Landlord locked Irrigation timer

[Mark Wilson]

Greeting all. New to the forum here. Looking for some advice here. I recently moved into a rental house. After move in, I discovered that the landlord has padlocked the irrigation timer for the sprinkler system.

Now I have owned rental property, so I can empathize with the motivation here; but the utilities are in my name and I am bound by contract to maintain the lawn. Landlord has security deposit equal to two months rent.

I recently had a $600 water bill and discovered a broken sprinkler pipe as the culprit. The sprinklers turn on at 3am, so this was not discovered in a timely manner.

I plan to discuss with the landlord and propose that either the padlock be removed so I can test and maintain the sprinkler system, or in the alternative - the landlord move the service into his name and tack on a reasonable surcharge to my rent. The house has two meters, one for residential water and one for irrigation; so I don't see any problem moving the irrigation meter into landlords name.

Before having this conversation with the landlord, I wanted to solicit some feedback from the forum. Has anyone dealt with a similar situation? Am I being reasonable here?

Thanks in advance.