Tenant is picky about minor issues

[Mike Gordon]

In one of my rentals I have a tenant who's often picky about minor issues. The tenant is mostly a good tenant and I make an effort to fix major issues quickly. However the tenant will often bring up minor issues or issues beyond my control, almost one a month.

Here's an example. The master bathroom shower handle broke and the shower was unusable for a short period of time due to my normal plumber being unable to fix it. I found a plumber who fixed it. About a month later, the tenant complained that there's a slow drip from the shower every 3 seconds and his wife was having trouble sleeping because of it.

A fix to a shower can end up being a major repair, especially if the wall needs to be ripped open to replace the valve. I'd rather not touch it because it's working perfectly well otherwise.

There have been other issues which I've sometimes fixed. As a landlord, where is your "line" between essential maintenance and the tenant being unreasonable?

[Gregory Schwartz]

The difference between good and great property management in my market is the ability to quickly and effectively fix maintenance issues, to include the PIA faucet drips. 

Are these super annoying? Of course they are and the costs add up quickly. However we have seen that the payoff is lower vacancy and retention of great tenants. I get very little push back when I send out rent increase notices because my tenants know that the service I provide is superior to 90% of the competition. 

To save money send a trusted handyman out to check out the issue before calling a plumber. My plumber cost $75 just to show up, before the real work even starts. My handyman will stop by a house for me and if its a 10 min fix I'm usually paying less than half the cost of a plumber. 70% of the time the a good handyman can take care of the issue.