All Forum Posts by: Tamara R.

Yes, normally I am of the "go along to get along" way of thinking, but we have spent a lot of time and money and jumped through lots of hoops trying to appease them, but they won't be appeased. . . and they really are trying to get us to do something that I am convinced we are not even required to do!  We have even asked them specifically to tell us how many plants to plant to plant to stop the threat of "fixing the violation" and putting a lien on our property, as they keep telling us they are going to do.  One person tells us one thing, then another person goes out and inspects and doesn't like what we have done even thought the first person said that should take care of it. 

I own a rental townhouse that is governed by an HOA (yes, I know many people don't like to buy houses in HOA communities, but where I live there is little choice).When I purchased the home almost 4.5 years ago, the previous owner had removed the groundcover from the small front yard, and planted bushes and flowers and mulched the whole thing—the yard gets little sun and most of the other homes on the row have weeds for the front yard instead of grass. In July of this year I got a note from the HOA saying that we were in violation of the HOA rules and must remove the "unapproved groundcover." Assuming they didn't like the mulched yard, I told them that the groundcover had been there since we bought it and nothing had changed about the yard; they had done an HOA inspection for violations at that time and only told us the trim of the home needed repainting.

To make a long story short, there were many calls and letters and e-mails back and forth for several months about how to make the yard “compliant.”We were told any changes to the yard had to be approved, and that the landscaping did not appear as “robust” as it once had (we had a very harsh winter here last year, and many of the bushes/plants died back—they aren’t dead though, just had to be trimmed down to the ground. It will take a couple of years for them to come back). When asked about how to “become compliant” they said we needed to plant more liriope grass so the yard appeared “greener.”We spent over $100 on plants and made a few trips down to plant, and each time they reinspected they sent us another violation notice saying that we were not in compliance and that they would have to take legal action if we didn’t fix the violation. We just received another notice saying that we had until April 25 to fix the violation.

The thing is, the only thing I can find about landscaping in the HOA docs is a paragraph about keeping your yard free of weeds and trash and all bushes and shrubs trimmed. Nothing about what an approved landscaping is or that your yard must appear "green" instead of brown like they have been telling me. I have asked them repeatedly to point me to the relevant regs and they have not done so. Just wondering how I can get them to stop harassing us and drop the matter. I think they are way out of bounds and very unreasonable ( to put it kindly).I am ready to get a lawyer, but my husband doesn't want to pay anyone to do anything. I think they just don't like rental properties and investors and are trying to make our lives miserable (I would like to point out that our properties are better kept then most of the owner occupied homes on the street). If we did get an attorney, what kind would we get? Any suggestions on how to proceed?

I just had some tenants move out and their three teenage daughters did lots of damage, but their dog did not.. .something to consider....

So, to follow up, I got some quotes from a granite repair person, and he said the damage around the sink was really unusual--usually its just in one or two spots--not all around the entire sink cut out like this one was.  quote was $300-$500 depending how long it took grind it smooth again.

Marcia:

They were not normal nail holes, they were screws/bolts that were put into the studs to hold TVs, shelves, etc. My lease is much better now....I allow 5 nail holes per room. I also plan on handing a bunch of those command strips/picture hangers to new tenants and requesting that they use those instead of putting holes in the wall.

Beth L. I do have such a list of charges/damages that I now inlclude in my lease (lessons learned). I believe I may have stolen it from a book called "Landlording" by Leah Robinson, though I am not totally sure of it. I also have a letter I send out when tenants notify me that they are departing describing exactly what needs to be done to get their deposit back (cleaning wise ect).

@Elizabeth C.--I totally agree. I have millitary tenants in the other place that are usually here on one year orders. Since they aren't staying they don't try to "make it their own" by hanging lots of pictures/painting etc. Our longer term tenants put lots of holes in the wall, paint, tear up the landscaping, etc. It's a whole different ball game. ALso, if you are turning a place over every year, then each year the carpets get cleaned and the house gets a refreshing and deep cleaning that keeps it looking good.

@Lisa Doud--thanks for your very detailed response. Very helpful.

We did visit the place a couple of times a year, but never noticed any damage because their humongous furniture was covering everything up.

I don't plan to charge them for most of the stuff I mentioned, other than repainting the walls they painted and repairing all the walls they messed up. I also plan to have someone repair the granite and will charge them for that.

I had some tenants just move out who had lived in our rental for 4 years….and during that time period they “really wore the sh#t out of the place” (to quote my husband). They were not mailicious, but by the looks of things just too lazy to be bothered to take care of things. Everything was brand new when they moved in, and now the place really looks worn out. Here are a few examples:
-granite counter completely chipped around the sink.

-Every single cabinet (bathroom, kitchen) is banged/scraped around the edges and the insides are discolored or deteriorating because they obviously put wet things in them.

-Lots of holes in every single wall from hanging things on the wall and the husband stringing cable to every single bedroom.
-Paint spilled on the carpets in every bedroom and slopped on the walls and baseboards because they decided to paint without our permission (really garish colors of course!).
-Every single carpet had stains all over it (most came out with professional carpet cleaning except the paint and bleach stains).
-Although they hired our cleaner to come for a few hours and then the whole family spent about 5 hours cleaning (along with us) one night, the place still required several more hours of cleaning afterwards.
…and the list goes on and on.
My question is about wear and tear. Is it reasonable to expect tenants to take care of things (ie. not putting wet dishes and other things away in the cabinets..not banging the edges of cabinets when they put things away…not dripping water on outsides of cabinets leaving it… and things of that nature)? Or is that just normal wear and tear? If it isn’t “wear and tear” how do you fix these things (short of replacing everthing) in order to return it back to the condition it was? Going forward, I plan to put linoleum in the bottoms of all cabinets and contact paper on all shelves/medicine cabinets. If it matters, these are not low income tenants..household income about six figures. Together, my husband and I have probable spent 70 hours of our time working on this place, not to mention the contractors we hired to take care of the bathrooms for several thousand dollars.
We own another property 2 doors down that we bought at the exact same time and have never had issues (other than a couple of holes in wall here and there). In the same time period that our above mentioned tenants lived in their home, we had four sets of tenants move in and out of that one with barely any work on our end!

It only works if your prospective tenant's cell phone (or other number) is posted somewhere in a public forum. For instance, in the case I mentioned the person was trying to sell some things on line and her ad was still out there. She also had advertised for a roommate/nanny in the past and that was still out there. In addition she had posted an introduction on "meet up," and had a business with the phone number listed. When I put my own cell phone number in the search engine, a current property I have advertised for rent (with my cell phone number) comes up but nothing else does. I tried it with my husband's cell phone number and a property he was trying to rent about 15 years ago (posted in a newspaper) was actually still out there, but that was the only thing.

Oops.. I mean "groan"