Pet after move out - Landlord Forum thread

Pet after move out by David (CA) on July 18, 2012 @16:14

Hi all wise landlords,
I have general questions on what you would do if in my shoes.
My tenants lived in the rental for little over two years. He and his GF had signed a two-year lease and renewed for another 2-year term then had relationship problems. The GF just left but the guy let me know and wanted to work things out with me.
Since he was a pretty good tenant in terms of paying rent I decided to work with him. I charged $0 for ending tenancy early but I did collect back the discounted rent when they signed another 2-year term.
We signed a mutual termination of tenancy agreement which states that he is still responsible for all rents till I can find suitable new tenants. He moved out last week and I've been working on flipping the rental. BTW, it's a single family house.
During the move out, I had noted that some rooms were painted in non-original colors. The everything was painted in white before he moved in. He did such a terrible job with painting that there is no doubt that 50% of the house need to be painted over to fix this. I am talking about painting pink then white to cover but you can see through. All ceiling and base board to self-painted wall transitions are not straight. Paint drips on base boards and smudges on ceiling everywhere. You get the point.
I am thinking that he has to pay 100% of half the house for leaving the walls, ceiling and base boards beyond normal usage. He will also pay 50% of other half of the house with normal usage since he broke the lease that would have given me two additional years of usage. So basically I came up with 75% of the cost of painting (100% of 50% + 50% of 50% = 75%). My dad is a retied painter so I decided that I am going to use my dad at about 75% of average paint quotes ($4200) for the job which comes out to be $3,150. This includes paints as well. He only had a $1,800 deposit.
I will also charge for cleaning the carpet which he had already setup someone to do. My tenant made a mistake of letting me talk to his carpet guy. My tenant did clean up a little but cleaning quotes average about $325.
I was going to collect less than above just because he was a good tenant for me but when I chatted with the carpet cleaner he selected I found out that there was a large dog. My tenant was not supposed to have any pet as it's clearly stated in the lease. I also talked to the gardener he used whom also confirmed that there was a large dog living in the property. Now that I knew they had a dog, I could find many evidences such as dog hairs in the corner of kitchen floor. I've never had dog in the house ever so it's all from this tenant. In retrospect, I thought it was weird that he drenched the place with cleaning supply smells before we did a walk-thru.
Anyway, I've not talk to my tenant yet but I will collect more evidences and I will talk to him before I send him a itemized deposit worksheet.
I took his word for it when he said that the carpet guy will get all stains out but now I am wondering what should I do if the carpet guy can't clean everything back to how it was. When he moved in, there was not a single spot with stain.
What would you do if you were in my shoes?

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Re: Pet after move out by Anonymous on July 18, 2012 @16:23	[ Reply ]

"What would you do if you were in my shoes?" Learn to inspect your rental property more often. You would have found the unapproved painting the tenant did and found out about the dog too!

Re: Pet after move out by Jake on July 18, 2012 @18:04	[ Reply ]

You had a dog and really bad painting and you never even looked. You let one tenant escape without paying for any damagaes. Take the $1800. Live and learn. Let it go.

Re: Pet after move out by NY-LL on July 18, 2012 @18:30	[ Reply ]

First of all, a professional interior paint job is not valued at three thousand one hundred fifty ($3150) dollar, that value would be reserved for a professional two-story, exterior whole house paint job which requires ladders, window trims, and possible gutter removal, etc. Second of all, the property should have been inspected by the landlord on a frequent basis to ensure against lease violations, such as unauthorized pets and unapproved, defective painting. According to the landlord, the pet did not cause any permanent premise damage, and the pet issue is limited to normal cleaning. The carpet stains would be considered normal wear and tear. Focus on finding a new qualified tenant in order to mitigate the damages of loss of rent. Collect from the tenant the cost of lost monthly rental payments and the cost of repainting the rooms in order to restore the premises to original condition.

Re: Pet after move out by jannie (IL) on July 18, 2012 @20:08	[ Reply ]

I'd take all the deposit. Carpet stains aren't normal. And, the unauthorized dog didn't help. My renters left after 3 years with no stains on the carpet and they had a cat (I approved). As to painting --- unlike some - I paid nearly $200 for a 1 coat of paint of the same color and that was the best of 3 estimates and someone I knew. If it'd been painted darker color it probably would have been more. And, the ceiling wasn't painted. Painting isn't cheap unless you do it yourself. I think it's too late to do anything but be happy with the deposit. I made the same mistake - my tenant was a business owner and I didn't do inspections - won't make that mistake - when she gave her 30 days notice oh, by the way a leak under the sink (for awhile) and the caulk off around the tile tub -- that didn't happen overnight. My fault.

Re: Pet after move out by Anonymous on July 18, 2012 @20:33	[ Reply ]

Your father is about to skin you on the paint job. Then you are going to skin the tenant. In court, a Judge will take a dim view of it. You need to get some other estimates. A Judge will ask you why you did not. Exactly was wrong with the paint other than it was a "non-original" color. Painting half of the house will average $4,200. So, painting the whole house averages $8,200? How many rooms are you talking about? It looks like about $1,200 per room.

Re: Pet after move out by Anonymous on July 18, 2012 @21:52	[ Reply ]

I guess I must look like I am trying to squeeze every penny out of my ex-tenant. The reason I am using my dad (who used to be a painting contractor 8 years ago) is to save my tenant money (and also help my dad with retirement income). More importantly, I don't want to spend $4500 and not able to re-coupe that money for 6 months. If I were a vampire LL that sucks all money out of tenants I would not have let him go but had him pay for the privilige of breaking the lease. Here are facts: I've gotten 2 written and 1 verbal quotes to paint the whole house in a single color. I got these quotes from random highly rated yelp business. The quotes were $4500, $4000 and $4000 including paints. They came out and looked at the condition of the house and quoted me these prices. I was surprised myself but they are legitimate estimates. I don't know how people can be so sure about cost of paint jobs without even looking. It's not an apartment with 9-foot ceiling. I mentioned the 'non-original' color because that's what I put on the move-out walk thru form which he signed. That's description I used in the form but I have like 250 pictures of paint-job-gone-wild. You can only return these mistakes to a rentable condition by painting not just the walls but ceiling, walls and base boards. It's not my opinion but three professionals who came to give me the quote. I am pretty sure I have a good case if I were to go in front of a judge. Although, I am not sure about the assumptions involve in the following calculations: I am saying 50% of the house walls, ceilings and trims are affected by my tenant's terrible paint job (I have pictures to prove this) so he is responsible for 100% of the cost here. Other 50% of the house, I am going to consider 55% normal usage which I will pay and 45% to my tenant because he is breaking the lease. He would have had nearly two more years of normal usage if he didn't break the lease. The above means that my tenant should be responsible for 72.5% of the cost of paint job. I would just like people to comment on my assumptions and calculations: Average quotes I received: $4,200 Percent discount for using my dad: 25% Total cost of paint job: $3,150 Percent responsible by my tenant: 72.5% Cost passed to my tenant: $2,280 I've always try to be fair and I just wanted to see if there is a consensus here. Hopefully, above calculations are more reasonable to readers. I guess I wasn't clear in my OP. I do realize that it's too late for the pet he had. At least according to the carpet cleaner, my tenant had used him like three times. By the way, for those who says I should have inspected the place often. How can you do an inspection for no reason? I also have to provide 24-hour notice which means he could put the dog somewhere else when I am there. I've been to the rental house about 6 times in the past two years but I didn't sense a dog. Although, now that I am thinking about it, it was kinda weird that he had reinforced the bottom of the outside fence in various places. I was to naived to recognize it. What if the carpet guy can't get all stains out? Then what would you do?

Re: Pet after move out

Re: Pet after move out by Eloise on July 19, 2012 @10:18	[ Reply ]

I think what everyone here is trying to help you understand, is that charging $$$$ for paint jobs, for pet charges that you never saw, etc etc, will only cost YOU money. This could go to court, and you will most likely lose. I see your frustration, my last tenant did similar things, I get you. And I was furious when I went to look at the property and realized I didn't have 1 day worth of work but an entire week. It sucks. However, let's be practical here: 2 years worth of a tenancy, you are looking at having to re-paint most of the walls ANYWAY. This is normal wear and tear. The carpet needs to be professionally cleaned, the yard has already been cleared, right? So, what are you really out at this point now? The repair of the botched paint job, not the actual paint job, you need to repaint anyways! Personally, I know it sounds easy to try to squeeze all this out of your old T's pocket, but when he's moving out already, probably because he can not afford to live there, how much do you think you could get in reality? Just charge him the regular repairs, repairing the baseboards, cleaning the carpet, and move on. No sense on dragging this, move on and get a new tenant, and do your regular inspections for Pete's sake!

Re: Pet after move out