Advice on tenant with thermostat for whole building

[Kaybreh Mathis]

Hello! My husband and I just bought a property. It was a large single family home and at some point 40 or so years ago was split up into 6 units. One unit houses the thermostat for the furnace which heats the whole building. The tenant living there frequently turns it way down and then all the other tenants complain because it drops to 55 degrees in their units. The tenant has repeatedly been told not to touch the thermostat. The tenant can’t be removed right now. So I have several questions. 1- is there some way I could control the thermostat without having to have wifi at the property? Like some kind of system that works off cell towers to allow me to set it from my phone? 2- how can I enforce this without evicting? Send a certified letter so they know I mean business? It’s really getting cold to constantly deal with complaints from other tenants, and then to spend hours trying to get ahold of the tenant responsible. How would you proceed? Thanks!

[Mark Smith]

I would avoid a legal battle right now, even in our landlord friendly area, it's not easy or quick to process an eviction in the Covid era.  If your location has any kind of moritorums the legal approach will likely get you a tenant that stops paying, you can't evict and your other tenants are still complaining.

I think you are on the right track put controls on the thermostat.  Google "HC7176 Residential Thermostat"  It's a landlord tamper proof thermostat.  Set it and forget it, the tenant can't control it.

Or, put a locked enclosure around the current one.  Again, google should help you locate suitable versions.