Please help! Rented pays on time but is becoming a thorn

[Benjamin Haberman]

Hello BP, One of my renters is becoming more and more of a total thorn. I made a huge mistake giving them my cell phone number too. Texts every night about little small issues. For instance, she texted me tonight asking to secure the crawl space entrance doors. Last Friday her water turned off while in shower. This was a legit concern and i had a new well drilled on Saturday. $4,000 later i basically told her i was tapped out with service requests. It gets to be out of hand. Just curious- do you hold any of your tenants responsible for anything in the house? To top it off, after the crawl space entrance text, she says the air conditioning isn’t working greAt. It makes me want to rip the central air out and tell her to get window units. It’s just non stop and is really starting to get to me. The house is old and it’s been a huge learning curve for me. There are definitely more issues with old houses but it’s getting to the point where i need to put my foot down and let them know i am not a 24/7 non stop service call center. She rented the house AS is, and i have had enough. Their $1,000 window blinds and $4,000 well is not enough. It’s always something. Please help, any insight would be much appreciated. Thanks!

[Kyle J.]

You might consider hiring a property management company to take over the management since it sounds like you don't enjoy it.  And, to be honest, based on what you wrote it's your responses to the tenant that sound off.

If I had a tenant call me with a minor/frivolous request (i.e. secure the crawl space door, change a light bulb, whatever), I'd just politely explain that something like that is their responsibility and I'm not going over there to do that.  After that, I wouldn't ever expect another call about something similar.

On the other hand, if I had a tenant call me with a significant/legitimate request (i.e. no water, AC is out, etc) I'd get right on it because that's part of being a landlord (plus the law likely requires it in most cases for the home to even be considered habitable). 

I certainly wouldn't tell the tenant "I was tapped out with service requests".  Suppose there was a small leak that developed in the bathroom and the tenant opted not to tell you about it because she didn't want to bother you since you were already "tapped out with service requests".  What could have been a simple $5 fix could later turn into you replacing subfloors because it was left unchecked. 

The point is, you WANT your tenants telling you about things that are wrong so you can fix them earlier rather than later.  It's always cheaper to fix something sooner rather than later.  Plus it shows your tenant that you care about your property and encourages them to do the same.