In Yakima Washington there is an entire apartment building purportedly filled with bad tenants. The police were visiting the Mesa Apartments in Yakima every day due to constant complaints. The problem boiled down to poor tenant screening efforts possibly caused by the apartment management taking short cuts in the vetting process in desperation to achieve higher occupancy. The police are now working with the new property manager on proper tenant screening techniques to help them avoid renting to problem tenants. As always, running a thorough tenant background check prior to leasing is always a good idea that always pays off in the long run… Unfortunately the temptation of short term occupancy gains still lures in amateur landlords and property managers.

To read more about this story follow this link:  http://tenantscreeningusa.com/tenant-screening-news/bad-tenants-and-tenant-screening/

Allison McMillan rented out her property to a seemingly trustworthy family with two small children.  She didn’t think it necessary to order a tenant background check on them.  Later on after the family fell further and further behind on the rent she had her property inspected and found significant damages.  She admitted her mistake was not running a tenant background check on this family, a mistake that cost her $16,000.  Don’t make the mistake Allison did, perform a complete and thorough background check on all renters regardless of how trustworthy they appear to be.  A thorough tenant background check should include a credit check, criminal history check, renter fraud warnings and renter identity verification.  Employing a third party tenant screening company that offers all these benefits is important and TenantScreeningUSA.com is one of these companies.

To read more about how to take the guesswork out of renting and how to avoid ending up in a situation like Allison’s read recent press release found at: http://tenantscreeningusa.com/tenant-screening-news/tenantscreeningusa-com-taking-the-guesswork-out-of-renting/

Professional tenant background checks that include criminal history checks have proven to reduce crime in rental neighborhoods. Some cities in the USA over the past few years have enacted new law making it mandatory for landlords and property managers to perform tenant background checks including a criminal background check on all new renters prior to signing a lease. One such city in Utah noticed up to a 30% reduction in calls for police and fire services in high rental neighborhoods since making tenant background checks mandatory.

Of course the USA is a free country and people enjoy their freedom and don’t like being forced into anything especially the government telling them how to run their business. But the bottom line here is good tenant screening performed by a professional background screening company which includes a criminal history check should be performed on potential renters anyway, mandatory or not, that is just common sense.

To read more about mandatory tenant background checks and how such programs enacted at the local government level have fared in recent years and why adding criminal history checks to tenant screening programs makes sense whether it is mandatory or voluntarily please read recent press release found here.