Tenant maintenance accountability?

[David White]

Good evening everyone. My question revolves around ongoing maintenance on a property throughout a tenant’s stay. As a landlord/property manager, we all know that a security deposit is taken in the beginning of a tenant’s tenure, and then utilized at the end when they decide to move out to pay for any excessive damage that was caused upon move out. However, (aside from the monthly projected budget for repairs that is set aside every month), if a tenant causes an issue that was clearly their fault, does anyone have as a part of their agreement for the tenant to bear that responsibility?

For example, I recently had a tenant whose child clogged the bathroom toilet with a baby powder bottle. The property management company that I’ve hired billed me $250 for this incident (which significantly cuts into a single family property’s cash flow as you can imagine). Curious to get you all’s thoughts!