Who Pays For Ant Control in SFR?

[Christine Swaidan]

Brand new tenant who has been there for less than two weeks in a SFR that was just rehabbed. House was tented for termites as part of the maintenance. He says he has ants everywhere, in every room. We have a heat wave going in SoCal so I imagine this could cause the ants to appear and I've also heard that the dead termites serve as a food source for the ants and I'm sure we have lots of dead termites. He wants to have a professional come out and spray. Is this a landlord expense typically?

[Kaycee Miller]

Since it is the first tenant after the rehab, and you are admitting that the ant problem might be because of dead termites, why not spray for ants this one time and then tell the tenant that ant maintenance will be his responsibility moving forward.