Our house in Tucson, which we rented for 2 years before we desperately needed the cash to buy a house in San Jose, is under contract. The “buyers” are doing their due diligence and part of that is a home inspection.
We got the results of the inspection. Holy fucking shit Batman, our tenants over the last two years treated the house like shit.
Numerous little things, nothing that is earth shaking, but beyond normal wear and tear, I am appalled at the stuff they didn’t do.
The filter for the furnace/AC was absolutely blocked. It was a rinsable one, you just remove it, hose it out, and let it dry before returning it to the heater. I suspect that they never drained the sediment out of the water heater (something that I did twice a year).
One of the items on the report is that they put the door on the gas hatch of the water heater on wrong, so there is motherfucking scorch marks on the outside of the water heater above the flame lighting hatch. You have to be a retard to not put that door on right.
They burned wood in our gas fireplace.
I guess this is to be expected, but it is sad to have taken such good care of that house for 10 years, just to have two sets of renters trash it.
When we moved into the apartment that we are renting now, I thought to myself that it is a shame that they hadn’t modernized or updated. It has crappy Hotpoint appliances, the counter tops are formica, that are “painted”. The fixtures are ancient, serviceable, but not elegant. I would be much more satisfied with living here with just a few tasteful updates.
Now that I have rented property, I understand. Tenants will treat it like shit, they will break things that boggle the mind, and you are better off just doing the minimum to keep it functional.
A shout out to our lousy property management company, who shall remain nameless. They did nothing to prevent or curtail abusive behavior from the tenants. They were really quick to spend our money on repairs with their favorite contractors. But looking at how they ultimately left the property, I am nonplussed.
I an not cut out to be a landlord.
In defense of your tenants. Did you give them any guidelines? This could’ve been the first time they rented a house. Just saying…
When I rent out my room which has its own entrance and bathroom and hope they don’t come into the kitchen too much…I give them a policy that outlines what I did to make the space as special as it is and say when they leave — they have to clean it, free of insects, in working order, blah blah if they want their security back in whole or part. I also ask them to let me know if anything is broken along the way — it will be fixed. Toilet runs, etc.
After each tenant, I add something to the policy.
That way there are some expectations. Some have a better handle on it then others. Your post just reminded me to go change my air filter. đŸ™‚
Karyn,
Those are good points, and if we still lived in Tucson and were keeping the property, we would act on them.
I had assumed that the property management company would be a bit more on top of the tenants, and would ride herd on them, but alas, for their 10% and as much as they could get their “pet” contractors to do for less than the $500 threshold (where we would have to approve the expense) they didn’t do much.
Living in an apartment here, and seeing what the departing tenants leave behind (we call the 1st of the month “white trash moving days”) has taught me that tenants are hard on rental property, and you can expect them to pretty much trash the place.
It does hurt to see a property that you lived in for 10 years, and put a lot of love and attention into be treated like crap. Ah well. Time to walk away and move on.