How do you deal with tenants who over-report maintenance?

[Schola Eburuoh]

Hey all—I help manage a few units and am a grad student working on a project around property maintenance.

I've noticed that across a few of my small multifamily units, a surprising number of service requests are for stuff tenants might be able to resolve themselves: tripped breakers, loose door hinges, clogged drains, smoke alarm chirping, etc.

I'm curious how others are handling this.
Would really appreciate if you could share:

• What % of your service requests would you say are minor/non-urgent?

• Do you have any process to help tenants troubleshoot before submitting a request?

• Have you ever tried a tenant guide, chatbot, or small deterrent fee for repeat calls?

• Do you track service request data over time?

Trying to get smarter about this— would love to learn from people who’ve been doing this longer.

Appreciate any insights!

[Jill F.]

Hi @Schola Eburuoh, I would advise against charging for problem reporting. You really want tenants to report problems (without fear of reprisals).The fix for tripped breakers and gfci outlets are easy to walk tenant through on the phone If they are in an old building with limited electrical where you can't say, vacuum and microwave at the same time you have an opportunity to educate to reduce future calls. For clogged sink or shower drains we tell tenants to try draino or liquid plumber. If they say the have and we try drano and it works I might charge. I usually tell tenants the first time a plumber snakes the line it's on me the next one is on you. I tell tenants complaining of smoke alarm chirping to replace the batteries in the smoke detector. I would not consider those "over reporting" unless the continue after they've been given instructions. I'd probably give instructions with good grace a second time and the third time I would tell them that we've gone over this before and you should not call me unless the normal fix doesn't work though I've never had that happen with 78 units and almost 10 years in business. It's really been a much bigger problem that tenants ignore or don't recognize actual problems that should be reported