1st February 2009

An Interesting Note On Rental Inspections

posted in Care and Feeding of Tenants |

So here’s just a quick and interesting note on the inspections I did the other day. I sent out a letter to all my tenants a week in advance notifying them of the inspection. The day they got the letter, a few of them called to inquire why I wanted to inspect. It seems they thought I was “targeting them” personally with an inspection and they wanted to know why.

I let them know that all my tenants got the same letter. (Note to self: don’t personalize inspection letters so well using Openoffice mail merge) Also that these inspections are to become a semi-regular occurrence and that I’m not looking for messy bedrooms or dishes in the kitchen sink but holes in the walls and filthy A/C filters.

The interesting thing was that most of the tenants were home on a Thursday at 1:00pm. Work much people? And they were all chatty with me. Not in a bullshitting-kiss-up kind of way but in a genuine kind of way. One tenant, I even spoke with for 45 minutes. She had just taken a trip and she was telling me about it.

In the end, I found a few maintenance items that needed to be taken care of and I think the tenants were happy about that. They also saw that it was just a quick once-over inspection and I was not about invading their privacy.

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  1. 1 On February 2nd, 2009, Bill said:

    I’ve talked to some other landlords who have had the same issue and they schedule the visit to change batteries in the smoke detectors and any furnace filters in the properties.

    If the tenant feels you are doing this to make their home safer and a better place to live they will be quite happy. On the other hand if they vehemently don’t want you in there, the sooner you get in the better!

    Also some landlords include their inspection dates right in their leases now and point this out to potential tenants. Depending on where you live this may or may not be legal, but in our area it works. This really makes someone considering a grow op or meth lab reconsider your property as they do not want to be interrupted a couple times a year.

    Regards,

    Bill

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