General Landlording & Rental Properties
Market News & Data
General Info
Real Estate Strategies
Landlording & Rental Properties
Real Estate Professionals
Financial, Tax, & Legal
Real Estate Classifieds
Reviews & Feedback
Updated almost 6 years ago,
How to deal with feuding tenants?
One of the most stressful things for me as a landlord is dealing with feuding tenants. In my 5-unit bldg. I have had my share of tenants bypassing my property manager and contacting me directly to resolve complaints about their fellow next door, downstairs, or upstairs neighbor. I've had tenants that were great neighbors until their dogs got into fights, turning them into sworn enemies.
I find that sometimes the most simplest of things can create significant tension like tenants that work different shifts disturbing one another while trying to rest. For instance, I had a young man that worked nights so when the other tenants would get ready for work during morning hours it would disturb him and when he came out during late hours and turned his TV on or listened to music it would wake the bldg. up.
Things like children running or playing, parking a car too close to a neighbor's entrance, having too many guests or certain kind of guests all can create drama between neighbors. I thought having a property manager would take care of that but I was dead wrong. I found that if my property manager/s didn't appear to take the tenant's complaint serious enough or was impartial to their complaints, they would reach out to me to step in and resolve and taking sides is something that I never want to do because both parties are my customers.
Unless a tenant is breaking the law or violating their lease where I can issue a warning or push for an eviction to solve I found the most effective way was to ask the neighbor with the complaint to try to have a direct and transparent conversation with the other tenant to come to a resolution and this method only works about 50% of the time so I would love to hear from other fellow landlords if they have any solutions or advice to offer.
Thanks