My husband and I bought a house for our daughter to live in while attending college. The mortgage was about the same as apartment rent, and the house had a fenced yard for her dog. She had planned to go to graduate school, so it made sense to us to buy instead of rent.

Daughter got a job after getting her bachelors and moved out, leaving us with an unexpected empty house. We started renovations on it with the intention of selling it. We even tried to sell by owner without the renovations but didn’t get an acceptable offer.

I had become friends with a lady at work that I liked and respected a lot. She had moved from out of town and was staying with her daughter and two roommates in a two bedroom apartment. It was very crowded and she wanted to move to a house. After some searching she told me that she couldn’t find a house in a safe neighborhood in her price range. She asked if we had anything, as she knew we had a couple of rentals.

I told her all we had was this house undergoing renovations. We had slowed down on it because of the cost. We both worked and I had a part time job in addition to my full time one. We were paying for renovations as we went.

I told her that the back part of the house was not finished, but that I would talk to my husband about renting it to her as it was. She was needing it soon. I was worried about her living in a bad neighborhood. The house had one bedroom, two bathrooms, and two living rooms that were livable, as well as the kitchen and laundry.

One bathroom had a broken shower and the other bedrooms didn’t have new flooring yet and were just concrete. This was the unrenovated part but technically still usable for storage.

My husband said yes and that she could rent for $600/mo which didn’t even cover the mortgage. She said she only needed it for 1.5 years. No deposit was charged, as we trusted her that much and knew she didn’t have a lot of money. To compare, the market rate rent if we had finished renovations was $1800/mo.

Then my husband decided to pay for her lawn care because she was older and not really able to do it. He was on the spot with any repairs she requested. On many occasions my husband and I did the yard work ourselves to save some money.

One rule that I had that was in the lease agreement was that nobody else could move in with her without permission and without paying extra rent for that person. I even pointed that out and verbally told her.

She lived there a lot longer than she said and we didn’t say anything. In the meantime taxes doubled and the cost of doing the yard increased. We didn’t say anything or increase rent due to her not working as much. We were able to eat the costs due to our jobs. We knew she was looking to move back to her hometown so we were just going to hang in there.

At one point I retired with a pension and still worked part time. It was a decrease in income but we were okay. My friend started avoiding me, ignoring my texts or answering very short one word replies or sometimes a few words. When we went to do the yard she didn’t even come out to say hi or thanks. I had to drive to a gas station to use the bathroom.

We noticed her daughter’s car there a long time and were thinking about how to bring it up in the nicest way possible that she had to pay if she was living there. We had been losing $6000/year on the house for I don’t know how long. I think 4 years. Anyway I then knew that’s why she was avoiding me.

Then we found out my husband was losing his job. I texted her this but didn’t explain what that would mean for her. Shortly after that she said she was moving in two months. Oh, but there was a plumbing issue from the bathroom her daughter was using. It was $5500 to repair that.

By this time we realize she’s not the person we thought she was, as she was letting her daughter live there for free. Also judging by the poop filled backyard we knew there had to be more than her one dog in the house.

We decided to take the no conflict route and just let her move out with her daughter and we weren’t going to say anything. On moving out day one of her relatives texted my husband that a tree limb fell on her car. She wanted him to pay damages. He contacted insurance and they said it should go on her auto policy. We told her that and she said her deductible was $1000 and asked us to pay it.

She had parked the car in the yard, under a huge tree and we were having high winds. We were discussing what to do in light of my husband just losing his job and her daughter living there for free, the recent $5500 plumbing job, not to mention that when we got there we realized they had three cats and three dogs living in the house.

The day after moving we went to the house to clean out stuff left behind. That’s when we realized she ruined the new flooring we had just installed before she moved in. A can of paint had been knocked over, and I guess they never saw it because the house was pretty much hoarded. Clear fingernail polish spilled in another room, the entire kitchen floor was destroyed, and there were also damaged spots on the floor where plants had been sitting for years, with no saucer under them.

We also found moving boxes with her son’s name. She possibly had two of her adult children living there for free.

Will we be assholes if we don’t pay to fix her relative’s car where the branch hit it? It’s just scratches. Estimate is $1800. It’s going to cost $7000 to fix the damages she left behind. And I’m deathly allergic to cats, which she knew. And no, they didn’t clean up the pet hair before leaving.

I would also like to email her and tell her how hurt and disappointed I am that we cared about her so much and that she took advantage. What’s stopping me is that I’m afraid it will just make me feel even worse. I can’t sleep and have been crying and I think I am going to set up an appointment with a counselor today.

TL:DR Rented a house to a friend who needed a place and she took advantage, plus her family member is threatening to sue us over a limb falling on her car while she was there helping our friend move out.