I've struggled with snow removal at my 4 student rental houses. I hired for snow removal, but the prices were high, and I still got tickets from the city for failure to remove snow.

Have any of you hired tenants to do snow removal ? How did it work out? Any tips?

In my houses, I usually have at least 5 able bodied students who could do the work and would like the money. I thought I'd pay them, at each house, $30 dollars for the first four inches of snow, and an additional $6 dollars per inch after that. Maybe I'd pay them cash for an additional incentive. This would include snow melt application.

There's usually cars in the driveway, so a plow wouldn't be able to do it. I thought maybe I'd purchase a 24", two stage snow blower, to do it myself with the help of my children, but moving it around seems like a challenge and I don't know how much I can rely on my 16 year old son and 19 year old daughter to help me.

Please let me know any thoughts you may have. I'd really appreciate it. - Bill

Do you do individual student leaves with each one? So it is a multi-bedroom house, but you have individual leases for each tenant per bedroom? (That is done a lot with student rentals in my area.)

Or is it a SFH that you sign a normal joint-and-several lease with all of the occupants (like is usually done with non-student and some student rentals)?

If it is the LATTER, then I would simply leave it up to them -- and FINE THEM every time the city fines you. For SFHs, it is up to the occupants to clean their own snow.

If it is the first situation and you can't just force them to be responsible for their own snow... Then I start to worry about liability as soon as you pay someone to do work for you -- even at their own place. Personally, we hire that out (to a licensed plow company) for all of our multi-unit rentals. It isn't cheap, but it's cheaper than a lawsuit. :)

- John...

Oops! That first "student leaves" should be "student leases", of course. :)

- John...

I'm going with James on this. Tenants are tenants. becoming friends with them, hiring them, etc., can go bad fast.

I agree with Jeff and James. Don't hire tenants and don't rent to contractors.

all my properties have shovels and tenants need to figure it out. I also supply ice melt - each property has see through cat litter jugs and I replace as needed throughout the year.

big snow falls, we have a plow and large snow blower to get it done.

last night was a "dusting". I swept my walks at my house with a broom at midnight ... completely clear this morning... most others on my street are snow covered and it's tramped down near where their cars were parked. at my rentals with their small walkways, a 10 minute job.

Well, it seems like the consensus is to not hire tenants to do the work and you gave some good reasons why. But you would have them do the snow removal as part of the lease.

I provide snow removal because It's a competitive advantage in my market. Also, if the snow is not removed, I get the ticket and go to court.

As I said at the beginning of my post: "I've struggled with snow removal at my.. houses. I hired for snow removal, the prices were high, and I still got tickets from the city."

I'm thinking then, of getting a 24", two stage snow blower, to do it myself, with the help of my children. Maybe i'll get a trailer, or a cargo carrier for the back of my RAV 4, to move the snow blower.

On your single family homes, absolutely makenit the responsibility of the tenants.

What areas did you get priced out for having the job done?

How big and how much?

$1900 for the year? My guy is on call per storm. Sometimes he is out plowing commercials and he'll call me to see what I think and we discuss the weather and go from there.

If it's obvious accumulation, he just does it. If it's a 2" over night storm and its going to be 40 and sunny that day, he doesn't do it.

Yes, Charlie, I think your assessment of my Son's and daughter's participation level is about right. Not too reliable.

NE, $1,900 was for a single snow storm, I think the last big one we had last year. The guy didn't get to it until 24 hours after it stopped and it all had frozen at that point. So the $1900 was for chipping all the ice and for a few thousand pounds of ice melt. As I said, my average driveway holds 5 cars and the front walk is 50 feet, so its not a giant job. I "only" paid him $500 and he threatened to take me to court. Once I showed him the three tickets I got for failure to remove snow, he gave up on his lawsuit.