Re: Pet after move out - Landlord Forum thread

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

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?

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Re: Pet after move out by Jake on July 18, 2012 @22:14	[ Reply ]

"The reason I am using my dad (who used to be a painting contractor 8 years ago) is to save my tenant money" Thanks for setting us straight on that. What exactly was wrong with the paing other than it was a non-original color.

Re: Pet after move out by Anonymous on July 18, 2012 @22:23	[ Reply ]

Try reading the original post, "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."

Re: Pet after move out by Anonymous on July 18, 2012 @22:33	[ Reply ]

My tenants painted 3 bedrooms and all 3 full bathrooms by himself in like 5 different colors. All edges where self-painted walls meet ceilings, trims and the other walls are not straight. He must not have had steady hands nor did he use masking tapes. There are drippings of paint on baseboards numerous places. Some walls are painted back with a shade of white (original color) but he didn't do them correctly and I can see the old color thru (pink). There are paint smudges everywhere same color as he painted. I have 250 pictures of these flaws.