Tenants let dogs go bathroom on deck- advice.
I feel I should preface this by saying that the tenants were ones I inherited for only two months.
The first time I went to a showing on the property I noticed that there were appox. 10-15 piles of dogs poop on the 2nd floor deck. We are talking a standard deck off the back of an up-down duplex. When we took over possession of the property we immediately sent a warning to the tenants that they need to remove the dogs poop. The next couple times I went over to the unit there was no poop on the deck.
Fast forward a month and the tenants moved out. My wife and I went over to meet them and they had just left keys and opted out of the walk through on the property. They left the property in very good shape which I was obviously happy about. When we went out on the deck, we were hit with a wall of waste smell. Mainly the smell of pee/ammonia but also residual poop smell. It was so bad that it was actually a little gross to stand on the deck.
The move out was only a couple days ago and I still have their deposit. I am not quite sure what/if any action I should take as far as their deposit goes. I have to have the deck treated/cleaned in some fashion. I just can't possibly move new tenants in to that unit with the deck smelling that way.
I was wondering if anyone else had come across this and what they did? How they got rid of the smell? Am I in the right to charge them to have this cleaned?
Thanks in advance!!