evict it. So now, we're evicting not only our tenant, but hundreds of thousands of fish. And like, evictions, you normally just take all their stuff and put it outside. We couldn't do that to the fish. So, one of the, you know, another one of the craziest things I've ever seen was the eviction of a...

Not school of fish, the whole university of fish.

[00:06:00] You know, and don't get me wrong. I've seen plenty of garbage left behind too. There was this big use for a while where people would, and they still do, buy Amazon palettes for whatever 10, 000 and then individually sell the stuff out of the Amazon palettes. One time. We had a massive warehouse where Homeboy just bought hundreds of pallets, ripped them open, and bounced.

So now, it's a warehouse filled with a bunch of Ama uh, thousands and thousands and thousands of pieces of Amazon Returns. You know, i i it's sad to watch. Sometimes I go shopping a little. But, um, you know... I think people really don't fully understand what it's like to actually be a landlord. Sometimes you win, [00:07:00] sometimes you lose, right?

I've heard stories of landlords who find bodies in their units. I've had people leave pallet jacks. In units, right? I could flip a pallet jack on Craigslist for a bunch of money and have somebody pick it up, and it's just really interesting. Between the cichlidarium, the sex club, the printer, you wouldn't believe the stuff that we've seen left in the warehouses.

Now, you have to understand that no two days in real estate are the same. But, I am going to end Season 3 of Commercial Real Estate Secrets with this. In real estate, here are three things you must always do. 1. Follow your intuition. 2. [00:08:00] Assume formlessness. What does that mean? Assuming formlessness means you have to be nimble, you have to be flexible.

There might be a rule and... You can never stick to the status quo. Creativity is crucial in real estate. And number three, always do the right thing. Thank you so much for three amazing seasons of Commercial Real Estate Secrets. We'll be back for season four next week, week, week. Thank you.