Trouble Tenants...I'm Overwhelmed

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Trouble Tenants...I'm Overwhelmed

Account Closed
Los Angeles, CA · Member since 2017 · 73 posts · 56 votes

I own a SFH in California which I rented out October 2018. Since day 1, the tenants have been contacting me on a daily/weekly basis requesting repairs.

Some of these repairs are warranted (replaced the water heater, fixed broken windows, fixed faulty sprinkler valves) while others I feel are not (most recently the light bulb in the garage isn't working). 

I've spent well over $5,000 in repairs since they've moved in (it's only been 9 months)  and honestly I'm sick of this. What's worse is that they find fault in many of the repairmen I send over. These are licensed individuals whom I have been working with for over a decade who are loved by all other tenants except these.

Most recently, there's apparently a slew of electrical issues in the house, including a few outlets that don't work, the A/C not cooling, along with the faulty lightbulb in the garage. I sent my electrician to take a look and over the course of a week, between he and his team, they fixed the issues...or so I thought. This morning the tenant contacted me and told me they're still having issues and that the electrician didn't fix everything and that he didn't show up when he said he would. I told them it's their responsibility to make sure all the issues are addressed with the electrician before he leaves to prevent consistent visits over the same problems and to follow up with him if he didn't make the visit.

They proceeded to get mad at me and my electrician, saying that it's not professional for the repairmen to forget what he needs to fix, that I'm blaming them, etc. I've been trying my best all these months to give them the benefit of the doubt and I've worked diligently to fix everything they've brought up within a few weeks time max, but I'm sick of making repairs, I'm sick of being contacted nonstop, and I'm sick of these people hating on my repairmen.

Not sure what my question is here, perhaps I just need to rant to fellow landlords, but any advice you can give with regards to dealing with such tenants would be appreciated.

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Jim K.
Handyman · Pittsburgh, PA · Member since 2018 · 5k+ posts · 13k+ votes
7y

@Account Closed

There's obviously more to this story, and I'm not seeing the ability to look at things from the tenant's side that every successful landlord needs to cultivate. So let me be the tenant's devilish advocate here and don't take anything I say here personally.

Let's look at what you've stated you needed to do in this house in the nine months that you've been renting it out:

1. Replace the water heater.

2. Fix broken windows.

3. Fix faulty sprinkler valves

4. Fix outlets that don't work

5. Fix (central?) A/C

6. Fix one or more lighting sockets that don't work.

7. Remove tree with roots that infiltrated the sewer line, deal with pile of woodchips left by tree removal.

OK, by any reasonable definition, I think you have to admit the house has been a piece-of-s*** for these tenants and was beat to hell when you rented it to them. Because that's a lot of problems cropping up in a very short amount of time.

Did you just buy this place prior to October 2018 and not do a thorough snagging of it? It sure sounds like it. You can't buy a POS cheap, inadequately snag it, dump tenants into it, and not be prepared for the POS to manifest its POS-ness. 

(Well, you can, but you'll lose money every time doing it.)

1. Did you scope the sewer line before you bought the place?

2. Did you check the electrical board?

3. Did you stick a wiring tester in each of the outlets?

4. Did you make sure the lighting sockets weren't faulty?

5. Did you check the age of the water heater?

6. Did you inspect the sprinkler valves?

7. Did you look at the busted windows?

8. Did you run the A/C?

Now, let's talk about your electrician. I'm afraid he's not passing the sniff test.

Your electrician couldn't fix circuit wiring that didn't work, couldn't check and replace outlets, couldn't check and replace lighting sockets/fixtures, and isn't answering the phone when they call him about the fact that they live in a giant fire hazard. If you think that's harsh, well, I'm not an electrician and I can do all that -- it's not rocket science. But you're telling them it's their responsibility to make sure your house is good and fixed for you, and not to whine to you about it. And of course you've mentioned here that everyone else who rents from you thinks that this electrician-of-obviously-questionable-competence is God's gift to alternating current.

A does not equal B does not equal C here.

The windows...you can't rent a house with busted windows. Did the tenants bust them? Or are you complaining that they should have lived happily paying rent for busted windows?

The wood chips -- It was YOUR tree, YOUR contractor didn't clean up after himself. Send a guy down there with a rake or go down there yourself -- - your tenants don't pay you rent to rake out a large chipped tree's worth of wood chips your contractor left behind. Trust me, they don't think of themselves as your free landscaping crew.

In their minds, they feel you should have known the roots were infiltrating the sewer line before they rented it out to you, and now you're hoping they clean up the rest of the mess that they should have never had to deal with, and you should never have put on them.

Just step back and look, once again. They're pissed off because you rented them a POS with a  bad water heater at the end of its service life, bad windows, electrical problems, sewer-line problems, busted sprinklers. You're sick of the situation? You think they're not sick of worrying what the next problem the POS you rented to them is going to throw at them?

I'm not one of those BPers who insist brightly that running rentals is a 100% people job. It isn't. But when you deal with unhappy tenants, you have to be able to put yourself in their shoes. You need to be as harsh on yourself as they are likely to be. Otherwise, you'll never understand their point of view.

I'm sure the analysis I've presented above is unfair to you at certain points, maybe at all points. But what I wanted with you was give you a picture of what it might look like from your tenants' point of view. The goal was not to be accurate, but to run some of your statements through a tenant filter.

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  • Evan Brookman
    Nashville · Member since 2019 · 110 posts · 23 votes
    7y

    Learned a lesson from this discussion. Spending money on hiring a inspector beforehand is worthy. 

    0Reply
  • Frank Chin
    Investor · Bayside, NY · Member since 2017 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    7y

    Interesting discussion.

    I rented SFR's for the last 30 plus years, and there are extremely handy tenants that take charge of everything. Usually these are older blue collar guys that like to work with their hands. In one case, my gutters were all crooked, thought I need it replaced, called someone to do an estimate, and when we got there, all the gutters around the house were are nice and straight. Shocked, I ask the tenant, did you do this? He said "oh yeh, the nails holding them got loose, I yanked ALL the gutters out, nailed them back with longer nails, that's all it needs, and it should be good for a while". Went into the house, noticed a 1ft by 2ft sheet rock patch on the wall, it was cut out, just patched in, sanded, and awaiting a paint job. Asked him what happened, and he said he was installing a picture, drove a nail through the wall, thought he hit a pipe. He opened the wall to check, a water pipe was dented, so he cut a section out, weld a replacement part in, and patched the wall up. How's that for a tenant doing repairs.

    I complemented him on his gutter repair. He was a union man, sheet worker's union, and for a while laid off but collecting union benefits, unemployment. Financially, he did OK, but bored, and complained to his wife. The wife told me her reply to her husband was "if you got nothing to do, go fix the gutters instead of complaining about it". That's how it happened, and they never asked for payment, or even told me about it had I not seen it.

    Contrast this to my niece, whose totally clueless. When she married to a long haul truckdriver, moved to an apartment in a duplex, where the owner thought tenants should fix everything. She was young and timid. Many of the outlets in the place is not working, with a few that are. What did she do? Run extension cord all over the place from the good outlets. After all, can't bother the landlord.

    But the funniest story was a wobbly ceiling fan in the dining room, mentioned it to the landlord, and was told "so what do you expect me to do"? Ok, they let the fan wobble for a few months till one day during dinner, the fan fell down, right on the dining table during dinner, but fortunately no one got hurt, except the dining table got damaged. So I asked her, did you tell the landlord, and are you getting anyone to replace the fan? She said "oh, I'm suppose to replace it?, right now we got 2 wires sticking out of the ceiling but don't want to bother the landlord. Hope he doesn't get mad.

    I love my niece, she's a wonderful but shy, timid and clueless girl. Renting an apartment in a duplex is totally beyond her capability as a tenant. The landlord should have selected an older blue collar type. I saw an answer above about wood chips all over, and all someone has to do is get a rake and get to work. If a similar thing happened to my niece, she never raked anything before, you have to show her a rake, and how to rake. How do I know this? My own sister was totally clueless when she was in her 20's. Back then, there were coin operated public phones, my dad gave her some change to call home in case she's late, and she didn't call. Turns out she had no idea you have to stick the coins in before you get a dial tone to call. Besides giving her the change, you have to give her a demo how to use a public phone. Explained the openings on top that says 5, 10, 25 are for nickels, dimes, quarters, you drop them in and then listen for the dial tone.

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  • Account Closed
    OP
    Los Angeles, CA · Member since 2017 · 73 posts · 56 votes
    7y

    @Frank Chin That was a great story, thanks for sharing! 

    0Reply
  • JD MartinBusiness Member
    Moderator
    Rock Star Extraordinaire · Northeast, TN · Member since 2015 · 10k+ posts · 16k+ votes
    7y

    So what ever happened with the tenants? 

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  • Account Closed
    OP
    Los Angeles, CA · Member since 2017 · 73 posts · 56 votes
    7y

    @JD Martin had a long talk with them with regards to consistently contacting me over small repairs. I also apologized to them about the fact that the house was not thoroughly inspected prior to them moving in and that I'm doing everything to handle every repair and get everything sorted out. I also told them that they are more than welcome to leave at any time if they're not satisfied with the house, repairmen, and repair work being made.

    They assured me they love the house, neighborhood, etc. I got every repair complete and sorted out shortly after this thread and it's been nearly a month and haven't heard a peep from them. House is in excellent condition at this point and they really are taking very good care of the property and they pay rent on time (even early at times). I guess it just took several months to work out all the kinks in the house which I could have avoided if I had gone through the house in more detail prior to them moving in. 

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