We had one rental in Scotts Valley. Worst mistake of our lives. He made two or three rent payments and stopped. We started eviction after about a month. Took us 4 or 5 months to evict him in Santa Cruz County. He stripped the place clean - stole appliances, light fixtures, hot tub pump. He hadn’t paid his utility bills, so water was shut off, but he kept crapping in the toilet. Place was knee deep in filth, junk and porn magazines when we finally got in. We got into it with some other investors and we put an idiot in charge of finding a tenant. He didn’t have a clue how to evaluate a tenant.
A neighbor friend was a police lieutenant on the local force and ran the hot sheet for the guy. It was a mile long with similar scams. He would rent, make a few payments, stop paying and live six months rent free. Over and over again.
To top it off, the El Nino of 1983 washed a HUGE gulley in the middle of the road leading to the house which wasn’t repaired for ages. You couldn’t drive to the house with that big ditch running down the middle of the road. Yes, it was a paved road! Think the Oroville Dam spillway channels cut by the raging water — that’s what flowed down our street.
I went to small claims 6 times and got a judgement 5. Collected once.