Aha! The importance of regular/annual inspections

[Jack B.]

We had some rain storms recently in the Seattle area, For the past few weeks. I almost wanted to email my tenants and ask them if there were any leaks, as the roof on my primary residence which is only 11 years old leaked.

I decided to just book an inspection since I needed to get some pics of a water heater I need to replace (with the one tenant that has not been visited recently). Sure enough, the tenant says, oh, by the way, I was going to email you today, the Chimney leaked in the garage after the recent rains (roll eyes here, I'm sure she was going to email me today). Then she asks if I need to get into the daughters rooms, so she could have them pick their clothes off the floor.

I told her I would need to get in there for sure to make sure there are no other leaks. Sigh, I almost feel like I need to stop by every few months. My last tenants at another property didn't report a washing machine water pipe leak for TWO days. They admitted as much in writing. Good thing since if there is mold when I tear the carpet out to replace it in a few years, I may pursue a claim against them since my lease requires them to report things like that ASAP otherwise they will be responsible for the charges.

I get people don't want to trouble their landlord or have their landlord coming around for stuff, but when these people don't report it, it ends up causing far more damage. My lease allows me to charge them for it, but man, I guess people who have no skin in the game are just careless.

[Kevin Harrison]

Originally posted by @Nathan Gesner:

 I bought an existing property management company in 2010. One month after purchasing the company, I started inspecting properties because the previous property manager only inspected during turnovers. One of the first properties to inspect was a house located 30 minutes away that had not been inspected since the tenants moved in 11 years earlier. The previous Manager said they always paid their rent and it should be fine. I reviewed their folder and discovered they had bounced checks at least a dozen times in that 11 year period, so I wasn't optimistic.

When I called the tenant to schedule an inspection, it took many phone calls over a two-week period before they responded. Interestingly, they told me they had just bought a home and would be moving out the next week. This immediately raised red flags but I found no point in pushing it if they were going to be out one week later. It actually took them two weeks to get out. They called and told me the keys were on the counter, that the house was clean, and it was ready for the next tenant to move in.

Click on the link below to see my YouTube video of what I found. Needless to say, I have never gone more than one year between inspections and just because a tenant pays rent does not mean they are taking care if the property!

Worst Tenants

I watched the video, to be honest its not that bad for being left unattended for 11 years with renters in it. Now that's not to say you would ever catch my house looking like that. I venture to say that the way you found it was the cleanest it had been in years and the people that left most likely honestly thought that was "clean".