My tennant moved in, at the time our place was flea free. After a bit more than a month, she told me she has all these bites on her legs (July 25th). I suggested she can use our organic bug spray around her room to see if it helps and also gave her a bug trap. On July 27th, I personally experienced (first time in over 4 monts) fleas on me, while in my car. I have no seen any fleas in house myself. I let her know I will be calling an exterminator and scheduled a session on July 29th. During this time, she spent 2 days at an airbnb/hotel because she didn’t want to be bitten anymore. She notified me on the 28th suddenly that she intends to move out because the place is uninhabitable and request her deposit and rent back.
I agreed it’s fine if she wants to move out, I can give her full deposite back ($200) and her rent ($800 - which actually covers July 20-Aug 20th, and she didn’t even notify me until 25th of flea issues and move out intention the 28th, but none the less, I agreed to refund her ENTIRE rent), and I also had agreed to help her with airbnb/hotel with a stipend of 26.7$/day (which was before she said she was moving out - as prorated rent return @ 800/30days x 2 days). She bought some home depot flea repleant which I also say will reimburse her. Overall, I just rounded it up and said I will write her a check of $1100 on move out - and I said she is welcome to take her time to move out if she needs.
Despite all this, she has requested I compensate her for her hotel stay (she choose to stay at hotel for 2 nights at 120$/night) and requested laundary service (estimated 50-70$); so she requested an additional 300$ or so. And now she’s saying she was scratching the bites and she got infected and needed antibiotics and her new place charges her 1200 for rent (which is more than when I charged for 800). I feel like I was already being super generous.
Houston rental law only required me to comp her for prorated rent during the days she was unable to stay at the property (which would only be 26.7/day or $53) and address the issue within timely maner (which I did under 3 working days). It’s also unclear who brought the fleas into the place as we have stray cats around the nieghborhood, but I paid for the exterminator myself. If she had told me earlier, I would have trouble shooted the problem earlier.
Is there more for me to do? Haven’t I already went above and beyond? I feel like I fulfilled diligent duties of a landlord both legally and morally.
