How and Where to Get Your Personal Background Check in Colorado to Use on Rental Applications

If you live in Colorado or are about to move to Colorado, here’s how and where you can get your own personal background check to provide to landlords, rental agents, and property management companies when you are applying for a rental, instead of having to pay a criminal background check fee for each rental application that you submit.

This can potentially save you hundreds of dollars as you can attach your own individual background check to rental applications, rather than having to pay the application fee that nearly all landlords and management companies require when applying for a rental.

This is because Colorado passed a law this past year called HB23-1099 – Portable Screening Report for Residential Leases, that requires landlords to accept these reports from prospective tenants.

Here’s the relevant text of HB23-1099:

Except in certain circumstances, the act requires a landlord to accept from a prospective tenant a portable tenant screening report (screening report). A landlord may require that the screening report was prepared by a consumer reporting agency (reporting agency) within the previous 30 days, at the prospective tenant’s request and expense, and made directly available to the landlord by the agency. The act specifies information that must be included in a screening report, including verification of employment and income, rental and credit history, and criminal history. If a prospective tenant provides a screening report, the landlord shall not charge the prospective tenant either an application fee or a fee for the landlord to access or use the screening report.

Prior to collecting any tenant information that would generate an application fee, a landlord shall advise a prospective tenant that the landlord accepts screening reports and is prohibited from charging an application fee or other fee to a prospective tenant who provides a screening report

It’s important to note a few things from the law:

– The landlord may require that the report be no more than 30 days old

– The landlord may require that the report come directly from the agency

– The report must include verification of employment and income, rental and credit history, and criminal history (these are all things, of course, which a report ordered by the prospective landlord would also include)

Where to Get Your Personal Background Check to Provide When Renting in Colorado

First, we need to say (and as Colorado Public Radio found out, there are virtually no agencies which provide everything required by the law BUT read on! This is only because most do not provide employment history, and this is something you can readily get by asking your current employer for a letter (or, if you’ve recently changed jobs, a letter from your current employer as well as your last employer). So just ask the prospective landlord if it’s ok to provide a letter from your employer along with your background check.

Another thing that Colorado Public Radio accurately noted is that generally speaking they don’t provide local criminal convictions, as that would include county and even city level records, which would be incredibly costly to do, which is why landlords rarely require it. As CPR notes, “the law calls for a records check for all “local” convictions, which is more intensive than what landlords typically require. Technically speaking, a landlord could require the tenant’s report to include checks of individual counties where the person has lived…”.

So in this case you may want to just submit your background check, and if the landlord actually wants to see local criminal records, let them tell you that (but it seems that very few would).

Ok, here we go!

Individual Background Check Services

ApplyConnect ApplyConnect provides individual rental background checks which include a complete credit report from Experian, and full rental and criminal history, for $39.95. ApplyConnect is the only individual tenant background check service that I found which specifically says on their site that you can “Pay for your tenant screening report to share it with up to 3 landlords (within 30 days of purchase), and see the details of your report before you decide to share.” To me this suggests that they are aware of the law, including that landlords can require that the background check be sent to them by the background check service, and that the law allows landlords to insist on the background check having been performed within 30 days.

Tenant Background Search Tenant Background Search’s $24.95 search includes a credit report, nationwide criminal records, past address history, and an “employment summary”. (It also includes things that the law doesn’t require, such as a sex offender search and Patriot Act search.)

RentPrep The RentPrep tenant background check you want is called “TransUnion Full Credit Report (SmartMove)”, it costs $40.00 with a $10 add-on for income verification.

TenantAlert TenantAlert offers several background check packages, the ones that include what is required by law (other than the employment history and local criminal records) start at $39.95.

Where to Get a Colorado Local Criminal Background Check

If your prospective landlord does want a local criminal background check you can get a local Colorado criminal background check here, from RTenant, for $20.95.

How to Recycle or Dispose of a Microwave in Colorado

If you’re wondering how to recycle or dispose of a non-working microwave in Colorado (and most especially in the area of Boulder, Colorado) well, you are not alone. And the good news is that it’s actually really easy to do. And that unlike appliance stores which will charge you to haul it away, the two ways to dispose of a broken microwave are free (well, actually one charges you $3, so nearly free)! Yay!

I recently had to try to figure out how to do this myself. Actually I’ve had to do it twice in the space of four years. No, I’m not particularly hard on microwaves; the built-in over-the-range microwave that came with my house was already old and well-loved, and when it died, I bought a used one on Craigslist (same exact model so that I knew it would fit). As it had already been used by two previous owners, I figured that I would have to replace it at some point, and I did. That said, that second one did last for more than 3 years of near-daily use, so no complaints there (that second one is the one in the picture).

This time there was no comparable one for sale on Craigslist, plus with being so very high risk for Covid I was hoping to order one online, and one that was the same model so, again, I knew it would fit and that it would use the same installation hardware. As it turned out, that exact model isn’t made any more, and the the one most like it (it included a convection oven) was waaaay more than I wanted to spend (especially as I had never once used the convection oven feature). However, the (sort of) same model sans convection oven was not only available, and much less costly, but it was on sale.

The new microwave on the way, I set about figuring out how to dispose of the old, non-functional one. Here’s the thing: If you have an appliance store come and install your new microwave, they will usually haul away the old one. They may do it for free – then again they may not. Best Buy, for example, charges $30 bucks to dispose of your old microwave. Of course, if you aren’t having an appliance store deliver and install your new microwave, that doesn’t help at all. And you are left trying to figure out how to get rid of the darned thing.

So you search and search online (that’s how you ended up here, right?), and find that there are places that you can take it to be recycled, such as the various dumps, but that they will charge you anywhere from $50 to $200(!) to accept your broken microwave.

DON’T PAY THEM!

Here are the two ways to dispose of a microwave for free in Colorado.

How to Recycle or Dispose of a Broken Microwave in Colorado

First, I assume that your old microwave doesn’t work. If it does work, then you can donate it to any one of a number of different charities, or charitable thrift stores such as Goodwill or ARC. Or if you can’t easily wrangle it to take it somewhere, post it for free on Nextdoor or Craigslist. Which brings me to my next point.

Remember that first non-working microwave that I replaced? I posted it on Craigslist, for free, making very clear that it was broken, and received a couple of different responses from people who wanted it! They knew it wasn’t working, I don’t know why they wanted it, maybe for parts, maybe they thought they could fix it. I really don’t know why they wanted it, but I was glad that they did, and one of them came and picked it up!

However if that doesn’t work, or if for some reason you don’t want to do that, the CHARM (Center for Hard-to-Recycle Materials) division of Ecocycle in Boulder will take it, and here’s the thing: if you came across them in your search, you will have noticed that on their “what we accept and what it costs” page, they don’t mention microwaves anywhere. They do list other appliances, with associated fees, but not microwaves. Some places on the Internet will tell you to take it to CHARM as a “small electronic”, for which they charge by the pound. But those places are WRONG (thank goodness, because microwaves are heavy, so that would be pretty pricey).

As it turns out, CHARM does take microwaves, and they classify them as scrap metal, for which there is no per-pound fee, the only fee you pay is the $3 entrance fee (which is per vehicle – woohoo, hop in the car, kids, we’re going on a very short road trip!) And, to be certain, here is an email exchange I had with an awesome CHARM Ecocycle employee:

Me:

Hi! Can you please help me understand what the protocol is for bringing in a non-functioning microwave? The information out there is kind of confusing, it *seems* like it’s considered scrap metal, and there is no per-pound charge, but I can’t imagine that’s actually right?

CHARMing employee:

Thank you for reaching out, sorry that this is confusing! Microwaves are indeed scrap metal! There is no facility fee and also no fee per pound. We just ask that you please remove the glass plate/turntable inside. This material is heat proof and will not melt, so it is not recyclable. You may use it as a saucer under your houseplants or hold onto it in case a future microwave plate breaks ?
Glad you asked!

So, how cool is that! :~)

RIP Dear Old Microwave!

Searches that led to this article: https://www mangemerde com/how-to-recycle-or-dispose-of-a-microwave-in-colorado/,

Here’s Where to Rent a Wheelchair in the Denver Colorado Area

When I first had my hip replacement it became very clear that I was going to need a wheelchair for a while. I ended up buying my own wheelchair along with lots of other stuff, but for the first few days I didn’t realize that was what I as going to need to do, so I set about looking for wheelchair rentals in Boulder – which quickly turned into a search for renting a wheelchair just about anywhere in Colorado! It turns out that there are very few places in the Boulder / Denver / all of Colorado area where you can actually rent a wheelchair! Not in Boulder, not in Ft. Collins, and barely in Denver. Fortunately, after quite a bit of searching, I found one of the few places in Colorado that rents wheelchairs, and as fortunately, they are great! I committed that I would write this place up so that nobody else has endure hours of frustration trying to find a place to rent a freakin’ wheelchair in the greater Denver area of Colorado!

The place that I finally found, Mobility 4 America, is a one-man operation. That man is Tom Johnson, and believe me when I tell you that he has your best interest at heart. He runs the business from a home office, and when you go to pick up your wheelchair that you are renting from him, you’ll be meeting him at his house – or at one of a couple of other locations in the Denver area that he uses.

Because of this setup, he is pretty flexible in terms of when and where he can meet you. In my case, I got ahold of him on a Sunday morning (!) and by Sunday afternoon I was ensconced in my rental wheelchair (!!).

His prices are very good as well – I was pretty surprised by how little it cost to rent a wheelchair for a week!

He also rents power chairs, scooters, ramps, and lifts.

Tom’s website is mobility4america.com, and his telephone number is 303-455-4225.

Mange Merde

…if you'll pardon my French

Tag: colorado