Penalties for dog poop?

[Carol Venolia]

Hi all,

I have a three-unit property where I allow approved pets. Tenants in two of the units have dogs. There are no private yards on this property. 

My Pet Agreement says, "Tenant agrees to clean up after the pet and to dispose of pet’s waste properly and quickly. This means pet waste shall be picked up while fresh and that no pet waste shall remain on the ground at any time on any part of the property."

Nevertheless, there's pet waste on the ground. (The tenants seem to think that it's okay to keep the poop close to their dwelling; I've told them otherwise.) People step in it. Yuck.

Yes, I could just kick these tenants out, but that's its own kind of pain. I'm thinking of revising the Pet Agreement to add a penalty for leaving pet waste on the ground. Have you ever done something like this? If so, what language did you use (and how do you enforce it)?

Thank you!

[Kyle J.]

You could issue a 3-Day Perform or Quit notice since the tenant is violating the terms of your lease by not picking up the pet waste.  Maybe they'll take that seriously.  The problem would be if they still don't comply and pick up the pet waste, it sounds like you don't really want to evict them.

If you decide to revise your Pet Agreement, one way to address it would be to treat the picking up of the pet waste similar to how yard maintenance in handled (or at least the way I do it).  For example, my lease (standard CAR residential lease) has a clause that states that the "Tenant shall maintain the garden, landscaping, trees, and shrubs" (there's also a blank area below it that states "Tenant shall maintain_____________" where you could easily add in a part about picking up after their pet).  

It then goes on to state that "Tenant's failure to maintain any item for which Tenant is responsible shall give Landlord the right to hire someone to perform such maintenance and charge Tenant to cover the cost of such maintenance."  That means if they don't maintain the yard, you could hire a landscaper to do it and they'd be responsible for the cost.  Along that same line, if they didn't pick up the pet waste you could hire someone to do it and bill them for the cost of doing so.  (There's people/companies that advertise on Craigslist that will come out and pickup pet waste.)