We manage a property for an owner. He has owned the property since early 2000s, and inherited a tenant who lived there since 2002. The tenant has been there for 24 years. The property owner never increased his rent once and the tenant was only paying $475 a month in a town where a studio apartment can rent for $2000 a month.
The tenant was now 73 years old. Retired contractor who couldn’t work anymore. Lived alone. He had been behind on rent multiple times over the years, but we always worked with him to get caught back up.
This time, the owner wanted him to move out due to the fact that he was smoking cigarettes in the unit impacting other tenants. He was also behind on rent again. This time we gave him a deadline to pay or else he needed to leave.
As the deadline approached, we gave him multiple reminders and he stopped responding to us. He was always communicative previously. On the day he was supposed to move out, he plugged all of the drains, turned on all of the water inside of the house, broke off match sticks in the locks so we couldn’t get in and then shot himself in the head inside of the unit. By the time someone reported a leak, there was a foot of standing water inside of his unit.
I keep looking for an obituary and no one has posted it after a week. I don’t know if he had any family that cared enough, unfortunately. He was an old man who likely just had no place to go.
EDIT TO ADD:
He was on a month to month lease for over 20 years. The owner could have ended the lease or raised rent at any time and never did until the smoking complaints from other tenants began in addition to the six month balance. He did not go through an eviction process, he just didn’t renew his lease.
I am devastated by the entire situation. To those of you in the comments saying they would kill themselves if they were me and saying I have blood on my hands, I really don’t know what you expected me to do after we tried giving resources but thank you for making me feel worse than I already do. Maybe I should have just let him move in with me? What options did I really have here guys.