Renter requested locks changed

[Felicia W.]

I do not have much experience with this kind of thing (thankfully).

My renter kicked her daughter out (just turned 18). She called and asked if I could change the locks or if she could have it done at her expense. We just changed the locks on our house 2 days before. I told her I had some and it wouldn't be a big deal.

When we got to the house, it ended up being worse - of course it did, doesn't it always? The daughter's bf tried to kick in the back door. The frame was damaged as well as the trim. So it took us more time then just changing locks.

Along with temp fixing the frame with to secure it (we will replace the damaged wood at a later point - not sure if we will wait till the crazy bf is gone or when she moves out, I really do not want to keep paying for it over and over if it becomes a repeat occurrence), we had to go back to our house and get another dead bolt to add to the back door, and more tools (1 hr round trip).

I am wondering how much do I charge for the repairs? I originally wasn't going to charge for the lock replacement because we had them and planed on using them on the rent house in the future. It ended up taking so much longer because she didn't tell us about the damage. We spent about $30 for more secure strike plates and the thing for drilling the deadbolt hole out. It ended up taking 4 hrs of our time (including travel time).

We will also have to figure out what to charge for the repairs to the door frame once we do that.

I reread the lease today. I am very thankful it is clearly stated that any damage to doors and windows will be paid for by the tenant other than damage caused by natural disasters.

Part of me thinks have it repaired by someone else and charge her this amount, this way I do not feel as if I'm overcharging my renter.

Thanks for any suggestions

[Cuong Le]

We have it in our lease that we may charge $50/trip. We have our handy man do the work and we bill the tenant for it. We had our door broken into a few weeks ago and it costs about $175 to fix the door frame, paint, caulk, door guards and add 3" screws into the frame for the deadbolt strike plate and latch plate.

We use this (StrikeMaster II Pro) on our own homes and will consider using this on future properties. It costs about $80 and it's pretty impossible to kick in.