It could have been much worse, my mother in law inherited a house in a neighboring small town about 15 years ago, she rented it out for a few years to a number of people, before giving up and selling it cheap. It was a basic older house built about 100 years ago, as I recall it had 2 bed rooms, 1 bathroom, and an enclosed back porch that had been converted to a larger family room.
Some the highlights of various renters were one man using the free standing washing machine / water heater shed as an archery practice target the day after the couple moved in, this resulted in a broken water pipe, and no hot water to the house. Oh did I mention this couple had asked to move in 2 weeks early, for free, because they arrived in town before their new job started.
The final straw that made her decide to sell was a call from the police about the front door being broken in. As it turns out the guy that was renting the place had lost his job a couple of months earlier, the power had been cut off for over a month, and he had been using a kerosene heater indoors to stay warm (this was in south Louisiana, just outside of Lake Charles, so it rarely gets below freezing for long in the winters), this of course left soot stains on the ceiling, and kerosene stains on the carpet where he spilled it while refueling. Eventually one day he lost his key to the house, so he kicked in the front door, that is when the police noticed. After he was evicted they ended up having to replace the carpet, both the front and back doors (he had kicked it in at some point too, then boarded it up), and re do the ceilings. Of also they did not even open the refrigerator which had been left full of food for over a month without power, they just duct taped it shut and threw it away.
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