{"id":59765,"date":"2014-09-17T05:00:14","date_gmt":"2014-09-17T11:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/renewsblog\/?p=59765"},"modified":"2024-02-23T16:01:25","modified_gmt":"2024-02-23T23:01:25","slug":"2014-09-17-pest-clause-a-small-lease-addition-to-avoid-a-big-headache","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/2014-09-17-pest-clause-a-small-lease-addition-to-avoid-a-big-headache","title":{"rendered":"The Pest Clause: A Small Lease Addition to Avoid a Big Headache"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There are a lot of clauses in any given lease, and some of them are obviously more or less business-impacting than others. Your late-rent clause, for example, is one that always gets plenty of attention.<\/p>\n<p><strong>But are you aware of how much of a pain in the neck your pest clause (or lack thereof) can create?<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>Pest Clauses Defined<\/h2>\n<p>If you&#8217;re not immediately familiar, the &#8220;pest clause&#8221; is simply that portion of a given lease that discusses who is responsible for dealing with pests &#8212; insects, rodents and some wild animals.<\/p>\n<p>The basic law in Michigan is that &#8220;the owner of every dwelling shall be responsible for keeping the entire building free from vermin.&#8221; (&#8220;Vermin&#8221; is legally equivalent to pests). But that law doesn&#8217;t prevent landlords from using pest clauses to shift some or all of that responsibility to their tenants if they see fit &#8212; using a pest clause.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Related:<\/strong> <a title=\"Excerpts From Our Best Lease Clauses\" href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/2014\/08\/06\/excerpts-of-our-best-lease-clauses\/\" target=\"_blank\">Excerpts From Our Best Lease Clauses<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<h2>This is Not a Small Matter<\/h2>\n<p>It might seem like the question of who deals with pests isn&#8217;t a huge one &#8212; but there are a lot of factors to consider.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It&#8217;s not unusual to spend a few hundred dollars in a single day trying to tackle a pest problem&#8230;and fail<\/li>\n<li>Ignoring the pests is a bad idea because they not only cause potential health problems, but many pests can also damage the infrastructure of a home by chewing on wires, etc.<\/li>\n<li>Choosing to deal with a pest problem using pesticides and\/or poisons can cause adverse reactions<\/li>\n<li>On the other hand, if you can swiftly and decisively deal with a pest problem, it&#8217;s a great opportunity to build some &#8216;cred&#8217; with your tenants and possibly increase their loyalty down the line<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>One Idea for a Pest Clause: Tenants Handle Their Own Mess<\/h2>\n<p>In short, this concept is that if a tenant brings pests into their own living space, it&#8217;s their responsibility to deal with it; meanwhile, you, as PM, will deal with pests that come in on their own.<\/p>\n<p><strong>This of course is going to raise the question, &#8220;how do you know if the tenant did it?&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In general, if the pest is something like a bedbug, it&#8217;s easy to assume the tenant did it &#8212; but what about a spider infestation? Did the tenant recently move a bunch of boxes into the house from a storage unit? Have they taken the screen off of a window they often keep open?<\/p>\n<p>Legally, the grey area here is expansive and annoying to deal with.<\/p>\n<h2>Two Weeks, Then You&#8217;re on Your Own<\/h2>\n<p>A different take on the pest clause makes it pretty cut-and-dry: if pests show up within the first two weeks of someone&#8217;s tenancy, you take care of the problem on your dime. After that, pest control is their problem, and they shouldn&#8217;t expect much from you by way of help except possibly a referral to a good exterminator.<\/p>\n<h2>Break it Up by Pest Type<\/h2>\n<p>You might also consider telling the tenants what kinds of pests you&#8217;ll handle and what kinds are up to them.<\/p>\n<p>For example, you might be willing to deal with the expense of calling an exterminator for roaches, termites, and other insectoid vermin &#8212; but if it&#8217;s mice or raccoons, the tenant can figure out how they intend to handle the situation.<\/p>\n<h2>If You Don&#8217;t Have a Pest Clause, Consider Writing One<\/h2>\n<p>Not having a pest clause is a fast way to end up in some serious strife with your tenants &#8212; and then having to explain to your owners why you had to drop a few hundred bucks in a single afternoon unexpectedly.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Related:<\/strong> <a title=\"17 Vital \u201cRules\u201d Your Rental Lease Should Cover\" href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/2013\/11\/04\/house-rules\/\" target=\"_blank\">17 Vital \u201cRules\u201d Your Rental Lease Should Cover<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>It&#8217;s highly advisable that you put together an addendum to your lease agreements that lays out how you expect to deal with pests going forward and get a copy out to all of your tenants with your next newsletter or visit.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>After all, there are enough pests in the world without adding your tenants to the list.<\/p>\n<p><em>Do you include a pest clause in your lease? If so, what does it specify?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>We&#8217;d love to hear from you in the comments below!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are a lot of clauses in any given lease, and some of them are obviously more or less business-impacting than others. Your late-rent clause, for example, is one that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1593,"featured_media":62033,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5183],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-landlording"],"acf":[],"comment_count":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1593"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}