Tenants got my property condemned - do I evict?

[Nicholas DeGaetani]

[RANT] My tentants (1 college student + 2 young working professionals) were tired of waiting for my plumber to fix a sewage smell - it took a series of months to complete root cause analysis, so they took matters into their own hands. They scheduled the health inspector to visit the property who confirmed a main vent (root cause of sewage smell) was not installed, which prevented sewage smell from venting out through the roof. I inherited this problem from the previous owner - yay.

So I get a call the property is condemned, and immediately schedule the plumber and contractor to do the work but barely miss the city of Richmond, VA department for getting my permit. Flash forward to Monday and the mania around Covid-19 resulted in the City shutting down all offices for the entire week. That means the earliest I can get a permit if they do not extend the closure is 10 days after the property was condemned (started 4/13). If I get the permit on 4/23 and the work is done in 1 day and inspected the next day, I'm looking at 11-12 total days I need to pay for them to stay in a hotel or AirBNB. That's for some tenants who do not pay on time, and a property I'm not collecting market rent for (normally rents at $2,600 but missed rental season so renting at $2,000).

What should I do? 

1. Send them a “5 day pay or quit” notice the next time they are late on rent to evict them and move on to get new tenants.

2. Go drink bourbon and wait for this to blow over.

3. Find a new plumber who finds the root cause sooner - it took 6 months too long.

4. Something else.

[Greg M.]

You need to change the subject line to: I got my property condemned - do I evict my tenants for my laziness and lack of professionalism?

If the health inspector figured out the issue on their first trip, a competent plumber should have also figured it out. This one needs to be fired.

I don't believe it took "a series of months to complete root cause analysis". Were there plumbers there daily trying to figure it out? Or did the plumber stop by and try something and then come back a few weeks later and try another thing? All the while sewer smell flooded their unit. Lack of urgency caused this to take months to get resolved, not complexity of the problem. 

You're throwing this off on everybody else. What you should do is stand up and be a responsible landlord and say "I ****ed up and need to find the best way to get this resolved" and not say "woe is me". 

Find a new plumber today. Fix the problem ASAP. Pull the permit after the fact. Apologize to the tenants for taking so long. Enforce the lease after this and require rent on time or tell them you will begin charging the late fee. Raise rent to market on renewal.