Complaints from tenants are unavoidable. Whether you have been a landlord for a decade or for only a year, complaints from tenants are bound to arise. No matter how excellent the rental property is, tenants can still run into maintenance problems or other complaints that become your responsibility to deal with.
As a landlord, it is your responsibility to listen to your tenants. The quicker and more effective your problem solving skills are, the higher your chances of retaining the tenant. Make sure to respond to your tenants needs as a top priority. However, it is important to understand the difference between a maintenance problem and a maintenance emergency.
We at SCUDO Real Estate have studied the nature of complaints from tenants as well as the possible solutions to them. In this article we will go through how to handle some of the basic tenant complaints.
Maintenance
A tenant cannot solve their problems relating to maintenance on their own. As their landlord, they need your assistance. Firstly, you don’t want them hurting themselves, secondly you don’t want them causing further damage to the property.
As a landlord, you need to visit the rental property to address the issue yourself. Make arrangements with the tenant on a suitable day to get into the rental unit. Once you have accessed the unit and the problem, you need to inform the tenant on what needs to be done to fix it.
Provide the tenant with a projected date as to when the maintenance will be finished. This helps maintain a strong landlord tenant relationship.
Apart from that, your response to their query should not take so long. Lengthy response times discourage your tenants and lead to frustrations thereby encouraging them to move out.
Noisy Neighbors
There is no specific way of reading the tendencies of your tenants at first glance. The problem arises when the noisiness of one tenant disturbs the peace of those that prefer quiet.
The easiest way of solving this is usually asking the tenants to find a solution peacefully among themselves. If they are not able to come to an amicable agreement, you should then intervene in the situation.
If you do not want to engage in long legal proceedings, you may opt for tenant eviction as a last resort if the tenants cannot live peacefully together.
Pest Infestations
You want to avoid pest complaints at all costs. Tenants are highly likely to move out at the first strike of a pest-infested unit. This could be bed bugs, cockroaches, or rodents.
To avoid such embarrassing situations you need to find the most competent and reliable pest exterminators within the neighborhood. At the first call from your tenant concerning the pest infestation, you should call the exterminators immediately.
If you do not have contact with one of the exterminator’s agencies, you need to find one as soon as possible. Being proactive will save you a great deal.
As a preventive measure, you could hire a service that will help keep in check the rental unit thus avoiding the hectic situation of exterminating. Partnering with a property management company allows you to have all of their resources at your fingertips. This includes pest management companies.
Pet Problems
There are some instances where a pet can cause disturbances to your tenants.
For instance, some dogs bark a lot which some people may find extremely irritating. Other dogs have oddly aggressive behaviors which might cause harm to other tenants. During walks with their owners, the dogs might leave a mess on the path or within the rental property.
Before leasing to pet owners, make sure to discuss their behaviors with the owner. By knowing the animals you are letting into your rental property, you limit the risk of aggressive or poorly behaved animals causing problems. Make sure to add the pet owner’s responsibilities to the lease.
If, by chance, the owner is dishonest about their pet prior to moving in, you must ask them to make some changes. If they are not ready to change, you should issue written warnings to them. Pet owners must find a way to train their pets to be calm or behave well around other tenants.
If none of these are taken into consideration, the pet should be removed from the rental property or face eviction. Apart from that, you could also contact the city by law.
Conclusion
As a landlord, your primary concern is your tenant. Their interests come first. You need to respond to their issues as quickly as possible. Listen to their problems and understand their complaints. Tenants would love to have landlords who listen to them. Landlords who do this are highly likely to retain their tenants than those that are stoic to their tenants’ issues.
Once you have listened to the problems from your tenants, whether it is issues relating to maintenance, neighbors that are extremely noisy, pest related problems, or pet problems, be quick to respond to these issues. Communicate with the tenants and inform them on how the issues will be resolved and how long it will take.
At SCUDO Real Estate, we have the experience and expertise that you need. Feel free to contact us today.
