After giving tenant a discount, received nasty text

[Rebekah Meyer]

Hello, 

I’m a new landlord, experienced flipper. On our first rental everything was remodeled. We basically rebuilt the entire house. But first of May the tenant reaches out to me and tells me the AC failed to come on. The HVAC company was booked out 3 weeks but the tenant said that was ok. The issue is much larger than we thought and we have to install an entire new condenser. Since my husband has hvac experience, he decides to take time off work and do the install himself. 

4 days before the install we get a text on a 76 degree day that his infant son went to the ER because he overheated due to having no AC. I thought that was ludicrous but I still offered them window AC units we just removed from a flip. But sadly those didn’t work. So I felt bad by this point and offered them a $250 one time discount. The guy thanked me and took the discount.  

My husband installs the new condenser and it runs fine but in a day it froze. My husband realizes he missed something and gets the refrigerant he needs and let’s him know he will be back this Saturday to make the last repair. This is 5 days after the install. In the meantime it run them down a brand new window AC. 

Right after I deliver the AC to the guy, I get this nasty text from his wife (who lives there and is on the lease but I’ve never met in person or had any prior communication with.)

“This is the wife of xxx address ave.

I’m grateful that y’all even thought about giving us a reduced rent but $250, do you not realize what we’ve been through this last month.
These problems have led my 7 month old baby in the hospital sick and now he has a heat rash all over his body. I get stuff happens but I think y’all forgot that actual people are living here and having to live in this. I’m really upset about the whole situation and y’all acting like it’s not a big deal. I get y’all have lives but this is our life and we’re having to live in our HOME while it is 85 degrees inside and outside.
During this time, our energy bill has increased triple to normal, not to mention the additional costs of our son at the hospital. And we’ve been without and it’s still not repaired an ac unit. Though you may feel 250 is enough, we think a months rent off would make better since.
I’m sure if the roles were reversed, y’all would understand.”

What did I miss in all of this? I feel like I bent over backwards for the tenants as soon as I learned they considered not having AC to be an emergency (to them). Is that the issue? I gave an inch so they want to take a mile?  What are the thoughts of the experienced landlords?  They now have a working window ac unit and in a day my husband will be back to fix the thing he missed when installing the condenser. 

[Nathan Gesner]

Quote from @Rebekah Meyer:

This doesn't look like a "nasty" text or a professional scammer. It's been a month and you haven't fixed the A/C unit. I know they said they would be Ok with the delay, but a month is an awfully long time to install a condenser. 

This is a brand-new condenser. It should have been covered by a warranty and you should have let the professionals handle it. I would have told them to either put you higher on the list or compensate you for having another company do the work. Surely there are HVAC specialists available within one week in Chicago?

I normally don't agree with compensating them, but in this case I probably would consider something. The new unit failed, you gave them broken window units, the second unit failed...they are rightly upset. I doubt their baby's heat rash was caused by temperatures in the 80s because the majority of the world population puts up with hotter temperatures their entire life. Still, I would try to find a way to compensate them for the higher electric bills and the delays.