Tenant not informing of issues til emergency/not following lease

[Kimberly H.]

How would you handle tenant not informing of major issues including sewer back-up/and not following lease provisions that caused it in the first place?

Have 3 adults zero kids living in a rental 3 bed single family home (mother and two 30-ish sons). Mother had been homeowner for years until husband passed away about ten years ago and she lost the home to foreclosure. Lived in apartment before our rental.They are on their second lease year. Never issues with on-time rent payment but issues with them not informing us of problems and not following lease provisions that we remind them of verbally.

During lease signing I spend an hour on tenant training, including, “If you see a drip of water out of place, let us know immediately” which is also verbatim in the lease; if you have a problem with something in the home, let us know, that we want to fix problems with the home.

They haven’t been doing this; each time we tell them that they need to make us aware of the problem immediately, not months after the fact. For example, found out when I was there in March for 6 month inspection that when they plugged in Christmas lights to an exterior outlet the previous November that they blew up, there was smoke, they were worried the house was going to burn down, and told me that outlet doesn’t work. Never contacted us. Upon testing the 2-year old outlet I found the GFCI was tripped and not reset, once reset it tested fine so we assume there must have been a short in the Christmas lights. City rental inspector tested in last summer (they test all outlets) and it tested fine at that time as well. Told them they need to tell us when something happens at the time its happening.

Sunday night at 6:15pm get a text that a sewer drain on the lower level of the raised ranch is backing up. There hasn’t been any rain in a while so we know it must be something clogging the sewer line.We tell them to not flush any toilets or use any water and my husband goes over there immediately while I try to find a plumber who can get there that night. My husband can tell this is not the first time this has occurred, and finds out from talking to them that this has been happening since April (my last 6 mo inspection was March), that they have found water on the bathroom floor since its seeping under the wall where the drain is; but it’s never gotten this bad before. Husband does some cleanup, then it backs up again because one of them flushed a toilet while he was there, which they at first lie about.

Incidentally, in July they had complained about the spigots spraying water while in use and I had a plumber over to replace the spigots within days; no mention at that time anything about this sewer backup problem. They bring that up and are like, “OH, you know, I guess we should have mentioned this to you when you had the plumber out here before.”

Plumber finds disposable wipes on the rodding equipment and puts that on his report. They find baby wipe packets on the toilets of both bathrooms, the packaging doesn’t even try to indicate that they are flushable. Also find Lysol disinfectant wipe packets. Our lease does say,” If a plumber is hired to unclog a drain and an above listed cause was determined it shall be the Tenant’s responsibility to reimburse the Landlord for the plumbing bill immediately.” And of course we list wipes as one of the things to not go down the drain.

This was a Sunday night and very difficult to find a plumber that could come out let alone answer the phone. We had to pay the plumber $800 which included a $180 emergency fee and double-time to two plumbers. Just two months ago we had another sewer line issue at another SFH in the neighborhood, since we were notified immediately before the back-up was out of control, we only paid that plumber $269.

When asked why they didn’t tell us sooner, they said they were afraid of getting in trouble. Now, the only "trouble" they've ever been in is us telling them they need to tell us of problems right when they happen. My husband asks in there is anything else that is causing a problem; they say they are using Allergy furnace filters that I specifically told them not to use since every HVAC guy says not to. We again tell them they cannot use them; he complains about allergies and says these filters help. Now, they have two small dogs that shed a lot of fur and they chose to live in a house where 90% of it is carpeted.

How would you handle them going forward, besides going over there more often than 6 months? I'm thinking since they have made it clear they cannot follow direction that I probably need to go over there monthly to every 3 months. What would you charge them for this plumbing situation?