Pest control liability, judgments and eviction

[James Conaway]

I have a tenant who brought bed bugs into their unit. I paid to have it remediated to prevent it spreading to other units. The lease agreement states tenant is responsible for pest control. The pest control cost was divided up over multiple months for the tenant. The tenant is refusing to pay for the cost associated with the pest control. My property management company's approach is the only way to force a tenant to pay for the costs is to refuse to accept their rent payments, if they do not include the pest control payment as well and take them to court.

The tenant is refusing to pay it, so my property management company is refusing their rent payments and is filing for a judgement.

This situation is heading towards a judgement and eviction. Which I am not optimistic about getting the rent payments or pest control costs back after a judgement. I am also concerned about how long this could drag out with multiple months of payments missed.

This strategy seems to be a losing proposition for me the owner. Part of me feels that a fast nickle is better than a slow dime. Take what I can get in income and just eat the rest, but I am getting tired of tenants causing problems ($$$) and then I have to pay to fix them.

How do you approach these situations? 

[John Warren]

@James Conaway I have dealt with bed bugs several times in my properties here in the Berwyn area. My pest control guy has always told me that there is no way to pin bed bugs on any one tenant in most cases, and that most of the time the tenants aren't maliciously bringing them in. It could be as simple as sitting on the wrong seat on the bus. In my case, I have chosen to simply remediate the bed bugs and do my best to keep tenants happy. The situation you are describing with the PM is creating a lose/lose situation for you. Your tenant is mad at you, your PM is refusing payments which makes no sense, and you are chasing the cost to remediate which (in the grand scheme of things) isn't the end of the world. If the tenant wants to pay, then get the money. Also, it might make sense to hear the tenant's side of the story here.