Couple’s dream of extra income turns into nightmare with rogue tenant

When Paul and Terri Bigge decided to rent out two cottages on their property in Golf Club Terrace, they were convinced the additional income would go a long way toward making their lives a little easier.

They could not have been more wrong.

For nearly a year, everything went well until, in November 2022, their tenant simply stopped paying.

She had so many excuses and promises but payment was not forthcoming. Both Paul and Terri were elated when the tenant produced proof of payment one day, only to realise it was fake.

Eventually, by February 2023, they gave the tenant a notice to vacate.

“We found ourselves going through financial difficulty, to the extent that our electricity was disconnected,” says Terri.

One late night in March, Paul and Terri awoke to the sound of shouting. Paul went to investigate, taking with him an unloaded gas pellet pistol in the hopes that if there were intruders, he could try and scare them off.

“When I saw that it was the tenant, I lowered the gun and berated her for making such a racket. She was carrying on about the fact that there was no electricity, and I told her that we could not afford electricity since she was not paying rent.”

The next day, police showed up and promptly arrested Paul for pointing a firearm. He was handcuffed, stuffed into a police bakkie, and taken to Florida Police Station. He ended up spending seven days behind bars in the Krugersdorp prison before he was finally released on bail.

“I was terrified,” says Paul, adding that during his stay in prison, he had to pay another prisoner protection money. “When I was finally released, we could not face the prospect of going home. We ended up living with my sister for about four months before returning home.

“During this time, the tenant had laid charges against us at the Rental Housing Tribunal, which were eventually dismissed after the tenant failed to show up for any of the hearings.

“When we returned home, we discovered that our electricity meter had been illegally bypassed.”

Paul would be arrested again, spending a night in the cells at Roodepoort Magistrate’s Court, before being released the next day.

Meanwhile, the situation with the tenant became worse. She would scream and shout obscenities every time Paul or Terri would dare go outside. By October 2023, they decided to serve a new eviction order, which she once again ignored. The couple decided to take her to court, but she eventually moved out just a week before the court date, leaving the cottage in a terrible state.

“The place was filthy,” says Terri. “There were plastic bags filled with faeces everywhere, the walls were covered in grime, the sliding door was smashed, and many of the floor tiles were broken.”

Upon taking a second look at the tenant’s rental application, Paul and Terri decided to visit the address she gave as her previous place of residence, only to find out from the landlord that she did the same to them.

“She even opened a case of attempted murder against the landlord’s two sons,” says Terri.

Digging deeper, they discovered the address of another previous landlord, with whom she did the same, going as far as accusing the landlord of attempted rape, all to stop him from evicting her for defaulting on the rental.

Paul and Terri say they’ve learned a hard lesson.

“This whole ordeal has made us very distrustful of people,” says Paul. “It is a situation I would not wish on my worst enemy. I would urge landlords to take extra care before approving a potential tenant. Once they are in, getting them out is a complete nightmare.”

Terri adds that they are still traumatised by the whole ordeal. “My heart nearly stopped a few weeks ago when I received a call from her out of the blue. She was very smug and told me that she had decided to drop charges against us, which makes no sense since the case had been thrown out of court anyway. I told her as much and she dropped the phone in my ear.”

The Roodepoort Record managed to obtain a contact number for the tenant, but attempts to engage with her have thus far been unsuccessful.