Maintenance - is prior tenant pet presence/cleaning included?

[Rick F.]

Hello all,

We recently purchased and rented out a town-home, and discovered that after the tenant had moved in, signed lease - that although we had cleaned the place (basic carpet, windows, walls, counters etc.) we didn't know the prior owner had pets (apparently).  The new tenant found pet hair (dog), and their child was allergic - so they requested we replace the carpet (or deep clean). 

Since we didn't explicitly call out our definition of "clean" in our lease, and we didn't know the full prior history, to retain our tenant, we agreed to address the issue.

So I wanted to ask here, how do you define a clean unit - like are things like window hangings, area behind appliances included?  Also on the pet thing, even if we do not explicitly sign-off on tenants having pets, sometimes visitors (even tenants) can bring animals in without us knowing 100% there haven't been any.

Thanks for your advice,

-Rick.