Bad tenants are professionals at seeming to be wonderful people. They know the right things to say. They make you feel sorry for them. They destroy your property. Even so, with some easy and straightforward checking, you can almost always ferret out a bad tenant before he has a chance to move into your property.
Bad tenants give themselves away.
You don't have to know all their tricks, just how to find out the truth about their past. All that is revealed in the manual Profitable Tenant Selection. A rule of thumb is that if you aren't sure about a tenant, you don't have enough information. Call them for more. If they are hesitant to give it to you, you should be more than hesitant to rent to them.