yikes
Registered: 02/17/09
Posts: 274
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Reply with quote | #1 |
Ugh, man. I cannot get my tenants to stay through their lease term.
Well, I have an up and down duplex. It is over 100 years old. Both units have hardwood flooring throughout. We got new tenants in the lower unit a few mos ago. They specifically asked me if you can hear footsteps from the unit above, and I said, 'yes, unfortunately you can, the unit above has hardwood floors and you can hear footsteps'. They took the place anyway.
Now I get an email from the lower tenants informing me that they 'hate' the upper level tenants on a personal level, the upper level tenants walk around their apt in shoes, it is very noisy, they asked them to please remove their shoes when walking in the apt, and to be spiteful, the upper unit tenants just do it 'more' now. Because of this, they are leaving and they want to start the process today.
We have asked the upper unit tenants to try and minimize the noise once already. While I can understand shoes being noisy on hardwood floors, I cannot ask someone to stop walking in their unit or to not wear shoes in their unit ever.
What am I supposed to do?
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OHlandlord
Registered: 01/20/07
Posts: 1,836
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Reply with quote | #2 |
You let the downstairs tenants know that this is not a recognized reason to legally end a lease. That they knew, or should have known, before they signed that they would hear some noise from the other tenants. That is a disadvantage of living in an apartment anywhere.
Remind them that they have a legal contract that they intend to break and that there are consequences. Let them know they are still responsible for the rent until it re-rents, advertising costs, agent fees if you use on the find a new tenant, etc. Let them know that you will pursue them for these costs. If they fail to pay, you will place a judgment against them in court and that will ruin their credit. They cannot simply terminate a lease based on normal everyday noise.
When the upstairs unit comes empty, place thick room sized rugs with padding on the floors upstairs. That will lessen the noise. Encourage the current tenants to use area rugs.
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Sam
Registered: 05/29/08
Posts: 220
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Reply with quote | #3 |
Yes, we just tore out carpet to be replaced and can't believe the squeaks! Carpet and good padding make all the difference.
That is one reason I chose to go with single family houses -- personality conficts between tenants. Of course, multi-family probably make better profit though, don't they.
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MOON
Registered: 09/16/08
Posts: 277
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Reply with quote | #4 |
MAYBE THEY WOULD BE INTERESTED IN RELOCATING TO ONE OF YOUR OTHER PLACES ? I WOULD ONLY CONSIDER DOING THAT DUE TO THE TIME OF YEAR. |
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yikes
Registered: 02/17/09
Posts: 274
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Reply with quote | #5 |
the problem seems to be that the lower tenant is super unreasonable. instead of contacting us, he blew up at one of the upper level tenants and freaked them out. not cool. moreover, we just get this email out of the blue that says 'we're leaving, we're already looking at other places' before even contacting us to let us know that a problem exists.
we are going to allow them to sublet. they pay on time and have good credit, etc, but are too high maintenance and complain about stuff that is really minor all of the time. and the guy seems to have a temper issue. of course, we have to approve of the subletters, they are still on the hook to pay rents if the subletters don't pay, and they have to do all of the work of finding someone else asap.
it just really ticks me off that i go above and beyond to maintain my properties. i respond immediately to any repair requests or concerns. and i get tenants like this all of the time. just in this property, which only has 2 units in it, I've had 5 tenants in a year and a half (all had 1 year leases). And people always decide to take off in wintertime and with no notice. I repainted their unit to their specifications, I hire out for yard work, for snow removal, I updated some things. Just tired of working so hard and no one is ever happy enough. Thankless job.
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OHlandlord
Registered: 01/20/07
Posts: 1,836
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Reply with quote | #6 |
Quote: I repainted their unit to their specifications, I hire out for yard work, for snow removal, I updated some things. Just tired of working so hard and no one is ever happy enough.
My advice? Quit working so hard. Don't paint to anyone's specifications but your own. In single family houses, make tenants responsible for yard work and snow removal. Get a good yard addendum and hold them to it. Don't remove snow if the laws don't require you to do so. (OH doesn't - I never touch snow except at my own residence.) Don't go above and beyond. Do what needs done and ignore the rest unless there are excellent tenants in there. Other tenants don't care or appreciate it.
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yikes
Registered: 02/17/09
Posts: 274
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Reply with quote | #7 |
Here in MN if the tenants don't shovel and put down salt to keep walkways from icing, and someone slips and falls - it's on the landlord. :-( that's why I hire for snow removal. I don't trust the tenants to do it themselves and don't want to be liable for injuries.
The yardwork - same thing. I don't trust the tenants to keep up the front yard and the neighbors are all single fam houses and they will complain if the places looks ragged. I do make the tenants responsible for picking up after their pets and they can't even do that.
As for everything else - yeah. I give up! I know what is going on here - these tenants are looking for a house. They wanted to lease from us for a certain amount of time, then go month to month after that until they found a house. i'm pretty sure they are already looking and found something they want, so are just making up complaints to get out of the lease. Which I'm not going to allow them to do. The tenant admitted today that they started looking at other places to live weeks ago. i just heard about all of this on Saturday.
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