Social Distancing In Your Own Home

[Jesse Choe]

I have couple roommates that live with me. I understand when tenant signs a lease they have the right to have people over. In this critical time are we as live in landlords allowed to enforce a rule that roommates can't have friends come over and spend the night due to the corona virus and social distancing for your own and other roommates safety?

[Nicole Heasley Beitenman]

Originally posted by @Jonathan Greene:

If you have shelter-in-place mandates in your city, you can certainly enforce that. When you ask questions like can you enforce something as a live-in landlord, it usually means you have not maintained the hierarchy of the landlord-tenant relationship. Yes, they have a lease, but you are co-living. Often, people allow their friends or roommates to do whatever they want and then, when something like this happens, they have no power left to enforce as a landlord. Think about where you lost the hand of the house and how to get it back by focusing on the orders in place in most areas to stay home and why people should stay home.

I hacked a SFH for 3 year, so I understand the awkward line you're walking. I want to reiterate Jonathan's advice. Throw the mandate under the bus; it's not you asking them to refrain from having guests over. It's the government.

You can also re-frame the conversation by putting the onus on them. They aren't the only ones who have responsibilities under that lease--you do, too. When they signed the lease with you, they asked you to make certain promises including maintaining a safe environment. When you say to them, "Hey, YOU asked me to make a promise to you in this contract, and I need to take certain measures to keep that promise YOU asked me to make," it makes them think they're in the driver's seat.