Renters damaged hardwood floors: What to do?

[Aaron M.]

I have an SFR rental (in California) that is sustaining damage from the current renters and I am interested in feedback as to how to proceed with one of the issues.

The house had beautiful maple hardwood floors when it was leased to the renters that currently occupy the house. The renters have a 60 pound dog that has done wonderful job of laying deep scratches all over the flooring. The floors had minimal scratches prior to these renters moving in. I've been told hardwood floors can be sanded and stained twice or so during their lifetimes. The damage from to scratches to the floors is extensive and I can prove the scratches weren't there before as I took meticulous pictures prior to renting out the house to these renters.

My options:

1. Not charge the renters at all and chalk it up to this is what happens when you rent out a house with real hardwood floors to renters with a dog

2. Charge the renters to have the floors sanded and use up one of the two times the floors can be sanded (knowing there is not too much I can do to prevent this from happening the next time I have renters - even if they don't have dogs)

3. Charge to have the floors sanded and instead use the money to replace the wood with tile (is this even legal in CA or anywhere else?)

4. ????

[Max T.]

I actually prefer hardwoods for rentals because they can be sanded and refinished. I've sanded and refinished floors several times, and these are 100+ year old floors. Whomever told you that you can only do it once or twice was probably referring to an engineered hardwood product (they have a thin layer of real wood over a thicker layer of particle board).

If the floors are real hardwood all the way through then you can sand and refinish them many many times.

If you're good about it, you can usually get away with a light screen/buff and re-coat instead of a full deep sanding. In the case that you describe you will probably need to sand all the way down to the wood.