Hey BiggerPockets, it's Matt and today we're going to talk about the most common calls
that we get from tenants. And so a lot of people that are looking to get into property
management or looking to get into landlording in general, want to know what are these tenants
going to call us about? What are people going to want to have done to their properties and
what's most common? We've been managing properties for 11 years now, but I needed to call in
some backup for this one, to answer this one for you. So I'm calling in our guy, Joshua.
This is Joshua. He works for the Derosa group and he is the property manager for all the
assets that we have here in New Jersey and some of this stuff in Pennsylvania. So Joshua,
the folks on BiggerPockets want to know what is it, just what do tenants call about most
commonly? Josh was manning the phones. He's the guy that's taking that call from the tenants.
He's been doing it for a while now. So let's go. What are you seeing out there?
Well, we had a brief conversation about this and we thought about some of the things that
come in as calls, and we have a list here, so-
Yeah, let's talk it out. What do you got? What's the first-
First thing that comes out-
And this is in no particular order, guys, of the most common that you get, but these
are the most prevalent out of all of them. So what do you got?
First thing that stands out is sometimes you have the tenants that call for their neighbors.
Oftentimes it may be a neighbor that's just too loud.
This is a multi-family property.
Right, multifamilies.
Yeah. They're calling to say, "That guy upstairs with those kids."
It could be loud noise or it could be just bad hygiene, bad smell, [crosstalk 00:00:01:27].
Not taking the trash out.
So, I guess-
So what do we do about it? What do we do when we get that call?
We encourage community in our multifamilies. It's one of the things that we really try
to kind of put into our tenants' mind. And I think encouragement air is basically trying
to get the tenant to, if they feel comfortable, to have that conversation first with their
neighbor. And especially if it's something that's just noise and maybe they can work
it out together. In a duplex, sometimes that's a little easier because they've already built
that relationship. In a 19 unit building, sometimes that conversation... There's a little
difficulty there.
It depends on also, we've sent letters in the past. If it's clear the tenant that's
being complained about is a habitual person, or if they're just living like pig pen in
there, and the other tenants are complaining about it, we can send letters. We can go out
and do a field inspection, but the first angle of attack is encourage the tenants to be a
part of a community. And if there is something going on that's noise or whatever, especially
if it's noise, go knock on the neighbor's door and remind them that maybe you have a
different schedule than they do. And we'll get involved, but the last thing we want to
do is to get so engrossed in this, where the tenants come to us with everything. You want
to empower them a bit to deal with some of these issues on their own. But if it's clear
that a tenant is violating the lease, then we deal with it with a letter because you
got to call them out for... You've broken the lease by this section here. Just so you
know, we're aware of it.
Yeah. I would say use discretion, too, because sometimes I think the landlord would get a
better grip if the neighbors are able to diplomatically hold this conversation together. If it's something
that's just going to get out of control and break the community, I think then, some of
those other methods Matt just laid out would be [crosstalk 00:03:09] .
What else you got?
So the other thing is pests.
Pests. Not pesty neighbors, but pests. Like, what kind of pests you talking about?
Could be roaches. It could be mice. It could be, sometimes, we hope not, but bedbugs. That's
something...
Ants. Ants, all of it.
Ants, anything, yeah. Well, you know, if you have an inside guy that works for the company,
a maintenance crew, oftentimes they're the first round of defense for it. So something
like that.
I'll tell you what the first round of defense is really, really. Our lease says if a property
was given to you without pests and we expect you to keep it that way. So that means that
we made sure there's no pests in the property. We've exterminated it if it needed to be.
And here you go. Now, if it's a multi-family building, a lot of this goes on. Well, that's
coming from next door or that's coming from outside or whatever it is. So for multifamily,
larger than say three or four units, we end up having the property sprayed once a quarter,
anyway. But you were saying that if it's clear that it's not a tenant violation, just living
poorly in there, what do we do? We send our inside guy, or...
Yeah, yeah. We will send our guy out there and oftentimes they'll vet it out too and
see where it's sourcing from. Bed bugs is one of those things where like, if it's coming
from the tenant then we expect some responsibility on the tenant's side to take care of it, but
let's say if it's something out of control and it's just getting to a volume where we
need to pull in a contractor to come in, like a company, we'll hire in a company and I won't
really name any of the companies, but you know-
But we'll address it and bill the tenant back, too. We don't just say, "Okay, just call your
own pest control company, tenant." No, we will send in one of our vendors and we will
send the tenant an invoice for that work. We can get a pretty good deal for the work
done. So it's actually saving the tenant money directly through our relationships, but that's
how we typically deal with it. So. What else you got on the list?
Okay. So the next thing is plumbing.
Plumbing. What does that mean? There's a lot of different plumbing.
Yeah, there is. It can be anything from, very regular maintenance, like toilet clog, maybe
a faucet-
That's really common, toilet clog.
Yeah, that's very common or it can be something extreme, like a flood in a basement because
maybe a pipe broke-
Very common.
And those are the scary calls because then you got [crosstalk 00:05:21]-
Unfortunately, yeah.
What you got, and then you've got a source where it's coming from.
For a toilet clogs, guys, you want to make sure there's... Sometimes we go in buildings
that have large trees in front of them so you end up getting tree roots in the sewer
line. It's just part of owning a property with a tree. You can take the tree down if
you want, but then there's other reasons why you might want to keep the tree. So there's
also, we've had tenants flush full out, full diapers, down the drain, all kinds of things
that aren't supposed to go down the drain, get flushed down the drain and stuff like
that. So you always want to ask whoever mediates the toilet clog, what they found that was
clogging the drain. And then, if it's clear in your lease that a tenant can't flush certain
things down the drain. Again, a lot of is actually flowing back in the lease, now that
I think about it, right? So you want to make it clear in your lease the tenant can only
flush certain things down the drain and if they don't, then they're responsible for that
sewage clear out, right?
As much as you want to think they should know these things, it's a conversation to have
with the tenants and stuff like that, so-
Yeah. We've had toys and all kinds of other stuff flushed out of the drain and stuff like
that.
Sometimes kids just don't know.
Yeah, what are you going to do?
Yeah.
And they can't pay the bill either. That means mom and dad has to pay the bill, right? Okay.
What else you got?
We also have temperature as an issue.
Yeah, temperature control.
In either direction, hot or cold. Everyone has different temperaments when it comes to
temperature.
It's cold in here. It's hot in here.
Exactly. And so depending on what the issue is and how... I think for me, one of the things
that's been very successful for us, we'll get our maintenance guy, our technician out
there who can go out there and sometimes, by law, things are regulated the way it's
supposed to. And it's just a tenant that just wants it to feel like a sauna in a place that's
already-
Where we are, here in New Jersey, what's the temperature?
It's supposed to be 68. 65 at night time.
68 degrees. That's as most as... yeah, 68 during the day 65 a night. I walked into one
tenant's property and it was a multifamily and he had the heat set up the 82 degrees.
And I was like, "What are you doing? It's 82 degrees in here." The guy says to me, "I've
got kids." You got kids? What are you, trying to cook them? Geez. But anyway, it's just,
tenants have different regulations with regards to heat, and so you've got to mind that. And
we've even put thermostats... If we're paying for the heat, we put thermostats that lock
out at 70 degrees because that's the law that we have to provide into the unit. And a lot
of our units also have tenant paid heat so they can set it wherever they want. So a lot
of times the temperature call is because their heater's malfunctioning. Right now, we happen
to be in the middle of November, so a lot of the units that are supposed to be functioning,
they were preventative maintenanced and whatnot, or just having a problem getting online and
so we've had a few no heat calls, right?
It happens.
Yeah, it happens, even though we take good care of our stuff and we maintain it in the
off season, it happens. So this is kind of the time of year where these things start
showing up. And of course in the summertime, the units where we provide air conditioning
or where there is an air conditioner in the unit, it's too hot. That kind of thing.
Yeah, I mean, this goes into maybe another conversation for another video, but preventative
maintenance is something that-
Yeah. You got to maintain that stuff. But temperature control becomes an urgent matter
in the wintertime because that is, becomes a life safety issue. So my recommendation
is if you guys are getting into the rental or small multi business, get yourself a good
heating guy lined up. I don't care if it's July. Actually July is probably a better time
to call the guy because if you call him right now and say, I have a heat issue and I've
never done business with you guys ever before. We've been told by people, "No, I'm sorry.
We're not taking any more clients."
And sometimes the rates will go up, too.
Right.
You can save a lot of money, yeah.
Negotiate the rate in July for doing heating repairs in November. So, what else you got?
Okay. So the roof, that's an issue that-
My roof's leaking.
Right. It could be leaks. That's really a heavy one right there. Or it can be a different
parts falling off the roof for some odd reason, depending on the kind of roof you-
The flashing coming off or something like that. We just had a big wind storm last week
and knock on wood, we didn't have any issues, but we've had that happen during big wind
storms and stuff. So yeah. Roof leaks are very common, especially a little pinhole nuisance
drippy leaks that you got to do some due diligence to find when they show up, so... What else?
Okay. And then, the other thing is appliances that [crosstalk 00:09:35].
Yeah, yeah. Like what's the...?
Refrigerators, stoves, sometimes, I guess, a dishwasher if you've got some-
It's a common one. It's either the fridge or the washing machine. We don't have that
many dishwashers, but the refrigerator... And the refrigerator is the most important
one because there's food in there and everything like that. I mean, we've had stoves malfunction
where one or two, the burners on the stove didn't work well, we can work around that,
but there's an urgency around a malfunctioning refrigerator, obviously washer, dryer, all
these things are a pain in the butt if they stop working. But you need to get yourself
a good appliance repair man. Again, our technician knows how to repair some appliances. That
is a good first round of defense. But if in your market, if you guys are looking to get
into this business, find a good appliance repair guy. They're not that common, but if
you can find one that's good and isn't going to just come and look at it and charge you
and say, "The needs to be replaced." They're worth their weight in gold, right?
Absolutely. Yeah. You save a lot of money if you're able to repair some of the appliances.
But I think also looking at the lease and what you... Like when it comes to washers
and dryers, if that's a part of the promise to the tenant, because they may go in and
it's just... Maybe it's best to just get to the washer and dryer out if you're not going
to apply [crosstalk 00:10:46].
Yeah. Some landlords don't include them. You just provide the hookups and the tenants provide
their own washer dryer. That can take it off your plate. So listen guys, the most important
thing for all of these things is quick response time. And so these are the issues that we
see. Anything else come up off the top of your head as well?
Last one, last one. Yeah, one more.
Oh, last one. I was about to take it home.
One more.
I'm about to take it home. Last one. What do you got?
Last one. It's grounds. In a multifamily, grounds is something that sometimes can be
overlooked because we're focusing on some of the other items on the list and that can
be grass cutting, time response for snow removal.
Why on a single family home should we worry about that?
Well, oftentimes it falls on the tenant's responsibility to take care of-
Nice, because it says that in our, what?
Our lease.
Our lease calls for that. There you go. That's a lot of this goes back to leasing, but yeah,
yeah.
Dumpster's another one, if you have a apartment complex or a parking lot of some sort, sometimes
just overflows, or the tenant next door is not putting the garbage correctly in the dumpster
so we get the call. Raccoons, you never know.
Oh, we've had that.
Yeah, so grounds is something that we get heavy calls for and depending on your arrangement
and you can call other companies, larger companies to take care of it.
That's on your subcontractor, that's unless you're cutting the grass yourself, that's
whoever's cutting the grass for you, whoever's shoveling the snow for you, whoever's taking
that dumpster away if it's a multifamily. That's a call to those companies and your
tenants are really looking out for you on your side of it to say, "Hey, the guy you
hired isn't doing his job. Just so you know." Then, especially for snow removal, because
snow removal, there's slip and falls on ice and stuff like that. You hear horror stories
about that. Unfortunately, we've had horror stories happen to us for people that slipped
and fell on ice for the snow removal not happening in a timely manner.
We typically ask for before and after pictures, too, I think that goes a long way with some
of these guys that are coming in, doing the job.
We make these guys that are cutting the grass...
Accountability.
Shoot me a picture. Shoot me a picture.
So we have proof. Not that we don't trust them, but it helps.
Goes for the... it's for the file, we tell them, right? So that's it guys. These are
the issues that we see. I'd like for you to just leave some comments down below for something
I might have missed. Maybe we intentionally left one out that's a common call that you
get from tenants. So make some comments on what issues that you've received from calls
from tenants and what the solution that you have to those kinds of things are. And again,
the most important thing that I said before was, it's about response time to this, because
regardless of what the issue is, it's your ability to have the team in place behind you
and the subcontractors or the solutions. Do you know what to do in a protocol? Like if
the tenant calls with this, this is what I do. So you can very quickly respond and keep
your tenants happy. So again, guys, leave some comments. We'll get some chatter going.
Thank you so, so much for watching and have a great profitable week.