Meet the Worcester County Sheriffs
Meet the Worcester County Sheriffs
[Start 0:00:00]
Amy: Thank you for having us. This is Sarah Kontaxi. She’s one of our deputies, Kevin Derry, and Steven Trottier. Combined with, I have been there for 30 years.
Sarah: Almost 15.
Kevin: Thirteen.
Steven: Twenty-eight.
Amy: Twenty-eight, so we do have a lot of experience. We put a lot of information on the tables. I kind of wanted more feedback, more questions because it’s just easier to get—
Rich: We’re definitely going to have questions.
Amy: Okay.
Rich: We just wanted to give you a few minutes to get the top five things that landlords do wrong, the top 5 things they do that drive you crazy, some of the things off the top of your head that you see in the field, and then we’ll take a break and we’ll go around and get questions. We’ll kind of do it that way. Is that okay?
Amy: Sure, yes, no problem.
Rich: Cool!
Amy: Okay.
Sarah: I guess first and foremost, the one thing that drives us up a wall is when landlords wait until the last minute. You can’t bring us something at 2:00 in the afternoon and expect it done that day.
Amy: We can try, but—
Sarah: We can try. We do our best, but when they leave the office with 30 or 40 services, everybody knows what traffic is like, getting back from another city. We want your business, but sometimes we just have to say no.
Amy: And it would go out the next day.
Sarah: And it would go out the next day. We can usually get everything served notice to quit, summary processes within 24 hours. Not having paperwork filled out, that’s tough for us. We can’t legally help you. If you have questions about filling stuff out, you got to go to housing court, contact an attorney. Go to the law library. It’s a couple of doors down from us. They can help you print paperwork. We don’t provide paperwork. There are so many different notices to quit, we can’t tell you which one you need. We don't know everybody’s situation.
Rich: Can you tell us, Sarah, how many different types of notices to quit there are? I’m not trying to quiz you. I just don't know exactly the number. They’re all on MassLandlords.net.
Sarah: They are. There’s 14-day. There’s 30-day. There’s with a lease, without a lease, for nonpayment of rent, with payment of rent. You have other reasons for wanting them out.
Rich: There’s 7-day with a lease.
Sarah: Seven-day, yes. There’s so many.
Amy: You got to determine prior to us being involved as to what form you’re going to start with.
Rich: Right, so if someone is not sure what form to start with, MassLandlords is a good resource for information for forms. You can probably tell if you have a lease or if you don't have a lease, right? You can tell if it’s for nonpayment or if it’s for cause, for if it’s for no cause, and stuff like that, but if you really have questions, we recommend that you speak with a qualified real estate attorney to help you out with any procedural things that you needed vice on.
Like Amy and Sarah said, if you need help filling out a form like a summary process, summons, and complaint, you can call the housing court. Everybody should probably have that number in your phone and hope to not need it, right? But if you call them up and say what’s the serve-by date, what’s the file-by date, and all that stuff, they will just tell you for your particular area and you can just fill all that stuff, and they’re very, very helpful. Is that good advice?
Amy: Yes.
Sarah: Yes.
Rich: All right, cool.
Amy: 792-0800 is their number.
Sarah: [laughter] Apartment numbers, very important.
Amy: Floor number.
Sarah: Floor numbers, unit numbers. How many times we get to a house and you put 2 Main Street. They’re at the door and it’s a six-family. We don't know which apartment to go to. We can’t leave it on the main door. It needs to be on the apartment door, so if you have a locked house, that’s a problem as well. Somebody needs to be there to let the sheriff in to get to the apartment door.
Amy: The more details, the better.
Sarah: Yes.
Amy: And then if the paper is left, if the person is not home or doesn’t choose to answer the door when the sheriff is there, we have to do a mailing, so we also need that apartment number, that floor number for the actual mailing, so it’s common sense, but sometimes it’s just doesn’t get to us.
Rich: Sometimes we’re in a hurry.
Amy: Exactly. We get that. We get that.
Rich: It wasn’t a defense. It was just sort of an explanation. Did Doug tell you to use 2 Main Street as an example? I have a six-family at 2 Main Street?
Audience: [laughter]
Amy: [laughter] No, he didn’t.
Rich: Okay. All right, and it does have a locked front door.
Amy: What else can you add?
Sarah: Front door, back door, important as well. If your tenants only use the backdoor, let us know that. You don't have to put it on the notice. You can put it on your separate sheet of paper, “Please serve at the back door.” Or if they have to go around the back and it’s the third door on the left and go up, the more information you give us, the better it’s going to be because it’s going to get done properly. I mean we’re going to do our best, but if we walk in the back and there are six doors back there, give us an idea what door we’re supposed to go to, what door that could us to.
[0:05:32]
Steven: [unintelligible 0:05:33]
Sarah: Uh-huh.
Steven: I’m going to talk a little bit about the bad part of it if you get to an eviction. with the sheriff’s office, we send two deputies, uniformed deputies. Me and Kevin, go-getters as a team. We have mock cruisers. That sends a message to anybody else who isn’t going to pay. It’s sort of embarrassing and we’re sending a message for you, but a lot of our landlords that we work for really like it because they say I have a guy who was behind, he now caught up.
When we do the entry, we have two guys for the entry. Another guy will leave once we feel secure, it’s safe because there’s a lot of crazy out there right now, a lot of crazy. We have people barricading the house, the whole 9 yards, so it’s good to have two people. Most constables, they come off one. Safety first and to ensure that, we’re all police academy trained. We’ve been doing this for years, just to make sure that lawsuits stayed down and don’t happen, but thanks for your time.
Amy: Questions?
Rich: All right, so I’m going to go around for questions. It looks like Jim has one.
Jim: I have two questions. First one, what is the exact precise process in terms of in-hand, taping to a door, going to the first-class mail. These all have big, big legal ramifications. I lost $6,000 once because the constable didn’t serve properly in a lawsuit, so you’re talking very quickly about taping to a door. What exactly legally does that mean, “taping to a door”?
Sarah: Notices to quit can’t be taped, so can summary processes. Most paperwork can be left.
Amy: Last-in.
Sarah: It’s called last-in usual. It can be left, as long as it’s a home address. They are always left in sealed envelopes with the person’s name on it, taped to their door, or if they’re able to slide it under the door, sometimes they even slide it under the door.
Amy: And then they get mailing as well, which is—
Jim: But ultimately it’s Judge Horan’s decision as to whether or not there was “proper service,” correct? Or if it’s in the law that says it absolutely must be a third-party disinterested person that does the service, there are also some stipulations there as to exactly who can serve—
Amy: I’ve been there for 31 years. I’ve never had one of our services questioned, ever.
Steven: It comes after being [inaudible 0:08:15].
Jim: But is it your understanding that some papers have to be delivered by disinterested third party as a constable or sheriff?
Sarah: Uh-huh. Yes.
Amy: If it’s a business, it has to be served to an agent of the business.
Jim: Okay.
Rich: Can you use the microphone?
Amy: If it’s a business, it has to be served to an agent of that business, and then that person’s name is put in the return service, and that’s what is filed back with the court, so the court sees exactly the date and time and who we gave it to. But on a notice to quit, summary process, they can all be left at the residence, and then a mailing is made to that defendant. Say, if there’s John Doe, or Jane Doe, and all their occupants, every single person gets their own mailing, every single person gets their own copy. Like I said, I’ve never had that come back to us, so.
Rich: All right, we have another question back here.
Amy: There’s a question in the back.
Sandra: If I prepare my own 14-day notices and I faxed it to your office, is that sufficient or do you need to have the original 14-day notice to serve?
Amy: We would need the original because we have to attest to the copy that it’s an attested copy of the original, so we would need the original notice.
Sandra: Do you provide a service that because my office is really busy? I can’t literally walk over to your office like I’m doing 10, 15 14-day notices sometimes a week just because of the volume. Do you have somebody that a courier or whatever come to not only just me but to any of our locations to pick up a 14-day—
Amy: We don’t have a courier. That would be something I could talk with our chief deputy about, maybe get back to you. If you like, I can take your name and number, and then let the association know.
[0:10:08]
Rich: Just like Uber. Uber has Uber Eats where they go pick up some food for you like Uber eviction notices?
Audience: [laughter]
Rich: All right, I want 2 percent on whoever makes money on that.
Male Audience 1: One of our biggest problems is people have somebody move in with them and we don't know their name. Are you legally able to require them to give you their name when we give you notice unnamed person so and so?
Amy: That would have to come from the housing court. I mean when we serve, we can try to obtain people’s names, but that’s not always the case.
Steven: I’ve ran into this over in Wall Street. A gentleman move in. The landlord had her named and her adult son named, but not this gentleman. He was a professional tenant. He knew what he was doing, so we called the courthouse, and they did say we could do an eviction on her and her son, but the landlord had to stop on him. They didn’t honor it, and if he didn’t give me his name, he could do that, too. There is no way for me to force him to give me his name. You guys are really hamstrung when it comes to that stuff, but they are professionals. Some of those move people in, they’ll switch apartments on the landlords. It’s just crazy, but—
Male Audience 1: Let him stay in the unit?
Steven: The housing court let him stay, but we evicted the woman and her adult child.
Amy: So that landlord probably had to [crosstalk 0:11:34]
Rich: Wow! What a mess!
Steven: Yes, it wasn’t good.
Rich: All right. Here we have another question from Norm.
Norman: In the past, I always put on my notices the name of the tenants and all occupants. That used to work, no longer works. If you get the person’s name, that’s the best. But I have gone to the most ridiculous levels, and I actually wrote a description, color of the hair, estimated age, height, and it has held up in court.
Steven: You got pictures.
Norman: Do the best, best I can do, and it has held up. So, you can give it a try.
Rich: Good tip! You know what they did in Florida to capture a bunch of deadbeat dads is they sent them all a sweepstakes notice that they won, and they had to report to a location at a particular date and time and they caught like 3,000 of them all showing up to get their $5,000 sweepstakes payment or something, so maybe there’s a way that you could trick people into revealing their name.
Audience: [laughter]
Female Audience 1: I just wanted to say that I think Judge Horan actually mentioned that or somebody from the court had specifically mentioned that.
Steven: [unintelligible 0:12:58] can do.
Female Audience 1: Right. Also, I think that you’re asking will the delivery stand up. There’s a case law that people can always argue the service and whether they got it. That’s a whole like legal thing. These people put themselves in harm’s way to deliver a piece of paper, but they can’t give you the law behind it, so.
Rich: There’s a difference between having to serve something—if I heard it correctly, there’s a difference between having to serve something in hand and just having to prove that it was served. With our types of notices, this just have to be served, correct?
Amy: Uh-huh.
Rich: Whereas there are other types of legal notices that are outside the scope of our business that would have to be served in hand. Is that right?
Sarah: Yes.
Steven: That’s housing contempt after the service.
Rich: Housing contempts?
Sarah: Yes.
Rich: Can you explain what one of those is?
Steven: If you are in contempt of a housing order that already exists—
Amy: It would have to be turned down.
Steven: Yes. I have to serve it.
Rich: If you are in contempt. Okay, I’m going to have to repeat that so it can be online. If you are in contempt of a housing order that exists, then that has to be served. What’s a housing order? Give me an example if you could, please.
Sarah: So, if there was—
Rich: I’m so excited, I don't know this.
Sarah: If there was an order for the tenant to allow a plumber in and the landlord in, and they didn’t let the landlord and the plumber in, the housing court can issue a contempt that has a hearing date on it, and we would have to serve that tenant in hand with that court date. That would be a housing contempt because there was already an order in place for the tenant to allow the landlord in for whatever reason, plumber, electrician will be in check. If they don’t go with that, yes, then contempt can be issued.
[0:15:01]
Rich: If somebody doesn’t answer the door, you can serve them in hand. What kind of instructions or helpful information could a landlord provide a sheriff like here’s where they work, here’s where they buy their cigarettes? Can we set up like motion detected—
Sarah: Descriptions, phone numbers.
Rich: Nets or something that would capture them and hang them from a tree?
Audience: [laughter]
Rich: I mean that’s an obvious one, but what are some other methods?
Sarah: A description of the person is always helpful. Just because the person answers the door doesn’t mean they’re going to say, “Oh, yes, that’s me.”
Steven: A lot of times, too, if the tenant has been doing you wrong, some of the other tenants might not like that person, so if that tenant could give you call and say, “Listen, they’re out in the yard, they’re out whatever.” I do the City of Worcester, Auburn, Millbury, Sutton, Grafton, and Northbridge, and I’ve gotten calls saying, “Hey, they just pulled into the yard. Can you come over here?” Then they’re bringing in the groceries and you got them.
You have a network of people. Your neighbors, maybe their landlords, too. “Keep an eye for this guy. Let me know if he’s around, so we can get him.” Like we said before, the more information, the more help you can give us, we’ll get it done for you.
Rich: Smart! The others resident are at the building way more often than we are, right?
Sarah: Than we can be, yes.
Rich: Because we don’t live there or more than you can be. If we told the other residents like—I’m not saying to do this, but if somebody were to nail this guy with a paintball gun with like yellow paint or something and the sheriff could just look for the guy with yellow paint on him.
Audience: [laughter]
Rich: Again, I’m not trying to pick obvious things. I’m sure everybody has already done that, but just as an example, to get the residents on your side, that is a great idea.
Sarah: What they drive. If that has to be on hand, what they drive. At least we know if the car is in the driveway, 50-50 they’re home.
Rich: Right, okay. Smart. This is educational.
Sandra: Speaking of cars, if we have a license plate on a car of someone that was not on our tenancy agreement, but that car has been in the driveway, and we’re trying to get a name, you’re not able to run that license, are you?
Steven: We got to make sure it’s part of the “investigation” if we have to—
Sarah: Yes. We can’t just run plates.
Steven: People at random. That’s [unintelligible 0:17:21].
Sandra: Who can? No, seriously.
Steven: There’s actually apps out there that you can really do.
Sandra: Local PD?
Steven: Local PD. You could say that thing has been there forever. It’s not one of my tenants. The plate could be stolen. You know one of those deals.
Sandra: Okay, okay.
Female Audience 2: Rich?
Rich: All right, yes. One moment.
Female Audience 2: So, I have just started to be a landlord, so I don't have any idea of how you start an eviction. Okay, if somebody could say—you guys have a lot of experience here—and let’s say the tenant doesn’t pay. How do you start the eviction? I mean what are the steps to do?
Rich: Okay. Is that something that you guys feel comfortable handling or do you want me to start off and you pick up from there?
Sarah: Yes. I mean you would start with a notice to quit. Get your notice to quit, whatever one you need—7-day, 14-day, 30-day—get it served.
Female Audience 2: [unintelligible 0:18:18] notice.
Rich: So, if it’s for nonpayment, that makes it easy. The only one you can serve is the 14-day notice. Okay, that’s the only one that can be used for nonpayment. Judge Horan has come in here every year and said if rent is due on the 1st, you serve your 14-day notice on the 2nd. She says to do it very quickly because she will not take pity on a landlord who waited three weeks, and then complained to the court the process takes long. Does that sound right to everybody from what she tells it?
She wanted to do it quickly, you can get the forms on MassLandlords.net. You can just use that form. If it’s for nonpayment, again it’s a really easy one because there’s only one to choose from and that’s your 14-day notice. You have to be able to prove that it’s been served, so if you try to do it yourself, it can be difficult to provide, which is why the sheriffs deliver these things. If you can get them to sign it, that is a good way to prove that they got it. A lot of times, if somebody is not paying your rent, they’re not as excited to sign their eviction notice, so that’s why they serve these things, right?
Sarah: Yes. After a notice to quit, it would be a summary process. You get that at the housing court. I tell landlords all the time, “Fill it out there. Make sure you know how to fill it out because we can’t help you. There are so many dates on there, there are so many lines on there that need to be filled out. We can’t help you.
Amy: [unintelligible 0:19:52] do it all over again.
Sarah: And if it’s wrong, if the court doesn’t accept it, then you got to do it again.
Rich: Right, so that’s where you can contact the housing court?
[0:20:01]
Sarah: Yes.
Rich: And they will help you fill out the form?
Sarah: Right.
Rich: They will help you fill out the form. The dates are really the thing like you know your name, you know the address, the property, stuff like that. That’s really mostly what it is.
Sarah: Yes, and those have to be served on a Monday. They always need to be filed with the housing court the following Monday.
Amy: For Worcester.
Sarah: For Worcester. Worcester hearings are normally Thursdays, I believe.
Rich: Yes.
Sarah: They have different times. Some are at 9:00 AM; some are at 2:00 PM. They split them up. We don't know.
Rich: A great resource for the entire eviction timeline is actually on MassLandlords.net. If you go over to—I’m doing this off the top of my head, so Doug can feel free to correct me. If you go over to chapters and then get down to the Worcester Property Owners Association and look in the past meetings, can she search for the eviction timeline there?
Okay. You can actually watch a video on it. Doug does a great presentation with a calendar on the screen and says you serve your notice on the 2nd. Fourteen days doesn’t actually lapse. You can’t serve your summary process until the 17th and explains why that is and all of that stuff.
You don’t have to remember any of this. You can just go right on the website, cross your fingers it doesn’t come up for a while, but if it does, that’s where to go. Find it for sure, okay? All right, I’m going to back up. That was a good question. I know we have new people in the room. Norm has one. Okay, Bob.
Bob: Rich, I was wondering if the building is owned by an entity, a lawyer has to do this, is that correct?
Rich: Not on the 14-day notice. I’m not an attorney, so I’m doing my best to fill in the blanks here, so this is not legal advice. If my information is wrong, feel free to raise your hand and tell me otherwise, but it’s my understanding that the landlord can serve the 14-day notice.
The summary process form, the only person that can be on there is the owner on record on the deed or the leasor. The leasor has to be listed on the lease as the leasor, if you have a property management company, then that property management company has to be listed as the leasor on the lease; if they’re not, then they cannot be on that summary process. You’re going to get tossed out of court.
Attorneys in the room, does that sound right? Am I saying the right thing? Okay, I’m getting a head nod. Okay, all right. Cool. Does that answer your question? Okay. Norm has a question as well.
Norman: This is going back on the identity on the unwanted tenant that’s not on the rental agreement. Does a photo work?
Steven: I’ve had photos, but I only use them to get the person.
Norman: No. I’m just wondering if I took a picture with my phone in, if I sent it to you.
Steven: I have served it, yes before.
Norman: Okay, so that’s better than a written description. I’ve never tried that, that’s all, you know.
Steven: Yes. We’ve never gotten that also, so try that and I’ve only done it once.
Norman: Okay.
Steven: It worked.
Norman: Maybe, we try it twice.
Steven: There you go!
Norman: [laughter] All right, thank you.
Rich: You’ve gotten photos before. Have you ever gotten one where it’s tough to tell. This is obviously from the bathroom window. The guy has a lot of shampoo in his hair.
Sarah: [laughter]
Steven: This person literally [unintelligible 0:23:40] used a telephoto lens or something. It was—
Rich: Really? A telephoto lens! He’s probably on the scope with that paintball gun.
Audience: [laughter]
Male Audience 2: Okay. I just wanted to extend that caution that 14-day notice followed by summons. I have a company, which is LLC. If I sign a lease with my name, not the company name, can I present myself in the court or it has to be a lawyer?
Steven: It’s not us.
Male Audience 2: Not you.
Rich: There are several people in the room who are very interested in answering that, so Brian, hold that thought. I’m going to come back to you. One of our speakers in the next couple of months is going to be somebody who did that and almost went bankrupt, so I don't know if that helps to answer your question, but we will go into more detail momentarily. That’s not an exaggeration.
Female Audience 3: This isn’t a question, just real quick. I just saw the movie “Pacific Heights.” I don't know if anybody has ever seen it. I mean it’s got to be one of the best movies out there, so it’s with Michael Keaton and Melanie Griffith. It is absolutely unbelievable what this tenant does to this couple. I mean it’s shocking, but it’s actually a good movie, so thanks.
Audience: [laughter]
Rich: Good cautionary member minute there. We’re going to come back to the reason that one sets up an LLC is…
[0:25:08]
Brian: To protect you from personal liability. Why on God’s earth would you sign your name to a notice to quit when you opened up your own personal history, everything you owned? That’s the fastest and easy way for an attorney to pierce your veil and say, “Look! He’s not working as an LLC. His LLC is invalid. Let’s go after him for everything he owns,” or you could hire an attorney. A lot cheaper.
Rich: So, the answer to that question is why would a landlord do that is because we’re trying to save $350 and go housing court because nobody likes to write checks for $350 if they don't have to write a check, right? I’m not saying that’s a good idea. I’m saying that’s the rationale.
Brian: You can get kicked out of court for doing that as well.
Rich: You can get kicked out of court.
Brian: They will bounce you. They will ask who owns the property.
Rich: Yes. Anything further than what we’ve discussed so far is a great question for an attorney. You can ask your attorney, or if you want to wait for Attorney Raphaelson to come here in a couple of months, he will be here in December, you can make a note of that. That’s a great question to ask him. In the meantime, don’t do anything crazy, right? Make sure everybody pays the rent until December. All right, so we have another question for the sheriffs.
Male Audience 3: Going back to the question that someone asked about the two tenants that signed a lease and then that renter that moved in, so if you evict those two other tenants that had the lease and that person stays, how is that not trespassing?
Steven: These are tenants at will I’m will that I’m talking about that didn’t have a lease. Yes, they didn’t have a lease.
Male Audience 3: Okay, all right. That makes sense.
Rich: In Massachusetts and maybe there’s somebody in here who can make sense out of this, but I’m probably not saying this the right way, but it’s not trespassing if somebody let them in. If this family allows somebody to come into their apartment, well in Massachusetts, they’re allowed to be in there. It is not trespassing because somebody let them in. I guess it’s kind of like vampires; they can only come in if you invite them. Is that one of the rules? I think that’s one of the rules.
Sarah: Yes.
Rich: Can anybody else dispute that or corroborate that? That’s another great question if we only have an attorney in here to give us free legal advice.
Brian: Get their names [unintelligible 0:27:48].
Rich: Okay. So, we have four sheriffs up here. Is there anything that’s come to mind up here, procedurally things that you see on the road that this conversation has sparked from your vast experiences?
Steven: [inaudible 0:28:11]
Rich: No?
Steven: That website seems terrific. I’m going to have to check it out myself.
Rich: I like this guy.
Audience: [laughter]
Brian: Do you have any horror stories of having to move people out with a boobytrap to the apartment?
Sarah: No.
Brian: Things that we might actually look out for if we’re going in?
Sarah: That’s what I’m saying.
Steven: I wouldn’t go in. I tell all the landlords. When I interact with a landlord, if I’m coming to do an eviction, stay away from the property. Let me go in. Let them be crazy on me. We had a guy down [unintelligible 0:28:45] going to blow the place up and shoot us when we got there. When we got there, he had beautiful woodwork the landlord had in there. He took a chainsaw, cut all the doors in half, dragged it across the hardwood floors, cut all the cabinets up, spray painted the walls, and he was gone. But we’ve had people light fires, do a lot of stuff—barricade themselves in the house. What I tell –
Female Audience 4: Set themselves on fire.
Steven: Yes, don’t go into the house because you go to the house, you talked to the guy the night before. I’ve had this a million times from landlords. “No, I talked to him yesterday. He’s going to be fine. He’s packing his stuff. He’s getting out of here.” Yes, but then the guy drank all night and thought about he’s going to be homeless and you go knocking on the door before I get there and he sucks you one. I always say stay away from there until we get there and we make entry into the property. Just to be safe because like I said before, there’s a lot of crazy out there.
Rich: Boobytraps huh, Brian? I mean you’re looking for traps. If you see a giant boulder rolling towards you, you know you’ve made a wrong turn somewhere at this apartment.
Move out is the thing that we’re actually going to next procedurally. We’ve had one of our landlords. It sounds like we have some more questions coming because I hear a lot of talking in the background. Hold on to that question.
The constable, not the sheriff’s department, serve the 14-day notice. They serve the summary process. Call the sheriff’s department to handle the execution, to start the move out. You’re shaking your head, so you could take it from there.
[0:30:12]
Sarah: We won’t do that. If a constable did your first two services, they’re going to do your eviction. Safety reasons for our guys.
Amy: We want them to know.
Sarah: They need to know what they’re getting into.
Amy: Right.
Sarah: Your constable may not do the eviction for the simple purpose, they’re too busy. They’re not going to be around, simple reasons. Or it could be that they were threatened and no longer wanted to go near that property. We don't know that.
Steven: Actually, that [unintelligible 0:30:38] Street property I was talking to you about, the constable—sorry. The constable had done the first two services, then I went there for the eviction. That’s what started us doing all of them we’re not going to do the eviction at all. The constable said he had served all three; the landlord said he had served all three, but the paperwork wasn’t recorded, and there was only the two, the housing court said. From there on out, we just do it all or we don’t do it all.
Amy: Start to finish. It’s just…
Steven: How is that [unintelligible 0:31:08]
Rich: Got you!
Sarah: Yes. Plus our deputies have been to the house. They know the house. They know the layout. They know what the driveway looks like, the street looks like. It’s safety reasons.
Rich: Okay, so it might be outside the scope of what we’re talking about, but for our newer people here, would you be able to explain what an execution is and a little bit about what happens once one of those gets into your hands?
Sarah: Executions are good for 90 days usually. They give you possession of the property. To get possession of the property, you need to bring us the execution, hire a moving company.
Amy: There’s all the information.
Sarah: Yes, it’s on the paperwork we handed out. There’s a list of moving companies that are on there that are okayed by the state to use. They have to be bonded, insured. You can’t use a U-Haul. You can’t put their belongings in another apartment. The moving company takes it; they take everything.
Rich: So, you have to put their belongings in—
Sarah: In store.
Rich: In storage, not eBay.
Sarah: Exactly [laughter].
Rich: Okay, it’s good to know.
Sarah: Yes.
Rich: When choosing a moving company, how close does their storage unit have to be to the dwelling unit itself? Does anybody know the answer to this?
Sarah: I think it’s like 20 miles.
Rich: You think it’s 20 miles, right? When you’re looking at the list, you want to make sure that you pick one that’s reasonably—
Sarah: Reasonably close.
Rich: Close to your apartment. Don’t you pick the first one on the list if it’s not 20 miles of your apartment.
Steven: You got to remember that that list because we cover the whole county like a constable called us one time—
Rich: Right! You guys cover everywhere.
Sarah: Yes.
Steven: Yes, we cover the entire county, so all those haulers—
Sarah: Go everywhere.
Rich: Perfect! I’m sneaking up on you. You had your hand up high.
Female Audience 5: Yes. What was my question again?
Rich: I don't know. You do it.
Female Audience 5: I am just so into this thing.
Rich: I know.
Female Audience 5: I think part of my question was you said something about it’s getting a little crazy out there. Now, you’ve all been doing this for a long time. What changed?
Steven: I don't know. Society?
Keven: Yes.
Sarah: Yes.
Female Audience 5: Is it not because there are tougher laws or an economy thing, or?
Kevin: Society.
Steven: Yes, society. I think it’s like a trend. It’s been the last 10 years, yes.
Female Audience 5: I agree with you, but I was just hoping maybe you had the answer.
Steven: Yes. That’s Dr. Phil.
Female Audience 5: Okay, thank you.
Rich: Yes. You guys should have brought a psychotherapist aside from your crew, as well.
Steven: We would have.
Rich: Yes, good question. I’m sure more than one of us has been kind of wondering that. Maybe it’s bath salts.
Sarah: When you do get an execution for possession, don’t wait until the last minute. They’re only good for three months. I mean we have been doing so many, we’re already booking three weeks out. If your execution is only good until next week, you’re in trouble. You’re going to be no good. You’re going to start from the beginning again.
Amy: I think sometimes it’s the landlords—
Rich: Or consult with your attorney. There may be a way to extend it.
Amy: Right.
Steven: [crosstalk 0:34:00]
Rich: But don’t wait.
Amy: But sometimes, they feel bad and they wait. They’re going to pay. Don’t feel bad. You have that right. You have your execution. Act on it as soon as you can because you’re losing money daily if you keep waiting.
Sarah: Right. The moving companies are not only doing evictions. The moving companies aren’t only doing evictions. They have their own business that they do, so beginning of the month, end of the month, they’re always busy. They’re always booked, always.
Male Audience 4: I have a question about when you do the eviction.
Sarah: Uh-huh.
Male Audience 4: What happens if the apartment doesn’t have anything of value to it. Can you declare anything like that or does it have to be brought it up in the truck?
Sarah: Unfortunately, you can. You can say that it’s trash. If the tenant signs off that they don’t want anything, they sign the paper when we’re there, the moving company won’t take anything, but you have to have whether there’s one mattress in the place or 30 years’ worth of stuff in their apartment.
[0:35:02]
Amy: You can’t leave [unintelligible 0:35:01].
Sarah: Yes.
Steven: A lot of the moving companies however, if they see a mattress or clothes, or anything like that, that they’re not willing to put into their warehouse, we’re not going to make them take it. They’ll leave it there. Or a lot of moving companies as well, if you got mice, if you have cockroaches, if you have fleas, they’re not going to take it and bring it to their warehouse.
Rich: Bedbugs.
Steven: They’re not going to bring it to their warehouse.
Amy: The warehouse would be infested.
Steven: If they see a cockroach before you evict them, light off a bomb or something, get the bugs under control, so when the movers come in, they don’t see it. Yes, it happens a lot.
Rich: Yes, okay. I’m going to come right back up at front. While I’m walking up there, let’s talk about what is the day of a moveout? God forbid, we get this far, they don’t move out. What does that day look like?
Steven: We show up at 9:00 AM. The movers usually are already there. We’ll go to the door. They don’t want to open the door, or maybe they’re not home. Maybe they just packed up some of their stuff and they left, anticipating the movers are going to pack everything. Usually, the landlord is there, has a key, sometimes they change the lock. You might consider having a locksmith there the day of.
We make entry into the property. We clear it. We go on our round, announcing ourselves, two deputies. Then we bring the movers in, they take an inventory of the place, and box it all up. Kevin, if he was there with me, I would release him at that point. I stay until the end. I’m the last guy out the door. Most of the landlords leave, and I give them a call when I’m done because they don’t want to stand around for 3 to 5 hours. They come back, change the locks.
If the tenant is there, they usually can stay as long as they don’t interfere with the move because some of them are still trying to round up personals. A lot of the tenants don’t believe it’s actually going to happen, so they don’t pack their medication, or their kids’ clothes for a couple of weeks of wherever they go, so we give them time do that. We’re not going to force them out there especially if they’re not interfering with the move.
It’s a process that doesn’t have to be bad as long as you don’t make it bad. Sometimes, another thing with the landlord, if you don't have a good relationship with those people, go get coffee. No reason to escalate it, and I’ve had fistfights. It’s just crazy.
Rich: Is there any reason for the landlord to be there at all?
Steven: No, if you want to send a locksmith; otherwise, a key would be great.
Rich: Yes, okay.
Steven: Just in case we can’t get in there.
Rich: Can a landlord provide you with a key in advance?
Steven: Sure, yes.
Rich: That’s great.
Steven: Yes. We’ve had—
Rich: Just because we’re cheap, hold on, hold on. This way, we don’t have to pay a locksmith, right?
Steven: Yes.
Amy: You can change it yourself.
Sarah: Yes.
Steven: Yes, you could.
Rich: I’m not going to change locks.
Steven: With the key, we’ll go in, but you want to make sure we have a good contact number for you all day because if we get there—we had a situation out in Webster that some of the deputies had where the guy nailed all the door shut.
Rich: That’s hilarious.
Steven: With himself in it.
Rich: With himself in it.
Steven: Yes. The deputies there has to get permission from the landlord to break the window to go through the window, went through the window, the guy was standing in the kitchen with knives, waiting on the deputy.
Rich: Okay, we’re definitely coming back to you again because I asked 5 minutes ago anything else that you want to share with us.
Steven: That wasn’t me. That wasn’t me. That wasn’t me. That was a couple of years ago.
Audience: [laughter]
Steven: But if we have to force ourselves into the house, we want permission from the landlords saying, we’re going to damage your property.
Rich: Yes.
Steven: We’re going to kick in the door or go through a window, what have you.
Rich: Sure, okay.
Steven: If you don’t want to be there, it’s fine. It’s great for us because we don't have to deal with two people.
Rich: Right, extra drama.
Steven: Yes, extra drama, exactly. Like I said, they could be good yesterday, today they’re realizing they’re gone. They got no place to rest their heads.
Rich: Yes, I would imagine there’s probably not a lot of moveouts where the landlord and the residents are like besties.
Audience: [laughter]
Steven: Yes, no.
Rich: Yes. They’re probably not hugging it out and saying, “I’m so sorry to see you go.”
Steven: Yes, no.
Amy: It’s not a good day.
Rich: It’s not a good day for everybody. Okay, we’ve got a couple of questions. Thank you.
Steven: Yes.
Female Audience 5: I’m not convinced that you can answer this, but what is the cost from like soup to nuts to get rid of somebody including the storage that you spoke of? I’m obviously not a landlord yet, but I don't even know how long you have to store somebody’s property for?
Sarah: Storing? I don't know. I think it’s three months.
Steven: It used to be. There was a moving company in the city that would make a landlord pay three months in advance for storage because they didn’t want to get beeped by the tenant. Now that moving company, the tenant is immediately responsible for the storage. They will take it and put it in storage, but the tenant is immediately responsible where he used to make the landlord be. For a long time, it was common knowledge or just expectation that the landlord pay for at least one month. But as far as I heard, that’s not the law at all.
Sarah: You talked to him.
Steven: Yes, it’s immediately now putting it on the tenant, so that’s no longer passed on to the landlord, as far as I know. As I said, I’m just getting this from the moving company. As for our expense, the $300, I’m not sure about all the paperwork.
[0:40:05]
Amy: The actual eviction.
Steven: Yes, for the actual eviction, day of the eviction, that’s $300 for us [crosstalk 0:40:11].
[0:40:12]
Female Audience 5: Okay, irrelevant of the hours that you take?
Steven: Yes, the paperwork.
Female Audience 5: Great! I’m excited to read it. Thank you very much.
Rich: So, how much does it cost to serve stuff and what happens if somebody is too cheap to pay for the service?
Sarah: It’s all based on mileage. It depends on where your property is. Every city has a different price.
Amy: Roughly [crosstalk 0:40:33]
Sarah: Yes, I mean it can go anywhere from $40 to probably close to $60 for one service.
Rich: Depending upon the distance from where you’re located.?
Sarah: Depending on the distance.
Rich: Okay.
Amy: [unintelligible 0:40:48]
Rich: Right. You’re only [unintelligible 0:40:44] trying to serve something, right?
Sarah: We only go in one trip. Because it’s [crosstalk 0:40:46] service, we’re going to tape it to the door. Say, Worcester, if you have a property in Worcester, it’s $38.84 to serve the first person, $33 for every person after that.
Rich: Those are oddly specific numbers, Sarah.
Sarah: [laughter] Fifteen years.
Rich: Okay, $38.84.
Sarah: There are state guidelines. I mean they don’t change.
Rich: Okay, all right, terrific. You’re making one trip for a service because you’re just taping it to the door, stick it under the door.
Sarah: Yes.
Rich: Under what circumstances could cause a moveout to take more than one day? Is that even possible?
Steven: It can.
Sarah: It can.
Steven: There are hoarders in the city.
Rich: Hoarders?
Sarah: Yes.
Rich: That doesn’t sound good.
Steven: Bacon Street, they had a three-decker on Bacon Street that was—
Rich: Sarah, would you mind passing the mike for me?
Steven: It was on Bacon Street. It was three days and four trucks.
Rich: Three days and four trucks?
Steven: Yes. Four trucks. The grandson moved in with the grandmother and he was a hoarder. The place was just packed. He ended up going over to a—I’m trying to think where he ended up—I think Allington Street. He rented a place. I said, I got to swing by because the moving trucks were going over and bringing the stuff to his new apartment.
Rich: No!
Steven: Yes. So, I drove by and it looked like he had built a box fort around the three-decker, I mean this tall, all the way around the property of boxes.
Rich: So, that is almost a great segue into our next speaker because he’s going to talk about how to choose how to choose tenants.
Steven: Yes [laughter].
Audience: [laughter]
Rich: I hope that landlord is in the room.
Amy: [crosstalk 0:42:16]
Rich: Wow! do you still have your question?
Amy: You have to put it in storage.
Steven: Yes, the movers, it’s rare instances the landlord will touch the property of the people, hoping to sell it and recover their money, which is usually a waste of your time because the stuff usually isn’t that great. They don't have to. The movers don’t have to bring it to their storage facility. If the tenant has rented his own storage facility and it’s reasonably close, the movers will bring it there, put it on the ground, and the tenant will bring it into the storage.
Amy: They sign off.
Steven: Yes, they have to sign off and tell them to bring it to an alternate address other than their storage facility, and we’ll cover you having him sign off on everything and dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s.
Male Audience 5: If the tenant hasn’t packed and they say that they don’t want to take it, so you can move it a storage. What are you going to do with pets they have at that time?
Steven: Did you say they don’t want it?
Male Audience 5: Yes, they said it.
Rich: They abandoned it.
Male Audience 5: They abandon it. They say they cannot take care or we don't have a place. We cannot take care of these pets. We cannot take them there.
Steven: Yes. We have to get their sign off and abandon their stuff.
Male Audience 5: So, you will take the pets to animal department somewhere.
Steven: No. They’re yours.
Audience: [laughter]
Steven: The mover is not going to take abandoned property to their warehouse.
Rich: Okay, so somebody leaves behind their six pit bulls. They abandon their stuff, they abandon their dogs. You’re there.
Steven: Uh-huh.
Rich: Where do the dogs go?
Steven: Animal control.
Sarah: Animal control.
Rich: They go to animal control.
Steven: We’ve had a call to Worcester police. They have a great team over there that comes in and gets dogs, specially some nasty dogs. I don't know what shelter they bring them to, but they take care of it.
Rich: Okay. Wow! This has been— all right. That’s convenient.
Female Audience 5: That’s also a crime, too. I mean, the abandonment of animals, Chapter 272 Section 77.
Steven: That’s why the Worcester Police head them off. That’s i.t
Amy: The local PD.
Steven: Yes, the local PD. Yes, the local PD.
Female Audience 5: Amen! Thank you.
Rich: All right, so as we wrap this up, do we have any final questions for our expert sheriffs that we are lucky enough to have here tonight? Let’s have a round of applause for these guys.
Audience: [applause] Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.
Sarah: Thank you.
[End 0:44:54]
