I haven’t read this series, but I’m generally hesitant to bother taking people to court. Its an expensive hassle and you rarely leave satisfied. I just move on and add another item to my list of things to check on tenant profiles.

You should be able to dispose of the items however you’d like since the tenants have surrendered possession. If you donate them, you can probably get a tax deduction of some sort.

Phillip: I am just now learning to appreciate this. Already it has helped me out, like with my lawyer in this situation. I see a lot of people who would benefit by internalizing this thought, like entrepreneurs who waste time doing things that the could easily pay others to do better (like payroll, or accounting [although I just recently was massively overcharged by one]).

To me this reinforced the fact having people who are specialized in a field (lawyer) do the work that you are not a personal specialty will save time and money. No doubt doing this by oneself would have taken longer and given tenets a longer period of time to destroy the investment.

Thanks for detailing the whole process so well. I look forward to hearing how you come out with the cleaning, repairs, etc. It just wouldn’t be right if they didn’t stick it to you in some way as they left.