The cost of deferred maintenance

Heads up. I'm put out today.

We have a homeowner client with an amazing property. Unfortunately, he wants to weigh in on any expenditure on the property that exceeds $100. Well, we knew of several issues late last spring that needed addressing. Neither of the fireplaces worked – both needed new parts installed. There was also an arcade game that needed a new part installed. Try as we might, we were never authorized to do the repairs, a as the homeowner wanted to come to Tennessee and see if he could fix the items himself. Well, he never made it. Of course we knew this, and tried in vain to get the homeowner to authorize us to repair the items. It likely would have been around $500 to take care of all of it in an afternoon.

Fast forward to today. It’s cold outside. Guess what?  The fireplaces are still not working, and neither is the arcade game. We just had to refund $2300 for a week’s stay because the guest said that the property wasn’t as represented, which is very true. So now, the owner has lost his 75% of $2300, we lost our 25% of the $2300, and we still have $500 of repairs that need to be done.

The moral of the story: If you’re going to manage your own cabin, manage it, and don’t kick the can down the road on repairs. If you’re going to pay someone else to manage it, let them do their job and manage it, and don’t get mad at them when you start getting complaints.