NJ landlord - PIA tenants

[Jenn Doll]

I would like to hear from other landlords on how they have handled PIA tenants.

The tenants moved in only 2 weeks after the lease began as they had time left in their old place. They came down to tour the house before they leased and looked carefully at everything, then came again to give the 1st month's rent. We visited the house multiple times before it was leased to ensure everything was in working condition,  got the house professionally cleaned. All fine so far.

As soon as they move, they start complaining from day 1. They report something on a daily basis. 1st day was the MBR faucet leaking which didn't happen any of the times before so we were surprised but had it fixed for them. Then next day they reported a leak in the garage, their story was that they noticed it the day they moved. We send our plumber; turned out the numbskull cable guy who they had called drilled through the water pipe in the laundry room & installed the cable box between the washer & dryer. We suspect they realized what caused it, so just spun a story that the leak was already there. We made them pay for it & get it reimbursed from Verizon.

then they complain about gunk in the dishwasher. We used the same machine when we lived there (moved only few months before), never had any issues. We would just use the dishwasher cleaner & run a cycle and it was good. Have wiped off as much as we can, it doesn't look like new but its not in unhygienic state.

Then they complain about washer, dryer. They claim even after running multiple rinse cycle, the water is running brown. This could be due to the cable guy mishap but they spun another story as they don't want to be responsible for it saying in the 5 weeks they had the property they never used the machine which is a tall tale as they are family of 5 with 3 kids under 6, one being a baby. They also complained about seeing mouse droppings. All this in week 1.

They asked about bringing their own machines just few days before moving, we refused as we worry our machines will become unusable if they are idle. We could have considered if they asked before the lease and increased the rent. They still brought the machines with them. The plumber guy told us they asked him to install the machines. We suspected this is why they complained about the machines so they cud use their own. We told them to call the plumber to check out the washer but had to be at their cost as the machines were working fine before. We have a $200 repair deductible clause in the lease and no new equipment without our approval clause.

they found mouse droppings and some opening in the garage which they thought cud be the mouse entry point so we promptly filled it with steel wools and gave them mouse traps. They sent us 2 mice pics that got trapped. Then they demanded that we should find all the mouse and clear them. We understand mouse is annoying and scary but we have also experienced it and the best we cud do was to set the traps, so we suggested they do that. Also sent extra traps. At this point they went ballistic and started accusing us of giving the home in awful condition.

Its a beautiful and well maintained house with lots of new upgrades, professionally cleaned. We had about 50 applications in 5 days when we listed. So we found the accusations very offensive. They appear to be super neat freaks and expect new like appliances. They don't like to see spiders or crickets but the house has a lawn and trees and there were spiders even the day toured and joked they had to get used to it if they plan to move.

Our argument is they had a chance to inspect everything before they rented. They had additional time before they moved in to run all appliances and report issues which they never did. They lied about the appliances,  about the cable installation mishap. We have lost trust in them. We fear they might damage the property just to spite us, we have more than 10 months to go on the lease.

Question is - how much is a landlord's responsibility to please the tenant and should the tenant not show some courtesy by not constantly nagging us? We can't keep going there everyday to fix things or even call someone on a daily basis. They should have rented some posh place if that's what they were looking for with brand new appliances. To top it, NJ leans 105% towards tenants. All this is giving us sleepless nights.

Any thoughts?