I'm sure fellow landlords have seen this - a repairman at a tenant-occupied unit ends up discussing future repairs or projects with the tenant.

Fortunately this situation has never resulted in a huge headache for me, though it does have the potential to do so. Anyone else ever had this snowball into a headache?

HI Dan. Yeesh, that doesn't sound like fun. I recently created a contractor plan going over the DOs and Don'ts when interacting with my residents. So far it has minimzed problems for me.

We replaced a kitchen and laundry room floor because of a leaky hot water heater. At the same time we decided to replace the badly worn counter tops, sink and faucet. When the plumber was there he joked about how nice the place looked now and how it looks like a rent raise is coming. This put the tenant into a nervous spin. This is our favorite plumber and I'm not going to fire him for it, but I did have to talk with him about it. Not okay.

When we did raise the rent three months later by $60 (this unit was and still is below the rent we get for the neighboring duplex unit), this long term tenant immediately equated the rent raise to the recent repair and upgrade and how it wasn't fair since she didn't ask for the upgrades. We had to be tactful and explain the rent raise was not a direct result of the upgrades, but necessary due to rising costs of taxes, insurance, and maintenance of the building AND that is was still a great value and lower priced than other 2BR/1BA apartments in the area.

I totally in stand where you are coming from. Here in SoCal I clean and restore carpet for property managers all the time with occupying tenants.

The main goal is for me to leave the residents after the job is completed with the tenants understanding that their carpet does not need to be replaced unless it is falling apart. Repairman have to be careful what they say to residents because they will take everything with a grain of salt.