Nov 30, 2025
When a constable banged on the front door of a home in Burlington, Massachusetts, nobody answered. The tenants who had occupied the property for nearly two years were already gone, but they left a nightmare behind. Trash and dirty dishes littered the floors. A large hole gaped in the hallway wall. For the property owner, a Syrian immigrant who speaks little English, eviction day marked the end of a nearly two-year ordeal that would cost him over $100,000, according to an NBC10 Boston investigation (1).
The tenants, Bryan Coombes and Nicole Inserra, moved in December 2023 and immediately stopped paying rent. What makes this case particularly shocking: taxpayers kicked in $23,000 in rental assistance through a state program before the couple was booted for failing to hold up their end of the bargain.
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The landlord got stuck with the rest.
"While everyone describes Massachusetts as tenant friendly, I've come to the phrase that it's 'landlord impossible,'" attorney Robert Lee, who spent more than a year fighting the eviction in housing court, told NBC10 Boston. "You really don't have to try that hard to stay in a place without paying money."
A pattern spanning 20 years
This wasn't the couple's first scheme. Housing records show this was Coombes' 13th eviction in Massachusetts, a pattern stretching back two decades.
Leo Behaj, an Ipswich resident who previously rented to Coombes, lost nearly six figures and had to sell his property to climb out of debt.
"These people are professionals," Behaj said. "They have been doing this for 20 years. They have a PhD. They know everything to screw the system."
The tactics are straight from the "professional tenant" playbook: filing health complaints about items in disrepair, then refusing to let contractors in to fix them. Submitting multiple appeals. An 11th-hour bankruptcy filing, the couple's 10th in the past decade, with all but the most recent dismissed.
When NBC10 Boston confronted Coombes outside housing court last May, he was unapologetic: "I use the law and the law helps me do what I need to do."
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Landlords pressed nationwide
The Massachusetts cases aren't outliers. Across the country, landlords are grappling with a surge in fraudulent tenants — and the costs hit everyone.
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Nearly all rental housing providers (93.3%) reported experiencing fraud in the past 12 months, according to a survey by the National Multifamily Housing Council (2). Of those, 70.7% said fraudulent applications and payments had increased, with respondents reporting an average 40% spike compared to the previous year.
The most common tactics: falsifying pay stubs, employment references or income documentation (84.3% of respondents); misrepresenting information on applications (80%); and identity theft or fraudulent ID documents (70%). Perhaps most striking: respondents reported that nearly one in four eviction filings (23.8%) were tied to fraudulent applications and subsequent failure to pay rent.
The financial damage is severe. Survey respondents wrote off an average of nearly $4.2 million in bad debt over the past 12 months, with about a quarter attributed to fraud-related nonpayment.
For individual landlords, evictions typically cost $3,500 to $10,000 when factoring in legal fees, court costs, lost rent and property turnover, according to property management platform Innago (3). In tenant-friendly states like California and New York, longer notice periods and slower courts can push costs even higher (4).
For the Burlington landlord, costs spiraled to include legal fees, moving expenses and storage for the tenants' possessions—a legal requirement in Massachusetts. Lee said his client borrowed from friends and family just to avoid foreclosure.
How did they qualify for $23K in taxpayer aid?
Perhaps the most troubling question: How did tenants with 12 prior evictions qualify for state rental assistance?
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The state's Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities cited privacy laws and declined to discuss individual recipients.
It's not an isolated concern. Emergency rental assistance programs, which ballooned during COVID-19, have faced fraud nationwide. In Chicago, a former city employee and sham property management company obtained over $200,000 by filing fraudulent applications, according to a 2024 city lawsuit (5).
The federal government disbursed $46 billion in emergency rental assistance through two rounds of funding in late 2020 and early 2021, according to the U.S. Treasury (6). The programs helped millions of legitimate renters—but the rapid rollout created openings for abuse.
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How landlords can protect themselves
For small landlords—many using rental income to pay mortgages or fund their kids' education—the threat is existential. But thorough screening can catch serial offenders. Eviction records typically stay on tenant screening reports for seven years, according to Experian (7).
Run your own background check. Never accept documents provided by the applicant. Professional tenants often submit falsified reports.
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Verify employment independently. Call the company's main number—not the one the applicant provides. Some scammers use friends posing as HR reps. Go back two or three landlords. The current one may be trying to pass along a problem tenant.
Watch for red flags. Tenants who quote obscure legal statutes at the first meeting, offer several months upfront to skip screening, or pressure you to move fast should raise concerns (8).
For Coombes and Inserra, eviction day in Burlington finally arrived—but not before they'd racked up 13 evictions, 10 bankruptcy filings and collected $23,000 in taxpayer assistance along the way.
The Syrian immigrant who owns the property now faces months of cleanup and repairs. He'll likely never recover the lost rent. And there's nothing stopping Coombes from finding his next landlord.
For small landlords, the lesson is brutal but clear: screen rigorously, verify everything, and know that in some states, the law won't be on your side when things go wrong.
Article sources
We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our editorial ethics and guidelines.
NBC10 Boston (1); National Multifamily Housing Council (2); Innago (3); LeaseRunner (4; City of Chicago (5); U.S. Department of the Treasury (6); Experian (7); Bornstein Law (8
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Rudro is an Editor with Moneywise. His work has appeared on Yahoo Finance, MSN Money and The Financial Post. He previously served as Managing Editor of Oola, and as the Content Lead of Tickld before that. Rudro holds a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the University of Toronto.
