You can’t be at your properties 24/7, but things can certainly go wrong 24/7. Your tenants are your first set of eyes and ears that can alert you to something gone wrong. Your job as landlord is to determine when something requires your immediate attention.
A smarter landlord listens closely to what their tenants are saying. Tenants are not property experts. Something that seems like a huge problem to the tenant may not be a huge problem. But, something that seems small to the tenant may in fact be a huge problem. Here is what I am getting at.
The other night a tenant called after business hours. We ask tenants not to call after hours unless it is a true emergency, but the definition of true emergency can get muddled. Anyway, the tenant says that half of the building’s power is out. Some things are on, others are not. And, it is not just in his unit, everyone is reporting the same issue.
The thing here is that his report was odd. If all power is out, it is likely a utility problem. If only some power in one unit is out, it is likely that a breaker is tripped. But here not all power is out in all units. This is odd and odd things should get your attention. So I went over. Turns out a tree branch had broken a power line and knocked out one phase of the power. This explains why some power was on and some was out. However when I was there I could hear the AC condensers trying to kick on, but not having enough power to do so they were burning themselves up. If I had let this go overnight, they would have burned up and cost me thousands in repairs.
Another time a tenant complained about lights flickering. No big deal I thought. But she also mentioned her phone charger plug had melted in the outlet. That is odd. Something is wrong. Power is surging somewhere. Long story short, when I got there the meter was literally smoking hot. I was minutes away from a major fire. That tenant saved the building and who knows, maybe a life.
Another time a tenant called and complained of a musty smell. Now you might not think a musty smell is such a bad thing but what causes a musty smell? The answer is water. Water is collecting somewhere, likely somewhere hidden. It could be between walls or under the house because of a broken pipe. It is something you need to check out before the walls, floors and everything else becomes mildew infested and rot.
So learn to use your tenant’s eyes and ears. You don’t have to respond to every request right away. But you must learn when you should. If they are telling you about something out of the ordinary, you might want to check it out.
