Self managing with a full time job

[Bill E.]

Hello everyone, I am hoping to learn from some of you do it yourself landlords out there. I'll give a situation that happened to me and I'd like to hear different ways to handle it. I work full time, my tenant texted me early in the morning that the furnace was out. Keep in mind this is when the outside temp was well below zero so this needed fixed ASAP. So I called the local heating company and they said they'd be out sometime before noon. Luckily my tenant was off work, so they were able to let the heating guy in so he could fix the furnace. My question is what if no one was able to be there to let the heating guy in? The only solution for me is to stay home from work until the problem is solved and that just isn't ideal. So how would you handle situations like this?

[Bob H.]

If you have an attached garage, it helps to have a keypad on the outside of the garage door. You can give a repair person the code and change it later or have the tenant set a temporary code for the repair person to use. Various kinds of electronic locks on the front door would serve a similar purpose. On the other hand, the tenant probably would not want the repair person there without you.

I don't think it's unreasonable to ask the tenant to find a time to be home for the repair person, although in your case, if the tenant balks, then you have to worry about pipes freezing and not just the tenant's convenience.