Tenant found mouse droppings - Landlord Forum thread 361610

Tenant found mouse droppings by John on October 12, 2021 @18:39

So I've been renting my property for about 10 years now. This is a new tenant and she's been thoroughly vetted with no criminal history and high income as well as good credit. She moved in and roughly about a week she said she found some mouse droppings in the sump pump cabinet in the basement. This is a dark cabinet that sits over top of the sump pump just to hide it. The area in the cabinet is unfinished. I told her (which is true) that the old tenants stored food in there but I'm going to come down and check it out.

She also ask if the previous tenants had cats or dogs and I explained to her to my knowledge no (which is also true, I didn't find any evidence of it when they moved out). She told me it didn't smell like it had cats or dogs but her allergies are flaring up. I didn't really have any comment for that other than obviously it's a change in environment and I know when you have a change in environment allergies can flare. The property was professionally cleaned.

My question is how do I address her concerns. I'm going there because she's claiming the dryer is blowing out cold air, which is very legitimate and I'm going to fix that. However, if I find old mouse droppings should I maybe put down some traps or tell her that I'm putting out some traps and we'll wait and see. If we do catch something, should I go ahead and put a Terminix contract or orkin on the house? In terms of our allergies, what is she trying to say or should I just ignore that I have no idea.

I have allergies myself and I was in the property for several weeks at a time fixing and sleeping on the floor with a sleeping bag and I had no allergy issues. Of course everybody's different and this property has a wooded lot and trees and everything.

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Re: Tenant found mouse droppings by Garry on October 13, 2021 @08:22	[ Reply ]

Mice are generally outside creatures. But they move inside when winter comes, seeking heat and food. Just put out some snap traps, sticky traps, or Decon poison to get rid of them. No need to call a pest control company, as they will do that same thing. Allergies generally flare up in the Spring and Summer when people are more outdoors. But they can be year around if the allergies are caused from being around cats and dogs. Tell her to give it another 30 days for her allergies to clear up. If they don't, ask her to go see a doctor at that time, and if the Dr. says its from an animal, offer to let her out of the lease, with a full refund of her deposit. (you only want HAPPY,HEALTHY people as tenants, and you can't PROVE there were never any cats of dogs in your rental ) About the dryer-------If its a gas dryer, something may be causing the ignitor to malfunction. If an electric dryer, it could be a fuse/breaker that went bad.

Re: Tenant found mouse droppings