Todd Howard — From Spartanburg to Spike TV
You don’t want to see him banging on your door, and you don’t want to get on his bad side. If you follow those two pieces of advice, you’ll be just fine. In fact, you and Spartanburg native Todd Howard will probably get along great and even share a few laughs.
He has a strong personality and a great sense of humor, and that’s the reason we’re bringing you this interview in an audio format, too…well, that and by being a cloud-based magazine we have capabilities we can take advantage of that other magazines can’t.
Since his honorable discharge from the Marines in 1987, Todd Howard’s career path has been a little on the nontraditional side. Still, it’s a path that serves him well, and it’s a path that is giving him two seasons (at least) of a hit television show.
Listen to or download CRESCENT’s complete interview with Todd Howard HERE.
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My name’s Todd Howard. I’m a former Marine and an eviction specialist with over 20 years experience. We’re getting ready to do an episode of World’s Worst Tenants and we’re going to evict the big Taft Matney from CRESCENT Magazine…all the way in South Carolina.
Listen, man, I really appreciate your taking time out this afternoon to join us and I know that you’ve got a lot going on. Before I say anything else, and I’m not saying this just because I have you on the phone today, but I love the show.
I appreciate it, brother.
It is absolutely hysterical. It is laugh out loud funny. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect the first time I watched it and it really is one of those things that absolutely got me hooked. But before you and I start talking too much more, let me go ahead and do a quick intro. Ladies and gentlemen, we have with us today the co-producer and the host of Spike TV’s hit series World’s Worst Tenants and a native of Spartanburg, Mr. Todd Howard. Todd, I really appreciate your taking the time.
And I have a native haircut from South Carolina. You can see that.
You know, I was going to ask you about that. Where did that come from? Because, for people who haven’t seen the show, there is a look that you have from the front and there is a distinctly different look that you have from the back.
I’ve got to tell you a funny story. I’m in the gym today and the guy says to me, he goes, “You know when you’re selling a product, you’ve got the have the product you’re trying to sell on the front of your web site.” I go, “Exactly, that’s why, when you go to my web site, you see my picture first.” I was making a joke with him and I said, “The thing I can’t figure out is if I’m going to make more money selling the front side or the back side.”
Where did the haircut come from?
I’ve got to tell you a funny. I had to…to make it real short…I’m a guy that likes to change his looks all the time and I guess have ADD. I’ve had it my whole life and, for me, that’s kind of been a benefit. Not to everybody else, but just to me. The funny thing is, I always tell people, “When I was a Marine, I had a high-and-tight, and as I’ve grown older, it’s become a low-and-loose.” I used to really get pegged for Stone Cold Steve Austin all the time, and literally, I’ve probably signed hundreds of autographs where people won’t let me go. They’re saying, when he was very popular years ago, you know, and I had…
You do have that look.
And it’s not just the look. People used to tell me on the phone before they ever even knew what I looked like, they’d go, “Dude, you remind me of The Rattlesnake.” If I go to Mexico, I’m telling you I’ve never met Stone Cold. I’ve been to a lot of studios where he was at. It seems like he was there an hour before me or I was there an hour before him or something. We’ve always just missed but I want to see him one day and tell him the reason I had to grow this crap on the back of my head is because people always thought I was you. So I had to differentiate myself. Long story short, it’s probably just a little signature. It’s kind of like a, like I said, a little signature. It kind of separates me from everybody else and I’m kind of the guy…if everybody’s moving to the right, I want to be moving to the left. There’s probably not a day goes by that some…usually it’s a pretty lady that stops me and goes “Dude, why do you have that on the back of your head? Why don’t you just shave it off?” I say, “Mama likes it and the uglier the better and, guess what, I can’t see the back of my head so I don’t care.” So people say “What do you call it?” I say “I call it a hair don’t.” There’s people that have hair do’s and, for me, it’s a hair don’t. It’s not something I recommend, but if you do have one, you’ll probably get very tough because you’ll get cut down every day and people will make snide remarks on the internet.
But, here’s the thing, Todd. If anybody has taken a look at you, nobody’s going to make snide remarks to your face.
They’re always doing it on the internet, that’s for sure, but they’re really nice when I’m in front of them.
You’re a former Marine and you’re obviously spending a good bit of time in the gym. What do you bench?
You know, probably the best bench press I’ve ever had, when I say bench press, you know, without any kind of assistance with a bench shirt or anything like that, it’s probably about 500, maybe a little over 500. But you know, I don’t train that way. This was years ago when I thought you had to lift heavy weights in order to stay decent and it’s kind of like an ego builder. I always tell people that a bench press is an ego builder. It jacks your shoulders. I messes you up on a long term basis. I saw a kid in the gym the other day and I said…he had maybe 405 or something on there and I go “Hey, bro, would you like to be able to do that or look like you could do it?” And I walked away. I’m almost 50 years old and a lot of the guys that I knew that trained really, really heavy through the years…when I say they’re broken down, I mean arthritis…a lot of the guys, they took a lot of steroids years ago and their hearts are not like they used to be. I’ve got friends that are having heart attacks left and right from the old days. I never did that. I was always in it for the long haul and I still am. My goal is to be in shape. I train 5 days a week. I eat extremely healthy. I never eat desserts. I don’t eat any junk food. Zero. Because I can’t afford it. I kind of look at food like this. There is strong food and there is weak food. If I want my body to be weak, I eat weak food and my body becomes weak like most people. But, instead, I try to choose the strong foods. Does that make sense?
It makes perfect sense, but how do you come from Spartanburg and you don’t say , “I miss The Beacon.”
Let me tell you. My grandmother and my mother…my grandmother lived with us growing up, she health was poor and, when I tell you what she cooked every day, you’ll know why her health was poor. Dude, it was biscuits and gravy…cornbread…pinto beans. There’s nothing wrong with pinto beans but when you start mixing the pinto beans and the cornbread and the fried chicken…you know how it is. That’s how we were taught to eat. Fortunately, in the late 70s, I guess it was maybe the early 80s, I stumbled into the Olympian Fitness Center in Spartanburg, SC. That was owned by Lee Haney and W.C. Bain. You remember Sheriff Bain?
Absolutely.
Well, Sheriff Bain…that was his son. W.C. was his son. He and Lee Haney owned that gym. I was just a young kid, 12 years old, 13 years old and I stumbled into there and I met Lee and Lee became my buddy. I was his chauffer at times. I used to have a little 73 Volkswagen Bug and, whenever Lee wanted to go somewhere…I don’t know why he would ride with me. He’s go “OK, let’s go, you’re going to drive but you better not kill me because I’m going to be the #1 body building that ever existed.” He used to say that. For me, I guess I believed it but I didn’t really believe it because he was just a guy from Spartanburg that had a great physique and, at the time, he was about 19 or 20. When I said I was driving him around, I guess I was obviously 15, 16 at the time, but I met him when I was 13. He taught me how to eat right. He taught me what the right things were to eat so I kind of got a foundation there.
If you’re going to listen to somebody, an 8-time Mr. Olympia is probably a good person to listen to.
Well, yeah, at the time, he was a no-time Mr. Olympia. He just had a pipe dream. He had just won the…when I met him…he had won the Teenage America. He hadn’t even turned pro. When I joined the Marines in 1983, Lee had competed in the Olympia in 83. He did not win. He was like 2nd or 3rd and I might have my facts wrong, you could look it up. And I think in 84 is when he started to win. When I came to California, I thought “Oh, wow, man, Venice Beach. I’d heard all about Venice Beach and, you know, everybody works out, everybody’s in shape. I came out here to Venice Beach and I start looking at these body buildings and I’m thinking “Man, these guys aren’t that great. I mean, they’re OK but they’re not that great.” But then, at the same time, I’d been used to seeing Lee all the time.
You had a different frame of reference.
Exactly, exactly. One of those guys say “Man, dad, you’re tall.” Well, wait a minute, dad’s only 5’6” but, if he’s comparing to a kid, you know. It’s all based on what you see. It’s all relative.
Before we go any further, I want to make sure that everybody knows Season 2 of World’s Worst Tenants on Spike TV wraps up on May 14, but everybody can still catch the first run episodes on Tuesday nights, 10 ET, 9 CT and other times throughout the week by checking their local listings. I was glad to see, too, because this is something a lot of networks haven’t done and still aren’t reaching out there but Spike is making sure that the full episodes are on its web site wo the people can watch on demand from anywhere by going to Spike.com and looking up World’s Worst Tenants on the show listing. It’s awesome that they’re promoting you out there that much.
Yeah, it is, it’s really great. Out of all the networks we could have gone to or gotten picked up by, Spike was the one…it wasn’t set out to be that way but I’m really happy we did. Those people over at Spike are really, really good people. It’s just a blast going to that Guy’s Choice Awards every year. They’ve just been really, really great. I have great respect for those guys and they’re a good team to be on.
To describe it, and stop me and tell me that I’m wrong at any point. To describe it really, you would say World’s Worst Tenants is a “reality-based” show that’s focusing on your 20 years of experience in property management and dealing with tough tenants?
Yes sir, basically, what I’ll tell you this. The way it started was…I sold Rick a house in 1996, my partner Rick.
That’s Rick Moore, your business partner.
That’s right and I’ve been married since ‘93. My wife and I had a house and we had it
over in an area that wasn’t the greatest area. It wasn’t the greatest side of town and I decided “Hey.” I told her “Look, I want to have kids.” And she goes “I’m not going to have kids in this neighborhood.” She said “Every time I come home, there are gang bangers standing on the side of the street.” Well, we couldn’t afford a house in another neighborhood, we were lucky to be able to afford this one. Anyway, she put pressure on me to move. The whole idea, at the time, my house was probably worth, maybe $90,000 and I had already…I’m the guy who goes in a like a dummy and I take the house in the neighborhood and I overbuild it. I put a really nice pool in the back and I do all this…anyway, the house…I owed about $148,000 on it at the time and the next door neighbor’s house sold for $90,000. I said “Well, there’s no way we’re even going to be able to sell this house without taking beating on it. But if we can, if we can sell the house and move on, then we will.” Long story short, I found a house in Fall Oak where I live now, actually the home I’m sitting in right now. It was $270,000. I didn’t have anywhere near that money but I was able to get a loan because I always kept my credit good. But it was all predicated of me selling the house at full value. What was the likelihood of me doing it? Well, Rick walks through one day…he walks through the house…he looks at it. He walks right back out. He never said hello to me, he never shook my hand, nothing. He walks in, walks out. He says “I’ll take it.” And I’m thinking “What an idiot. He buys a freaking house and takes over the loan for $148,000 and the house is only worth about $90,000.” Well, about 2 years later…he and I became friends and a couple of years later, he showed me where the house was worth about $220,000. And he goes “Who was the fool?” I go “Yeah, you’re right.” Long story short, we started a company…we started working together and we’ve acquired 100+ properties throughout all those years and we deal with some of the craziest stuff that you’ve ever seen in your life. I mean…we’ve created our lease now that every time somebody does something real crazy, you just…it started out as 1 page and now it’s like maybe 7 or 8 pages long. Every time somebody does something crazy, you write it into the lease. And we learned it all based on experience. We’ve been to court over 100 and something times. We’ve never once had a judgment against us. I was in court just last week and we always said we were going to create a reality show based on it and we would run film when things got really, really crazy. I’m the kind of a guy…Rick’s the guy that tries…he tries to do things amicably and I have a tendency to push people over the edge a little bit. I’ve always said “Look, if the guys breaking the law and I can make him take a swing at me then, all of a sudden, if I can verbally cause him to do that, then I can pretty much get rid of him pretty quick because he just assaulted me.” Anyway, we ran a lot of tape on that and long story short, all of these are based on actual events. Recreations are used in the show because unless a person signs…if you see a person’s face, they have to sign a disclaimer, as you know. We do keep them as real as possible. There are…some of them aren’t recreations, some are. It’s a mixed bag. It is what we do. We do it every day. These are our stories. There’s a disclaimer at the end of each episode and, basically, what we try to do is we try to educate landlords and tenants and show them the dispute that happened. You know, the people…a lot of people, the fans and stuff “Aw, there’s no way this possibly happened.” But yet I get property managers coming to me all the time when I travel around the country and they go “Dude, we got stories better than that.” I go “I know you do, brother.” But people don’t realize that human being are capable of anything. When somebody calls me and says “Hey, so and so ate their young.” Hey, I believe it. We had a situation in Arizona where…this wasn’t my situation, it was good friend of mine and he asked me to come in on it. He had a health club where one of the employees got mad at the other, doused them with gasoline, threw them in the dumpster, set it on fire. People are just crazy.
And that’s what amazes me. And I guess what amazes me equally as much is how you’re able to get somebody to sign the release form.
Well, sometimes it comes down to money. I mean, if a guy’s goose is cooked then, isn’t he willing to mitigate his damage? Sometimes. People will do crazy things to get on TV.
The off camera deals.
Exactly.
The guy who put the additional vents in so the cigarette smoke was blowing in to the emphysema lady’s apartment next door or the contractor who was essentially running a campground at the house he was renovating or the guy that had the alligator in the bathtub. Over 20 years, those are incredible experiences and incredible stories to tell.
There was a guy once…you haven’t even seen this. There was a guy that had a tiger living in his basement. Literally, the tiger had grown up in the guy’s basement. It was unbelievable. Finally, the tiger got mad and he didn’t want to live in the basement any more.
And tigers tend to do that, and they don’t like to be domesticated.
Exactly. All dogs bite, and all people lie, right?
I could go down that road all day long.
Exactly. I coined the phrase “You’re lying like a tenant.” Don’t get me wrong. Understand we’re financially successful because we have really good tenants. We really do. We have great tenants. Literally between Rick and I we’ve had probably a thousand tenants throughout the years. If you take a thousand of anything, you’re going to come up with a small percentage of crap. This show is not about the good tenants because, if it was about the good tenants, you wouldn’t watch it, nobody would be interested in it. This show showcases the world’s worst tenants and the stories are actually endless. We’ve got stories that are just…they’re just crazy and they go on and on. When we get called out on a case, we don’t know anything. We’re given a case file and we just go. We have to handle everything by the law and that’s another thing that we try to do in the show. We’re trying not to just entertain people but we’re trying to give them some education, as well, and teach them certain elements of landlord/tenant law. Of course, we’re not attorneys but, at the same time, we can give you the basics and then you can go figure out what the law is in your state, in your city because it changes from state to state, city to city. So the goal is not just entertainment, it also, we’re trying to give you guys something, as well. Does that make sense?
It makes perfect sense. And does Spike realize what you bring to table and have they signed on for season 3?
They never sign on for season 3 until season 2 is done. We typically…we’re doing a million…right about the million mark and I’m not the guy to answer that question, Spike is. I think the show’s got some teeth. I think they like us. I think we’ve done a pretty good job but, at the end of the day, the viewers tell the story.
That’s true, so you want everybody to get in touch with Spike and let them know they’re watching and make sure they get the internet hits on the web site. Make sure that they’re watching, they’re DVRing. There’s a dynamic that you and Randye and Rick all have and it’s something that make the show work. How much of that do you really have to force and how much of that relationship is organic?
It’s one million percent organic. Nothing is forced. The show is not scripted. There is no script at all. So all of that is real. It’s so funny that you mention that. Everybody that knows me and knows us, they’ll watch the show and they’ll go “It’s just like driving down the road with you guys on a normal day.” “That’s how you guys are?” I go “Yeah, the show’s not scripted.” Some shows…people realize reality is often far from reality. Things are staged and things are scripted and so forth and so on. There’s no scripted jokes, there’s nothing that’s scripted and that…I always tell people this “Look, World’s Worst Tenants is a real as it gets.” And that’s just it. These are all our stories and…for example, yesterday, we’ve got a tenant that’s on Section 8. You know what Section 8 is?
Yes.
OK. She’s on Section 8. She’s a nice lady but we go down there and all of a sudden there’s like 12 cars in the driveway. It’s a duplex that Rick and I owe down in San Diego. And it’s not in the worse area, it’s not in the greatest area. I’ve got a guy living out there in a van. So I knock on the door and he won’t even come to the door. So we’ve been there a couple of times, he won’t even answer it. It’s like nobody is in the van. Yet he won’t move the van. So we posted notices, he hadn’t done anything. We called the tow truck. The tow truck comes out and he comes out and says “Hey, you can’t tow this thing with me in it.” And then we call the police and he won’t answer the door when he comes out so he plays this cat and mouse game. Finally, I told him “Look, here’s what we’re going to do, dude, just so you’ll know. If I have to drive down to San Diego tomorrow, I’m going to bring my big truck, I’m going to put a chain around your frigging axle and I’m going to drag your vehicle wherever I want to drag it to and that’s going to be it. I’m not going to call the cops anymore…well, now it’s gone. We deal with that kind of stuff. Sometimes you try to do the right thing but you can’t do the right thing. As my dad said a long time ago. My dad was a mortician in Spartanburg, SC for 50 years and he was always…he was a real jovial guy and there was somebody that I was trying to help one day and he goes “Todd, give it us. Those people aren’t going to let you help them. Because remember this. Some SOBs won’t let you love them.”
I don’t think there is a lack of truth in that at all.
There is not. You can do the best… and that’s the whole idea of what people don’t realize. When we show up, there’s already a whole lot of water under the bridge meaning that you guys are seeing 7 minutes of what could have been a 3 month back and forth. Does that make sense.
It does, it does. And you also have people who have done their best to try and work the system.
Yeah, and that’s who we’re dealing with. I’ve had people like…I had, I think it was MSNBC, one of the liberal media people tried to paint me as a bad guy kicking people out of their house. And I just laughed. “You know lady, I got to tell you something. Drug dealers, people that are just absolutely holding homes hostage. I’ve never kicked a person out of a house for not paying rent in my life that I did not go help try to find another place. You know what I mean?” These are people that are just blatant, blatant, blatant. We’ve got over $450,000 worth of judgments that we’ve gotten in the court system for landlord/tenant stuff through the years. So that’s where a lot of that experience comes from. Will we ever collect it? Absolutely not because a lot of these people are just bad people. As you grow in the business, you become more and more savvy and you look for certain things. You don’t even take a tenant if those things are not in order. Then you’re still taking a chance but, at the end of the day, it cancels out. So if I’m losing 400 grand, I must be making more on the other side or it would go away, right?
I’m amazed that folks will actually tell you “I know what my rights are, you can’t kick me out.” But I think there was a property manager that you had to deal with that was doing drugs, running drugs out of his place. You had somebody who was in a hotel for 29 days and, if he’d stayed one more day, he’d been a resident and knew he just had to get that extra day in there and y’all were trying to get him out at one point. They sit there and they try to flaunt that in your face “I know what my rights are.”
But here’s what you also have to know on that, Taft. Whenever somebody starts speaking in that manner, and they’re doing something like that, they’re not very smart. They usually just have enough information to hang themselves and, typically, they are always breaking the law in some way. So what we do is we go in and we try to find them doing something that is illegal and we try to use that as a bartering system, if you will.
Like the property manager. “Hey, man, let’s take this inside. We don’t want to have this discussion out there.” And the second you step in the door and see everything that is inside his place, you know there is a serious issue with drugs.
You already know there is. I’ve got to tell you too, Taft, 15 or 20 years ago it wasn’t like this. There were people who did bad things but drugs are so rampant these days and it blows my mind that a human being would put poison in their body like they do. There’s people doing drugs you’d never imagine doing drugs. But it comes out in their behavior. You just start looking and you’re thinking “OK now, what’s going on.” Look around their place. You know, it shows up. It’s unbelievable. I just don’t get it but I think we’ve got a big, big problem in society and I don’t see there being any progress in taking care of it.
What ended up getting you out to California? When you left the Marines in ‘87, did you just decide “OK, I’ve done my time,” and see what else is out there?
I was in Spartanburg and…it’s so funny…the Marines got me out here is what happened. I joined the Marines and never even realized the Parris Island existed but then I realized with a harsh reality in October of 83. When I got done, they sent me to school Millington, TN. I had a little girl friend in South Carolina and I’m thinking “Man, I’m kind of home sick and I want to stay on this coast line. I want to stay in North Carolina.” So that was the goal, I was going to try to get stationed in North Carolina. I went to school at Millington, TN and they told us “Whoever finishes first in the class can go to their choice of duty stations.” I’m not the smartest guy in the world but I’m definitely not the dumbest. So if somebody gives me a challenge to say “You’ve got to be #1 in your class.” I’m starting to look at my class and I’m thinking “This is going to be easy.” So I already had it set that I was going to be in North Carolina. It was no problem. There was this little guy. His last name was Love. He was from somewhere in Virginia, I can’t remember. Roanoke, VA or something like that. PFC Love was his name and he was doing terrible in school and this final exam, it actually served as the largest part of your grade. So I was laying in my…I was at the gym one day doing my 500 pound bench press and a little bird happened to fly over me and it dropped the final exam right on the top of my chest as I was doing a bench press. Don’t ask me how that happened but it did.
I wouldn’t dream of it.
So I helped this guy study for the test. Here’s what I told him to do. Don’t make 100% because if you make 100%, they’re going to know you’re up to something because you’re not doing that well anyway. I said make sure you miss at least 4 or 5 because it’s better to cheat than repeat. When in doubt, look about. That was my philosophy at the time, anyway. A football coach told me that at Spartanburg High. Anyway, you know what happened…he goes and he makes 100% on the test and he just smoked everybody. He ends up 1 or 2 points higher than me in his ending grade point average. He was #1, I was #2. His choice of duty station was North Carolina. They put me on the freakin’ boat and sent me to California. And I tell you, the day I got those orders, I was….I remember my heart just fell down in my stomach and I’m thinking “Oh, no.” I never dreamed…in my wildest dreams, would have never been coming to California. And everybody told me…you have to listen to everybody because everybody always knows “Aw, you’re going to hate it out there.” These young Marines and I don’t know how they knew. “It’s out in the middle of nowhere. It’s out in the middle of the desert. You’re going to hate it.” Well, they’re thinking 29 Palms but my XXXX was to come to Camp Pendleton. I remember, I had a 1983 Pontiac Firebird and my dad helped me drive it out. He and I drove it out together. I remember coming into San Diego. I’m looking and I’m thinking “Are you joking me? Is this where I’m going to be stationed? There’s the ocean right there. How bad can it be?” And I just kind of adapted to California. I love it out here and I’ve just been here ever since. So my wife always says “The reason that you’re successful in what you do is that you’re part CEO and part farmer.” So we kind of merged the two together.
And you haven’t completely lost the accent. It’s still there. California hasn’t driven it out of you yet.
And I’ve got to tell you. When I came to California, my accent was so country. I mean “Come on man, let me tell me where you’re going. You wanna go? Awright. You gonna go out there? OK. Yeah.” I mean it was so really country because I never knew what phonics was until I came to California. I never heard of it in my life. My parents were both workers and both of them, their families came through the Great Depression and they were farmers. One was a farmer and one worked in a cotton mill. Meaning both sides, my mother’s and father’s family. So education was never a real big concern other than I think my mother finished the 7th grade, my dad finished the 10th. I barely finished the 12th. I got…I was so…at times I was embarrassed because my accent was so strong. Every word that I would ever say, even in a store, I would get laughed at. People would just laugh and they’d go “Man, where are you from?”
Like you were a tourist attraction.
Not only that, there is stigma that people with southern accents are not that smart. It’s a stigma. Out in California, it is. And I was in business. I always wanted to be in business. I was always in business selling something. I tried to lose that. I’ve just…I will never lose my southern accent but I have always tried to work on vocabulary and trying to make it sound so uneducated, if that makes sense but sometimes you hear me make up words on the show and that’s kind a fun little thing that I do.
You do make those words from time to time but it is more entertaining when you tell a joke that bombs and you can just see Randye roll her eyes.
Yeah, she rolls her eyes all the time, but you know what? I tell them, I go “Look, I’m your freaking entertainment.” I’m one of those dudes who wakes up in the middle of the night laughing my head off about something and I don’t even know what I dreamed about but it’s funny so they think I’m really weird but at least I have a good time wherever I go.
People can question you all they want and think that because you may have twinge of a southern accent still left that you’re not that smart but, guess what, those folks don’t have a show on Spike TV.
That’s right, that’s what I always tell them. “Let me know what channel your show’s on so I can check it out.”
Well, Todd, I really appreciate you taking time out this afternoon to join us and, just to remind everybody, World’s Worst Tenants is on Spike TV, Tuesday nights, 10 o’clock, wrapping up Season 2 on May 14th but you can still go to Spike.com and watch full episodes or check local listings. Todd thank you so much, I really appreciate it. Good luck and hope they pick up season 3.
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