Wear and Tear, etc.

[Tamara R.]

I had some tenants just move out who had lived in our rental for 4 years….and during that time period they “really wore the sh#t out of the place” (to quote my husband). They were not mailicious, but by the looks of things just too lazy to be bothered to take care of things. Everything was brand new when they moved in, and now the place really looks worn out. Here are a few examples:
-granite counter completely chipped around the sink.

-Every single cabinet (bathroom, kitchen) is banged/scraped around the edges and the insides are discolored or deteriorating because they obviously put wet things in them.

-Lots of holes in every single wall from hanging things on the wall and the husband stringing cable to every single bedroom.
-Paint spilled on the carpets in every bedroom and slopped on the walls and baseboards because they decided to paint without our permission (really garish colors of course!).
-Every single carpet had stains all over it (most came out with professional carpet cleaning except the paint and bleach stains).
-Although they hired our cleaner to come for a few hours and then the whole family spent about 5 hours cleaning (along with us) one night, the place still required several more hours of cleaning afterwards.
…and the list goes on and on.
My question is about wear and tear. Is it reasonable to expect tenants to take care of things (ie. not putting wet dishes and other things away in the cabinets..not banging the edges of cabinets when they put things away…not dripping water on outsides of cabinets leaving it… and things of that nature)? Or is that just normal wear and tear? If it isn’t “wear and tear” how do you fix these things (short of replacing everthing) in order to return it back to the condition it was? Going forward, I plan to put linoleum in the bottoms of all cabinets and contact paper on all shelves/medicine cabinets. If it matters, these are not low income tenants..household income about six figures. Together, my husband and I have probable spent 70 hours of our time working on this place, not to mention the contractors we hired to take care of the bathrooms for several thousand dollars.
We own another property 2 doors down that we bought at the exact same time and have never had issues (other than a couple of holes in wall here and there). In the same time period that our above mentioned tenants lived in their home, we had four sets of tenants move in and out of that one with barely any work on our end!

[Lisa Doud]

When compiling a security deposit disposition you need to remember that the tenants have a right to live in the property, they do not have a right to destroy it.  Before you move a tenant in, you need to make sure that your give them a list of charges that you are going to charge in the event that do not clean up the property, or there are repairs that are necessary.  I personally have a condition addendum that clearly states exactly the charges of what everything is going to cost to fix if they don't do it,  also at the bottom it clearly states that we have the right to charge an actual repair invoice for any services performed to return the property back to the condition that it was when it was rented.  Also did the tenants complete a move in-out inspection form?  The only reason why I ask is you have to take them to court, you can show that the tenants acknowledge that it was in perfect condition when they moved in.  

Cabinets should not be discolored at all,  I can see minor nicks and scratches, but there should be nothing that you can't take a touch up marker and fill in to make it darker.  As for the inside of the cabinets, if they were clean when they moved in with no stains or damage, then clean when the move out stains are damage and not normal wear and tear.  Cleaning is always a hard subject because tenants usually don't have the same concept of cleaning as you do, so you are you are always going to have tenants that think the property was clean when in actually.  As for the Carpets you should have a very good carpet cleaning services on speed dial,  and just know that you always have to clean it be fore you can judge how bad the carpet is.  If the bleach stain is bad in one room, you might want consider either replacing the carpet in the room, or install some laminate flooring in that room, but the cheapest way to get ride of the stain is to have the carpet dyed a little darker than what it is right now, or at least that one room.  

Also I have started doing annual inspections of a property, prior to the renewal of the lease... This way if they are not taking care of the property you can give the notice without to vacate, hopefully their security deposit will be enough to take care of the damages if they have only been there 1 year.