Replaced one tenant's showerhead, now I'm getting other requests.

[John Bertolon]

Shortly after acquiring this 7-unit property, I ran into one of the tenant's who asked if I could replace her showerhead. She's been at the property for 15+ years and said it's never been replaced, so I felt this to be a reasonable request. I took care of it.

I also recently sent out rent increase notices, and now I got a request from a different tenant to replace a refrigerator because it's "rusted on the front and side." Apparently they have painted over it and it works fine....

A third tenant recently asked me to come by to look at something in her apartment. I haven't met her yet, but can only expect a request to come out of this as well.

At the end of the day, I want to address the basic needs of my tenants, but I can't help thinking that either that people got word of the original showerhead I replaced, or they're just taking advantage of the rent increase. With the refrigerator, my fear is that the other tenants will see the appliance guy show up and race to get in line for their new fridge, too.

Thanks in advance!

[Adam Bartomeo]

My first response to this is why would you only want to address their basic needs? Would you want a rusted refrigerator in your house? Keep the tenants happy and they will pay for that building 10 times over. Don't take care of them and you will find it difficult to keep occupied. 

Anytime owners or management switches the tenants will ask to have nagging issues taken care of. It is normal and should be addressed promptly. When owners switch in a smaller complex it is normal to have about 50% of them leave. It the first thing that you do is raise rents and the second is deny small requests than you are going to have to learn valuable lessons about tenant retention.