Tenant wants me to pay for imaginary pest issue...

[Daniel Netzer]

Hey there! I wasn't sure how to handle this one because I was caught off guard. Curious to get the take from objective and experienced landlords.  So I have a good tenant who has been around for a few years and a good relationship with her.  She notified me a while back, letting me know that spider eggs were under the refrigerator and that I needed them removed. She sent me a vague, hard-to-see photo of the eggs, but I took her word for it and sent a pest treatment guy there to treat the eggs and spray around the property. As it turns out, there were no eggs, and she mistakingly identified foam from the bottom of the fridge for the eggs. The pest treatment guy continued to treat the property for pests that didn't exist. The bill was $225, $95 of which was just for showing up.  Since the report was based on her mistake, I asked her to cover it, but she felt it was still my duty because I'm the landlord. I was annoyed and didn't know how to respond to this entitlement.  Considering her bogus report, I'd prefer to pay zero and let her take responsibility. How would you handle this? 

[Nathan Brown]

I get you're upset over the principal of the matter. Now make the change in your lease for them to sign when they renew so it's clear who's responsible for what moving forward. I've worked for PMs who use basic boiler plate language leases that are only 3 pages long, and others who get verbose with 30 pages. It's all about knowing what to include based on experience. For what it's worth, my broker includes a clause for unnecessary maintenance calls. If we send someone out to look at the water heater "because it's not getting hot", for instance, and it turns out it's working fine but it's just not hot enough for the tenant's liking and they could have just turned the knob to adjust it themselves... I would definitely apply that service charge on the tenant's ledger.

Also, never again, with that pest control tech!