I have a solution. Month to month rentals. You hand me money on the first, and you get to stay. If you don't, you need to move. You don't move, you get evicted on the 15th.

You want to move? give me your payment this month and tell me you're leaving at the end of the month. I want you to move out, I tell you need to go by the end of the month when you pay me.

At least in Texas it doesn't work that way IRA. You can file eviction papers. The police will look at them a month or two later. After about six months they might show up and actually evict someone. Trying to evict them yourself is illegal and could result in the courts taking your rental away and giving it to the squatters.

Agreed this will kill off the rental markets there. Rent houses will go up for sale as regular houses. Want to live there, buy it. No more renting. Apartments will become condos. On the bright side for those still willing to rent prices will go up getting them more pay. Maybe Minneapolis will impose rent control like California.

So, you can't have someone without a lease arrested for trespass?

Depends on the details.

If they are just squatters and have never paid rent if they have lived at the property for 6 months or more they have a claim to permanent residence. If they have also paid taxes on the property that gives them a stronger claim but it isn't necessary.

If they are someone who is in violation of a contract (not paying after signing one) or their contract has timed out and are not paying you end up with the situation I detailed above. Essentially half a year to kick someone out. But you need to start before that 6 month squatters issue comes up.

At one point if the renter was a women with a child and they could get a note from a doctor who said the child had been sick in the last month you could not evict them unless you were a bank. You had to wait till the child was legally an adult. I don't know if that has changed. Earlier it was anyone and then the banks lobbied to get some sanity just for themselves. Hence the odd carve out.

To the best of my knowledge Texas isn't particularly worse than most other states on this issue. So I expect something similar from most places. Hence the business concern with background checks and rental history. Thankfully most people leave willingly.

That last line is quite plausible. Under ADA the courts have already ruled that companies hiring truck drivers can't exclude you for DUI.

All these piles of discrimination law have accomplished is to create ways for bad guys with lawyers to game the system with bogus complaints. So it's time to re-legalize all forms of discrimination by private persons and companies.

One little nugget Reason should have been happy about:
"If a landlord uses a minimum income test requiring an income equal to three (3) times the rent or higher, the landlord must allow an exception to that test where the applicant can demonstrate a history of successful rent payment with an income less than three (3) times the rent."

So landlords can no longer rely on an arbitrary metric devised by a couple of legislators in the 60's and last updated in 1981. If you want to pay Venice rent and live on the low carb version of ramen then that's your business so long as the bills get paid.

I have heard horror stories about renters. One was a couple renting out their house until they could sell it. The people that moved in just stopped paying rent and my friends were across the country and could not do anything about it. They trashed the place also.
Do-gooders like this do not grasp that a landlord has a lot invested in a property and can easily go broke. They also want to arrest the landlord if the renter is selling meth or hosting johns there. As Amy notes, this law is a good way to reduce the supply of rental homes.
Ben's point above is correct. The 6 month nonsense it to "protect" renters --landlords are evil and do not get protection.

@smrufy :"If you want to pay Venice rent and live on the low carb version of ramen then that's your business so long as the bills get paid."

No, it's the landlord's business as well, just like it's the bank's business when you get a mortgage. The very core of business judgment is weighing risk against reward, and the proportion of your income consumed by the obligation under consideration is a proven reliable measure of the landlord's risk.

Can't resist:

Images by Tyrone Green

Dark and lonely on a summer night
Kill my landlord, kill my landlord
Watchdog barkin' - do he bite?
Kill my landlord, kill my landlord

Slip on the ice, break my neck,
sue my landlord for every cent.
Does it matter? What the heck?
Kill my landlord, kill my landlord

C-I-L-L my land-lord.

This law is another example of bureaucrats and ideologues trying to control other people's wealth by controlling their investment decisions for them. That bureaucratic control is always, ostensibly, presented as being for the benefit of "the people." Hmmm I wonder how this law benefits the people who live in the other apartments and don't want to live next door to a murderer or a meth dealer.

"This law is another example of bureaucrats and ideologues trying to control other people's wealth by controlling their investment decisions for them."

Like a lot of regulatory schemes, it's also a means of restricting competition. Part of the cost of adopting and defending all of these procedures and processes is fixed -- it costs the guy who owns one rental house the same as what it costs a 400-unit apartment complex owned by a real estate investment company. It's obvious as to which entity can more easily absorb the cost, and who subsequently benefits.