High Maintenance Tenant - Looking for your input

High Maintenance Tenant - Looking for your input

Member since 2021 · 44 posts · 8 votes

Hello all, I am looking for your input on managing this tenant. He is very high maintenance and I am at my limit. I am not perfect, so maybe it's me... Regardless, please feel free to share your constructive feedback. I always find great advice on this forum. 

Background

I rented out our previous home of 10+ years. House was built in early 90's. Highly desirable neighborhood. Newer roof, new windows, HW flood throughout the house, new master bath. Rent is 3K, but is average for that area. 2-yr lease and we are halfway. Tenants are husband+wife+6 & 2 yso. Husband owns a small business, has a rental in another city, 800+ credit score. Wife just started working. 

I mainly deal with the husband and I've found it get increasingly difficult to manage tenants. I would say that they are my stresser these days. I am quite surprised by the maintenance needs. Here's the laundry list of repair items in the past 12 months.

1) fridge doesn't make ice consistently: we repaired twice. I also offered to buy silicone ice trays

2) sprinklers don't water the lawn evenly causing certain area saturate with water: repaired

3) basement shower head occasionally dripping water: repaired 

4) master bedroom ceiling light/fan turned on by itself at nights: repaired

5) gas fireplace flame is smaller than optimal: ignored

6) water accumulating on window wood sills: turns out they set humidifier at 60% indoor causing condensation

7) Kids bathroom toilet water tank - slow water intake: repaired

8) unused rifle bullet found on the sidewalk - tenant was very agitated: I went to the sheriff's office and was told it's hunting season and someone probably dropped it. 

9) Washer making loud metal banging noise. - Manufacturer attempted to repair three times and eventually I managed to get a new washer under the warranty, but the delivery was such a headache because tenant refused to let us in if they were not home. He even accused my husband "broke into the house with the delivery team when his wife is with her client". 

10) master bathroom tub faucet pipe leaking causing water stain on the family room ceiling: repaired. We used maybe 10 times during our 12 years living there. They use every day, so the copper pipe eroded. We took down tiles to access the plumbing, so there's tile, drywall repair, paint, etc. 

11) fridge sometimes froze his food, sometimes is not cold enough - I checked it and told him "it's uncommon that the fridge is both hot and cold. Please make sure the door is sealed shut". It's a 17 years old fridge, but we've never had any problem with it and we cooked daily living in that house. 

12) The main valve for the sprinkler system (outside) leaked water - repaired

13) a sprinkler head broken shooting water to the sidewalk - repaired

14) Backyard wooden deck has two quarter-size paint chips which exposed wood filler underneath - ignored. 

The tenant's always emailed the maintenance request, polite and LONG emails. They are monthly and the most recent one is bi-weekly.  As I was thinking the repair needs would ease off while entering the 2nd year of the lease, I was quite stressed when I received another LONG email when I was out of country. In this email, there are five items. 

1) Outside spigot is leaking water inside the house - we have never used that spigot. 

2) a dead small aspen in the front yard

3) clogged gutter

4) Deck has rotted posts and floor boards - "unsafe for his children"..."hurt their bare feet"..."try to screw would be temporary fix" - the wood deck was repaired and painted one year ago. 

5) Fridge spoiled his food - tenants said he told us "multiple times" the fridge is bad news and it costed "$550 damage" to his food over the holidays because they were "frozen" in the refrigerator section and spoiled as they adjusted temp higher. 

I immediately told tenants that they can go buy an used fridge and  I will reimburse them when I am back to the States. I told them I will inspect the deck and address other items when I am back. In the meantime, no one should walk on the deck barefoot or ride on railings like it's a toy. TBH, I was quite annoyed by the frequency of his long emails and told him please send future maintenance needs to a designated email and a business phone number. Instead of stopping there and then, the tenant wrote another LONG essay fully aware that I was out of country and couldn't do much. They didn't buy the fridge, said the deck repair is not urgent and inquired if I feel them as "challenging tenants".  I didn't read this essay until my flight back, but I couldn't get rid of the annoyance and it did negatively impacted my vacation. 

I don't have a great first impression for this tenant. He chased after us for a 2-year lease. We marketed the property as "no pet, only W/D hook up". Somehow, I allowed their future cat and bought new W/D for them when we signed the lease (I thought it's a goodwill effort, but I now know those are mistakes). Three weeks after signing the lease he told me he wanted to buy a house. I know he has been looking aggressively in our area since moving in. While I think he should be honest upfront and maybe rent from a rental community (there's a nice one 5 min away and belong to the same elementary school), what's done is done. About a month ago, he started pushing me to share our plan after the 2-yr lease ends (which is one year from now). He said it would help decide "how aggressively he should be looking".  

Overall I am pretty fed up by this tenant, but I don't want to make an emotion decision. Maybe I just don't know how to manage him. How would you handle this situation?

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JD MartinBusiness Member
Moderator
Rock Star Extraordinaire · Northeast, TN · Member since 2015 · 10k+ posts · 16k+ votes
4y

You really, really need a property manager. You should not have allowed a tenant to buy their own appliance. You should not have visited the sheriff's office because someone left a bullet on a public sidewalk. Copper pipes don't erode because they use the tub and you didn't (I spent years in the water industry). You should not have signed a 2 year lease. 

You have high maintenance tenants, but you have exacerbated the problems with your actions. Your best course at this point is to end the tenancy at the first available option and start over. Where you run the rental, not your tenants.

PS: if you are in an easy eviction state, I would tell the guy flat out that he better be looking for new housing every day because at the end of the lease he's out on his ear. That might mellow out some of the nitpicking.

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  • Member since 2021 · 44 posts · 8 votes
    4y

    @Nathan Gesner  thank you Nathan. If you only require 14-day notice once tenants find a home to buy, do you only charge current month rent,  no penalty?

  • Rental Property Investor · Vancouver, WA · Member since 2014 · 68 posts · 37 votes
    4y

    @Anne Wang you can buy used appliances with a warranty from dealers that refurbish. They usually also offer repair services.

  • Rental Property Investor · Vancouver, WA · Member since 2014 · 68 posts · 37 votes
    4y

    @David P. Considering these tenants are super picky, I agree. Home Depot has some great sales on fridges.

  • Rental Property Investor · San Antonio, TX · Member since 2017 · 39 posts · 8 votes
    4y

    1. Use an online portal for maintenance requests and communication like apartments use. Apartments.com is the one that I use.

    2. Read your lease thoroughly and update it with everything you are experiencing with this Tenant. Be sure to investigate local landlord-tenant laws. 

    3. Review local landlord and tenant laws to discover which maintenance requests are considered urgent, non-urgent, or can wait.

    4. Get a Google voice number and establish an auto-reply. This will avoid you from being reached directly and lets the tenant know that you will review it ASAP.

    5. Update your lease by extracting some terms and conditions from other apartment leases, lease share here on Bp or etc. that are found online.

    6. Never tell your tenants that you are abroad or out of state.  I manage from abroad and have found that some tenants use this as leverage. 

    7. Avoid doing 2-year leases. This decreases suffering from business relationships that are not favorable. 

    8. Create a Maintenance Responsibility Addendum that lists items such as the irrigation systems, HVAC upkeep and filters, plumbing, electrical, and appliances. Balance risk vs reward on this one.

    These are some of the lessons I learned from managing abroad or long distance.  

  • Property Manager · Raleigh, NC · Member since 2014 · 728 posts · 596 votes
    4y

    @Anne Wang

    Some of the maintenance issues need to be fixed. A 17 year old fridge probably needs replaced. I prefer a tenant that tells me about leaks as they need to be replaced. Be great full they to well you when an issue occurs. The fridge needs to replaced. As for washer dryer, I do not provide, and I do not provide. Someidsues are we your lack of management, others are lack of previous to maintanence. As for remaining lease, take care of maintanence.

  • Austin, TX · Member since 2019 · 5k+ posts · 5k+ votes
    4y
    Quote from @Anne W.:

    .... I am quite surprised by the maintenance needs...

    FOR RENT

    SFH, nice neighborhood.

    [1] Expect rifle bullets on sidewalk, and dead aspen in the front yard. 

    [2] Outside spigot leaks water inside the house, basement shower head drips water, toilet water tank is slow, bathroom pipe leaking into downstairs ceiling, leaking (outside) sprinkler system, sprinklers don't water the lawn evenly and saturate with water, broken sprinkler head shoots water on sidewalk, water stains on the ceiling,

    [3] Clogged gutters

    [4] Ceiling light/fan turns on by itself, 

    [5] Washer makes loud banging noises,

    [6] Gas fireplace flame is smaller than optimal

    [7] If humidifier is set incorrectly  water accumulates on window wood sills

    [8] Fridge doesn't make ice consistently, sometimes freezes food, sometimes not cold enough, spoils food.

    [9] Deck has chipped paint, rotted posts and floor boards.

    "I couldn't get rid of the annoyance and it did negatively impacted my vacation. Overall I am pretty fed up by this tenant."

    =================

    No matter who lived there the problems would be the same.

    You own a house that has maintenance requirements and (maintenance issues).

    To some--this might (almost) be considered a light fixer house.

    Water, toilets, fridge, washer, deck etc....your problems to fix.

    Complaint about humidifier--normal renter getting used to house.

    Complaint about rifle bullets and dead birds in front yard--some areas (and neighbors) are more back-of-the-woodsy than others: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cQNkIrg-Tk

    and here is the singer's son (way back in the woods) and I'd bet not a one of the people in this video would complain about a finding a FREE rifle bullet (b/c those things are expensive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gLcoA-S78w

    But I could see your average "City Feller" complaining about it due to the possible danger to kids.

    But rather than go the the PD yourself, just tell the renter to go to the PD if he wants--you can't very easily control who the neighbors are--the Federal Government and Equal Housing laws prevent that type of thing.

    Just my 2 cents and Good Luck!

  • Austin, TX · Member since 2022 · 10 posts · 5 votes
    4y

    @JD Martin Agree. Some people mistake kindness for weakness. Get firm and get him out.

  • Rental Property Investor · Dayton, OH · Member since 2015 · 79 posts · 85 votes
    4y

    @Anne Wang

    Hi Anne, I thought I would throw my opinion in here too.

    Real Estate renting is not a passive job.  Essentially, you are in a service industry.  You have to maintain your property.  And there are expectations that your tenant ought to have about a working infrastructure.  Here are three things that I noticed about the situation.

    1) It seems like the property was not quite ready for a renter.  I run through a checklist of things before I rent out my properties.  I snake the drains between every tenant, cleanout sink traps, put in new toilet guts, gutters should have been clean at handover, etc.  I don't get as many maintenance calls this way.

    2) When my tenant has a legitimate complaint such as a refrigerator.  I replace it with a new one.  I had a failing gas stove, I bought a brand new one. And I've bought refrigerators and trimmed trees and a few years later had to cut the whole tree down.  Stuff does happen and either you have to deal with it yourself, or you have to contract it out, or hire a property manager as others have suggested.

    3) I do not use a standard lease. I write my own lease and attempt to make it clear who is responsible for the big things.  I spell out that the tenant maintains the property for normal things like mowing the lawn, edging, trimming the bushes, cleaning the gutters.  If I have to do it, I will charge them.  I keep adding to my lease template when I see things at other properties that I wouldn't want done at my own property.  I put these things in the lease because if they do not do them, it is a breach of the contract.  When I accept them as a tenant, before I hand over the keys, we sit down and read through every line of the contract.  They initial every paragraph.  I have a second document that is reserved for non-breach-of-contract things.  For instance, the bathroom has a plastic tub, obviously, if they used scouring powder to clean it there would be scratches, so I wrote down products that are acceptable and not acceptable for different areas of the house.  Obviously, if they damaged the tub or any other object, there are other provisions of the lease that require them to pay for damages.

    I know that renting can sometimes be a pain, but it has its rewards too.  You have to treat it like a business and think yourself through these problems.  If you do not want to do the work yourself, there are others who can.  Consider the property manager.

  • Member since 2021 · 44 posts · 8 votes
    4y

    Thank you all very much for offering your feedback! I've decided to offer them out of lease with no penalty. 

    We do take care of the house and have repaired continuously since they moved in. However, the communication style bothers me more than the maintenance items. I am not going to waste my time on tenants who play games. The fridge has never had any service issues until they moved in. All of sudden, started with ice maker, frozen food, spoiled food to $550 damage. Deck from chipped paint to safety issue for his kids. Everything is urgent in his email, but when scheduling repair, all kinds of obstacles due to their availability. 

    He keeps saying that he always have had personal relationship with previous LL. I don't do it. I don't want to read monthly 4000-word essays. All I need to know is Issue, Urgency, Date Occured and access to the house with 24-hr advance notice. 

  • Nathan GesnerBusiness Member
    Moderator
    Real Estate Broker · Cody, WY · Member since 2010 · 28k+ posts · 41k+ votes
    4y
    Quote from @Anne W.:

    @Nathan Gesner  thank you Nathan. If you only require 14-day notice once tenants find a home to buy, do you only charge current month rent,  no penalty?


     When I offer early departure, I only ask that they give me 14 days notice of termination. They pay rent through those 14 days and then it's a standard move-out. I handle the deposit like any ordinary termination.

    Getting rid of a problem is more important. I can find a new tenant quickly.

    The DIY Landlord Book4.7248 Reviews
  • Rental Property Investor · Boston, Massachusetts (MA) · Member since 2016 · 2k+ posts · 2k+ votes
    4y

    @Anne Wang keep in mind that in the tenantsmind if they don’t document all these things they feel they will be blamed and it taken out of the security deposit. A huge chunk of those things are things that should be reported and most should be repaired. No house is maintenance free.

    And sheesh, buy a new fridge already. It’s a 3k rental in a nice neighborhood and you are getting by with a 17 year old fridge? Tenant is rightly suspecting you do the bare minimum for a premium price.

    It caught my eye that you said a few times “we never used it” so what? You rented it as functional unless you said otherwise and it has to work.

    People disagree with @Nathan G. At their peril since he’s the pro, but it seems to me almost all of this is caused by your dislike for regular maintenance of the house. Being annoyed with tenants for asking you to fix things that should work is silly.

    And you are annoyed at the tone of their conversation, let it roll of your back and just address the real issues. You are feeding the beast by getting worked up over this.

    Decks sound like a real issue to me that should be addressed. You are out of the country. Get a property manager if you don’t want to respond yourself, but you still have the obligations of a landlord

  • Colleen F.Pro Member
    Investor · Narragansett, RI · Member since 2013 · 8k+ posts · 4k+ votes
    4y

    @Anne W.  do you the happy Clause like @Theresa Harris and @Nathan Gesner mentions.  The tenant is high maintenance and you have a lot of little issues.  This type of tenant no matter how valid the complaints is tiring.

    Just replace the fridge with a basic unit, NO icemaker. He probably wants a cadillac but a chevy will do. Ice makers can freeze and be impacted by water pressure, nice but cause trouble with tenants. Try sears outlet, specials and used.  I know you don't want to but this is the song that never ends and better as a planned replacement. Renters insurance is where he should claim his food loses.

    For the deck, you aren't replacing it.  Find a fix, exterior wire reinforcement ect.  You want to cover your liability.

    I make clear on lease signing that if they don't want people in the house fixing things when they are not present they must adjust their schedule to accommodate workmen. In the situation where that doesn't work I let them know I will need to have work done without them present because some repairs cannot be delayed.  If they are not comfortable with that they shouldn't sign the lease.  Its a clause in the lease. 

  • Rental Property Investor · Lehigh Valley, PA · Member since 2017 · 200 posts · 191 votes
    4y

    Sounds like you have a class A property, so you have good leverage.  Frankly bi weekly emails are not appropriate and you having tolerated this behavior it will not get better.

    If you can sustain 2 months of vacancy I recommend not renewing the lease.  In a separate correspondence notify your tenant to stop harassing you with these emails.  Point out that you have diligently made repairs per the lease

    I say this for two reasons:

    1. Your home, appliances, and mechanicals are getting older and this will only multiply this tenant's complaints

    2. Their children are also getting older; increasing likelihood of damages to your home and again multiplying this tenants complaints.

    Class A SFHs should not cause this type of stress.  

  • Rental Property Investor · Lehigh Valley, PA · Member since 2017 · 200 posts · 191 votes
    4y

     Send them this letter:

    "We appreciate you have decide to make our property your home for the last several years but it appears by the steady number and length of your emails that the home is not meeting your standards.  Therefore, we can offer you early release from your lease 60-days from the date of this letter  Again, we appreciate your business and will provide a favorable reference letter for your new landlord"

  • Real Estate Investor · CA · Member since 2011 · 47 posts · 14 votes
    4y

    I think this tenant is annoying, AND I think you have some issues as a LL.  You are renting a relatively higher end place, but are not willing to maintain as such.  He's detail oriented and annoying, for sure.  But your reliance on the notion "it was ok when we lived there" is also a problem. Appliances break.

      If I was a tenant in a 3K a month home with a 17 year old fridge that wasnt working properly, and the LL told me to find a used fridge on my own . . . 
      

  • Investor · Member since 2021 · 591 posts · 695 votes
    4y

    @Anne W. this is an interesting question because some of what you describe sounds like legitimate tenant maintenance requests, and other items sound petty and needless...on the one hand, it does sound like this tenant is a bit high maintenance...on the other hand, many of the items you listed (particularly the plumbing issues) are legitimate problems that need to be repaired (and in fact, you WANT your tenant to report plumbing issues ASAP, because ignoring them can lead to much bigger problems down the road).

    The items that jump out to me as "high maintenance" or "petty" are the complaint about the bullet on the ground (not really your responsibility--and you should not have taken that on as a responsibility), and the complaint about the quarter-sized paint chips off of the deck, which sounds inconsequential. Some of the complaints about the yard's sprinkler system could also be petty, depending on the severity of the problem (the blown and leaking sprinkler head was definitely an issue that needed to be addressed, but the complaints about the system watering some areas too much and other areas not enough sound like they could be petty).The fridge issue depends partly on the grade of the property and how much you're charging for rent--if this were an A+ luxury unit getting top market rent, then the tenant may have a legitimate reason to expect perfection and high-end, perfectly functioning appliances...but if this is more of a typical C or B grade rental, and your rent price isn't exorbitant, then the fridge complaints seem petty...

    But, other than those items, many of the things that you listed do sound like legitimate maintenance requests, and many of them are items that you should want the tenant to report ASAP before they get worse or create a liability...for instance, if the deck really is rotting so bad that it's becoming unsafe, you would want to address that before someone gets hurt and you end up in a lawsuit....

    Personally, I wouldn't do longer than a 12 month lease unless it's a tenant I have a long history with and who I trust--otherwise, (as you're learning) a long lease can get you locked into problems if it's a bad tenant... 

    A good PM might be able to help you, but if you are not an experienced property manager yourself, then a PM may just cause you even more headaches. This is because you need to manage your PM, and if you're not an experienced property manager yourself, then you may not be able to effectively manage a PM. Also, if this tenant really IS high maintenance, then most PMs will not want to take on the headache of dealing with them (particularly if you're a small-time client).  ...most PMs want big-time clients with a large portfolio of low maintenance properties and low maintenance tenants, and they have little or no incentive to deal with a small time client with a problematic tenant--as a result, you would likely be a very low priority for most PMs (assuming you don't have some massive portfolio of real estate you can offer them).

    If the tenant is taking care of the property, seems responsible and trustworthy, and is paying everything on-time, then sometimes it's worth putting up with some annoyances--particularly if 95% of their maintenance requests are legitimate...but if they're driving you insane, then it's probably worth asking yourself questions like: "Are there really significantly better tenants out there? ...or, is this tenant typical, and I just personally hate property management?"  (it's OK if you just hate property management--most folks do!)

    Good luck out there!

  • Flipper/Rehabber · Colorado Springs, CO · Member since 2016 · 499 posts · 167 votes
    4y

    How about "cash for keys" and give them 60 days to get out. 🤯 Then sell that property AS IS WHERE IS NO INSPECTION OBJECTIONS.

    Quote from the HUD.gov Habitability laws, if they are able to live there day to day it qualifies as "habitable". End of story, except fridge needs gone. Salvage. Put it out on the street with a FREE sign.

    These tenants seem to have no life except to drive you nuts. If you calculate the gains from selling it against the torture of their tenancy you will be ahead of the game. Maybe you are not suited to be a LL since you give in to them. Yes you made mistakes with them. Now is the time to pivot and get rid of them. Tell them its going up for sale and you will start showing it in XX days. 

    When they signed the lease didnt they agree in writing that the house is habitable? thats the bottom line. Ignore all the landscape repairs and tell them the lease specifies NO PETS so kitty is OUT immediately.

    How much of their complaints are their responsibility? My lease states the tenant must pay the first $300 (or whatever) of any repairs in any month and MUST have $100K renters insurance with me as "interested party".

    If you take your sweet time with their repair list maybe they will get the message. Just dont answer their phone calls or  respond to their lists. I have ppl with encyclopedic collections of excuses they constantly use to avoid accountability. Sometimes i even borrow from them, 🗣

    You should have sold the house when you moved out and used the money to continue your world travels. (20-20 hindsight, OK) You would not have had to pay cap gains. Now, you will because it was a rental. You have a couple serious decisions to make and may need an attorney. I hope you kept all their written lists and dated receipts for repairs you did. You'll be real busy working on these solutions, too busy to serve their needs.

  • Investor · Crown Point, IN · Member since 2014 · 177 posts · 84 votes
    4y

    what is it worth to get rid of them, you could do a cash for keys type scenario where you say, hey, I'll give you $500 to go. 

    additionally, I suspect you are being a bit to nice to them, letting them take advantage of you and your hospitality. I would not have allowed them to choose a refrigerator, the only choice I would give is if I found 2 comparable ones that I would typically buy, and I'd only really give them the choice if they weren't a problem to begin with. If you've repaired the refrigerator multiple times, I'd only offer to cover the costs of their food if they had been a long term tenant, and not one that I wanted to go. If you don't pay for their food, that will just give them motivation to leave. 

    overall though you look like your doing what you should do, though I would look closely for lease violations I could use to remove them, or just refuse to renew when the lease expires. 

    you may also want to consider getting a property manager to manage too. that way you have someone in between you and the tenant, and it's a lot easier to be the "bad guy" who says no to the requests. They also likely wouldn't contact you unless there was a major incident, most of what you like likely would not qualify as a major task.   

  • Member since 2022 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    4y

    I know I'm going against the grain here, but I kinda like your tenant. It's like having a free home inspector! For me, all of these things would have been taken care of before I let a tenant move in. A lot of his issues to me (if true), are inexcusable to not fix, or have removed before renting. I would not supply washer/dryer, if I did the lease would specify that they were left previously and tenant is on his own. No icemakers, ever. It might benefit you to read some of the other articles here about tenant proofing. I would disable the lawn sprinklers, they're a PIA,  and make the tenant do it (in the lease) with his own sprinklers. NEVER let tenant choose appliances. I know my process is probably different from others, but it's what worked for me. Good luck.

  • Drew SygitBusiness Member
    Property Manager · Royal Oak, MI · Member since 2012 · 12k+ posts · 9k+ votes
    4y

    @Anne W. you are making a typical mistake of thinking like a homeowner NOT a landlord. 

    You state a few times that you never used something or it was fine while you lived there. What does that have to do with anything?

    80%+ of their maintenance requests seem warranted. 

    With each of them, ask yourself, "How did the tenant cause the problem?"

    Per our experience the following were not caused by the tenant and should be fixed: 3, 4, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and newest 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

    A few of the things you wouldn't be responsible for if covered correctly in your lease. EXAMPLE: appliances - our lease states they are not warranted by owner and if they malfunction or stop working it's up to tenant to address.

  • Member since 2021 · 44 posts · 8 votes
    4y

    @Danny Polanski @David P. @Curtis Mears @Scott Mac @Mark Nickoson @Jonathan R McLaughlin @William P. @Leo R. @Henry T. @Drew Sygit

    Thank you very much for offering your input. While I really want to kick them out, I decided to hold on and gave them another chance, and myself, because I will have to paint at least two rooms and have an vacancy. You are right, these are legit repairs. 

    First of all, I don't think real estate is a passive investing, in my OP, I explained that I have addressed nearly all their requests. 1) It's a a big PIA to schedule the repairs. 2) he always sent you LONG emails. even you told him you were out of country and already shared your plan for those requests, no, you have to read another 5000-word email. Today we repaired the outside spigot, deck and cut the dead trees. We are also going to order a new fridge. I want to show you some of the communication that this tenant sent me today. He just keeps pushing buttons. For the outside spigot, he noticed the leaking on 7/12, told me on 7/25 and today we pumped 30 gallon of leaking water from the crawl space. He has been using that spigot even though he told us "it's leaking inside the house".  He told me the issues because he doesn't want to be responsible for them, but he still needs convenience. 

    1) We gave tenant 24-hour advance notice, for deck and access to the crawl space. The contractor was late for the 9am appointment, got to the house at 9:30a. Tenant sent me his first email for the day "Do you have an idea when you/the contractor will be at the house. I had 9:00am from your email, but it's just shy of 9:30 am now." Because he wouldn't let us visit the house without him being there. 

    2) He sent me another email during the repair. 

    "Your husband and contractors arrived at the house at 9:45am. They began doing some work on the deck right away.
    Your husband called me over to the outdoor faucet and lectured me on freezing and expansion within pipes and implied that any damage to the pipe was my/our fault. I can assure any damage to piping was not our fault; being from further North in xxx, I am very aware of outdoor pipe do's and don'ts during cold weather. That aside, the two outdoor spigots (the one in question and the one on the West side of the house beneath the kitchen), were a part of the end of season maintenance performed on the outdoor sprinkler lines by the company you hired in the late Fall. At the time of their visit, they blew out the sprinkler lines, as well as opened and drained the outdoor water spigots. These had not been used until early in the Summer. In late Spring, I even asked your husband if I should turn on the sprinklers and close/reattach the hose to the outdoor spigot. He advised me not to, provided there is usually a late Spring snow (which he was right, there was). After that, he advised that it was acceptable to run water outdoors again. I did so about two weeks following his authorization due to some concurrent work travel prohibiting me form doing it at the time of notification.
    When the contractor went into the crawl space to fix the pipe now, a large amount of water was observed on top of the protective tarps in the crawl space. The contractor guessed it is from the external pipe of issue, though is more concerned with fixing the pipe and cleaning up things at the moment.
    Whoever replaced the sprinkler head in the front yard did not secure it properly as it had come unattached sometime during the night, with water pouring over the road when the sprinklers were turned on. I adjusted the buried fitting and replaced the sprinkler head. I will let you know if that does not remediate the issue.
    Your husband noticed a lock on the electrical panel and asked for it to be removed. He mentioned occasions where the fire department had visited the house and almost broke the front door down for related reasons (which I certainly would not want). I was advised by an engineer inspecting things in the Fall that I may want to secure the box given children under 13 in the house. Your husband looked on google and found a website that advised otherwise. No problem, the lock was removed immediately (and would have been removed regardless based on your/his request). I also pointed out that I added a (removable) bolt and nut securing the radon fan in the "on" position. It is far more accessible to kids and on more than one occasion, I have noticed it turned off (maybe from our other neighborhood kids). He seemed to think that was acceptable and a good thing to do.

    Please confirm receipt."

    Also, in one of this long emails in July, tenant did ask the same questions that you mentioned. Those are normal wear and tear that another tenant would cause, too. I thought it's self explanatory since I am repairing them. Oh no, he sent me another email insisting me addressing his question in writing "When you have a moment, can you please revisit the questions that I asked in response to your 7/27/22 email."

  • Colleen F.Pro Member
    Investor · Narragansett, RI · Member since 2013 · 8k+ posts · 4k+ votes
    4y

    @Anne W.  Yep, he seems like a special unit.  For the spigots off turn off/lock them for this guy in the winter or if he reports an issue in the future. Alternately you can use antifreeze units if that is an option. I have never had to look an electrical box and we have one in the bedroom... so sounds like a helicopter parent.  It is his responsibility to keep his kids from turning off the radon fan, that isn't your responsibility should he bring it up again.

    Ignoring might be a good strategy.   I would respond Receipt confirmed.  I would probably let him schedule the new refrigerator delivery arrive at the end to be sure all is good and politely say, I don't have any pending maintenance issues at this point, do you?  If he goes on and on just ask again if there are any pending issues.    I had a similar one texting me at 7am on sunday to say someone is blocking his garage for 5 minutes. sending me letters on other tenants.  We agreed to rip up his lease. He really pushed my buttons and I am happy he is gone even though he was a clean well paying tenant.  

  • Member since 2021 · 44 posts · 8 votes
    4y

    @Colleen F.  thank you, Colleen. I really value your reply! My husband also found out today that tenant had a home inspector checking our house earlier this year. 

  • Theresa HarrisPro Member
    Member since 2019 · 15k+ posts · 11k+ votes
    4y
    Quote from @Anne W.:

    @Colleen F.  thank you, Colleen. I really value your reply! My husband also found out today that tenant had a home inspector checking our house earlier this year. 


     I'd really consider getting rid of him at least renewal.

  • Member since 2021 · 44 posts · 8 votes
    4y

    @Colleen F. I haven't replied his email from today. I received another email from tenants just now. This is what meant "he is really pushing my buttons"

    "In this vein, I have yet to receive a response to any of my email updates or requests for input. I don't believe this new email account of yours is not capable of receiving incoming emails, but absent any replies, all I have is your personal cell phone number for contact. While I don't think that's the best way for communicating (nor do you likely want such calls), if I don't hear anything back in the next few days, I'll assume as such, or at a minimum I'll call to attempt to find out another preferred method of contact."

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