Should Landlords ever provide Internet?

[Mattie Covatch]

I have one tenant who's been here a long time, before I started not officially including internet. Now I say "I sometimes share mine with people as a courtesy, but it's not included-- if the person makes my internet go out, I stop sharing."

Should a landlord ever offer internet?

In roommate situations?

In apartment settings?

[b]Is it too much of a hassle and liability risk to even consider it?[b]

I'm in a roommate situation, and having each person buy their own seems not necessary. But, I don't enjoy whiney tenants complaining about slow internet because they're downloading/streaming too much Netflix or junk.

Do you offer internet? Why or why not?

[Jon K.]

Large apartment complexes with full-time staff, maybe.

Otherwise, I would say.... never.

Not worth it.

Issues:
- tenants not knowing how to connect their device and calling you for help
- tenants still not understanding how to connect, asking you to come do it
- tenants trying to connect some ridiculously old device that's not compatible
- tenant hogging bandwidth with streaming video or Skype or whatever
- tenant doing illegal non-sense
- tenants calling all the time whining that their internet is slow
- tenant whining that their signal isn't strong enough... on antique devices.
- tenant calling at some obscene hour saying their internet is down

With roommates, I've done/do it. I wouldn't do it again. I've had tenant roommates who hog bandwidth, then wonder why it's down or slow. I've had others who can't figure out how to connect to a wi-fi network. I've had others who try to download s***t. (I had to install a security app to block download sites. Still, tenants could try to bypass this security). I've had tenants stream Netflix and Pandora on a few devices full-stream HD at once, then whine that their internet goes down or is slow. Really, people? One even whined that if the internet kept acting up (largely because of them), they would probably have to move. Ok, good riddance. I offer dirt cheap rent in a great property.

Never again will I offer to share my internet after my current tenant / roommates move out. NEVER. They want internet, they can buy their own and deal with their internet issues on their own. It's not that we have internet issues very often, but a few times a month is more of a hassle than I want when I'm not making money on it.

If you share it, get a Wi-Fi router with Tomato or WW-DRT (whatever it's called) and limit bandwidth on each device so there's not one device hogging the network. Block torrents. Have good security. Expect tenants to whine.