I'll second a lot of what LW added in reply #5.
My parents rented out the tiny mobile home that we lived in when we were kids and they were still what would be considered newlyweds. You see, thanks to much hard work by my father (my mother was mostly a stay at home mom) and a little extra income from my mom's waitressing, my parents built a home on property sold to them by my grandparents (my father's parents). The same property we lived on when living in the mobile home.
The first set of tenants my parents had were truly great people. A Bechtel contractor that was a very hard worker, with a great work ethic and values system. His wife and he were newlyweds also. They worked hard to maintain a very nice home. They planted lovely flowers around the mobile home, and kept the place as neat as they could. They would call about problems with the home only in an emergency, and would take care of most things themselves before ever troubling someone else (including my parents, the landlords). My parents loved having them as tenants and were sad when they moved away after the construction work the guy was doing had finished.
From that point on though, my parents had no end of difficulties with tenants -- including relatives that horribly took advantage of my parents and literally destroyed the home.
One tenant (a relative) had at least one big dog that tore up the place. Did said relative or his parents help pay for the damage? Are you kidding me?!? There was barely an "I'm sorry".
Another tenant, non-relative, came in and painted the pale pink interior African power Green -- without ever obtaining permission. That was perhaps the absolute worst tenant, and that tenant was the one that taught my family the rules of eviction. 90 days past due (or close to it) before notice could be served. Once notice was served, 60 days (or something close to it), before the individual could be evicted, and then only with help of law enforcement (though my father was a state Trooper, he had to get the local sherriff's office involved instead), but if the tenant demanded an extension of time, then one was mandatorily granted, and the clock started later. So, 6 months plus of no income for a family that was struggling to pay their own mortgage, property taxes, phone bills, food bills, and other necessities went by before the locks could be changed and the individual that lived on drugs and alcohol while trying to find a new man to care for her (read: knock her up so she could get AFDC like the neighbors that helped get her into the rental space to begin with) freeloaded all along.
When she left, several hundred (back when several hundred was a lot of money) dollars worth of work was needed to replace carpet that was ruined by a dog (again, with no pets allowed), paint removal on the sink and fridge, and other items was needed.
And people wondered why my parents, with a family of 6 (2 adults, 4 kids) wound up able to have their kids get reduced cost lunches at the public schools. As a cop, my dad's income was almost nothing, and yet people figured that as a cop he had to be living comfortably. I guess too many people had seen Serpico and thought all cops were on the take.
Anyway, the rules are far too tilted in favor of the tenant, and to this day when I drive by apartment buildings and see piles of belongings on the street I laugh. Not at the misfortune of the individual, but instead to keep from crying from the thought of my parents watching their first family home nearly destroyed by the bad tenants they rented to. You see, I know for a fact that these evictees were all given plenty of opportunity, and every single one abused the system to get to the point that they did.
Perhaps if they had turned to friends or relatives for help, or perhaps if they had not wasted their money on drugs and alcohol (or the lottery, or whatever) they could have paid enough rent to keep themselves from being evicted, or perhaps they could at least have removed the best of their own property and not seen themselves "wiped out" due to the debts they had built up.
