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Updated over 4 years ago on . Most recent reply
Reset breaker - property manager question
Long time lurker on this site; first-ever post. I own a single family home that was my former primary residence prior to moving. I live out of state so I use a property manager who is local to the home. It's a long-term rental with tenants 4 months into a 24-month lease.
A couple weeks ago, my property manager notifies me that there was a storm that knocked out power in the neighborhood, and he ended up sending over an electrician because the tenants did not have power (and also no A/C) after the neighborhood grid was back up. From further discussions, it sounds like the electrician simply reset the breaker. I got the bill in this month's statement: $230. I am still waiting on the receipt for the service call.
While I wait for the receipt, I realized this doesn't feel right:
1) My expectation is that even a mediocre PM should be able to walk a tenant through basic troubleshooting to reset a breaker before getting an electrician on speed-dial. Are my expectations unrealistic?
2) $230 seems incredibly steep, even for emergency service which typically is 1.5x the hourly rate. Am I being made a fool?
Any thoughts or insights would be welcome. I want to make sure I use this opportunity to handle this particular issue with the PM and more importantly, prevent future issues of the same nature. Thanks for reading!