Ray's post "Did the Right Thing" and a recent problem has got me thinking. I am going to be really honest and open on this, please don't beat me up too bad.

I have a couple of young Gen Z's that I have rented to ( probably shouldn't have ). They were living in Fairfield CA and got married and decided to leave all of the madness and move to TN. Well, me being me and due to my background, I tend to look at things in the wrong direction when dealing with the rental and I think in terms of "What if it were me?" ( Please 6x6 stop doing that ) and I feel sorry for people. Of coarse that bites me in the rear. What is the definition of insanity?

I ultimately decided to rent to them because I felt that they were fairly honest people after looking them up on FB and then talking to them and meeting them. I required a full years rent in advance and renters insurance. As I stated, they are young and so are just getting started. He is basically a general laborer and he now has a job here as an iron worker in steel building construction. She had graduated college and went into the medical field. Thanks to all of the government over reach and dictatorship requiring people to take the useless shots in the medical field she has decided to not go to work in the medical field. I really do not blame her and she is very nice and has been honest to this point, that I can tell. The problem comes in for me because it is her medical field type of work that is a big factor in why I decided to rent to them. As it turns out though, the man did land a good job in Oak Ridge. She said that she was selling things online. She buys things and resales them. Well, that's fine, but I have no valid proof.

I was going to do a quarterly inspection this month and so, a couple of weeks ago, I texted both of them as to the maintenance check coming up and to set a time. I had also mentioned that I will be needing to pick up the applications that I had sent to them in the mail, along with the accounting sheet for there rent, in order to get updated information, now that they have settled in. I also mentioned that I will need the yard to be mowed and weeded and brush trimmed and flower garden areas ( 2 very small ones ) to be cleaned up. I mentioned this because they have been very lacking in doing this. Apparently she doesn't do any yard work as she always refers to him doing it. At this point I am not sure if she does anything, grins....

A couple of days before the inspection time she text me to reschedule because she was concerned with the bad weather coming in from the hurricane. The reason she mentioned was because she thought it would be unsafe to drive, WHAT? Oh, how sweet, she is concerned for me! I figure they didn't get the yard work done. No problem, I need dry weather to inspect the outside anyway so we rescheduled for a couple of days later. They have now had 2 weeks to get the yard ready for my inspection and have the apps filled out. Well, guess what! I arrive and the yard work was started but the rest of the, now wheat field, was not done. No weeding or flower beds done or bushes trimmed. She was in the process of filling out the application for her and probably his.

I really don't have patience for people but I am trying to change my attitude ( you might need to see a specialist 6x6 ). I asked her ( he is at work ) if the mower is still working and she said yes. She said that he hasn't had time to mow because he is working 10 hour days. Of coarse, I am thinking, " What's wrong with you?". She said that they are just going to hire someone to do it since he doesn't have time. I gave her the contact information for the guy that mowes at the end of the street. This must be a Millennial and Gen Z thing as non of them seem to want to mow there own yard.

So, I start looking in the house ( they are not house keepers ) and I see black specs on the ceiling and then flying insects. It appears that they have developed an insect problem. Okay, it happens. There are a lot of bugs down here. She said that she thought they were fruit flies and she did not know where they came from. She mentioned a remedy that she is going to try that her mother-n-law told her. I took a picture of one for further research. I finished inspecting the house, also looking for signs of unauthorized animals. Before I left, I had told her that I needed to come back for a reinspection in about a week to see that the flies were gone or she will need to hire pest control and also to see that the yard work is done. She had no problem with that and we set a time.

When I got back to the office I researched and found out that they are most likely fruit flies. I sent her an email with some information that I had found on line as well as tips from here and my own suggestions as how to get rid of them. I also put in the email a reminder of our next visit and about the lawn care.

On the bright side, we can communicate and get along, if I can get them to listen. I am being as polite and respectful as I can so as to keep the communication and relationship positive.

I don't want to beat you up but 6x your using C-19 and your past as a crutch. You have been on this site way to long to do this kind of STUFF. Plenty -- professional doesn't mean sometimes.

I don't control the star system and leave that to the owner of the site. I have mentioned, several times, that some who are posting as "pro's" and their words are deemed as gospel don't know-- as was stated in the movie The Jerk S**T from Shinola.

NE you are heading to he land of "if you tell the truth" your an iditol???

6x6,

NE,

6 er

You get bonus points for being humble and true to your roots. Now you need to hold your residents accountable and responsible.

Please let them know that you can reschedule. Let them know that two days before the inspection that if the lawn isn't mowed that you will need to collect the fee for hiring that out. You will be there to collect that fee during the inspection.

I don't expect that they will be too responsive. Why? There is a rule of management that they beat into your head when you make Chief Petty Officer: It is always easier to ease up on a standard than to buckle down.

I believe at this point, you need to see how they respond....but I am see a rough road ahead for both you and them. So let them know no one wins if they need to get booted out for not keeping the place up. Instead the prepaid rent will be used along with the deposit to reclaim damages.

6x6,

You've got an opportunity here to not only improve your management skills but make some extra money as well.

* Increase the rent and take over the yard work. They have demonstrated that they are not interested in it. Either do it yourself and pocket the money for doing this or find someone reliable and pay them and keep the difference between what you charge and what you pay the other guy. If you do it yourself, you'll quickly see what works and what does not. The end result will be a lawn that takes a minimum of time to cut and produces a good return for your time. Use the lawn to produce extra money for yourself.

* Require the tenant to keep the place free of pests OR you inspect and do the same thing as with the lawn. Raise the rent to cover it and hire someone and pocket the difference. Then you know it is done like you want and you make a profit.

When you use this approach, you will have better looking and cleaner, bug free places plus you will make extra money. When you get more units, the profits from this will go up. Use these profits to buy more places where ever you decide to do it.

Richard MI I think everyone does agree. We have rules and contract paragraphs-- along with common sense.

Don't fall back in to the pit with "I'm an easy mark" thinking.

Ya gotta be tough 6. You didn't come this far to slack off.

You can be a softy with family....

Thank you everyone for your honest answers and for your guidance. One thing that I really love about this forum is the ability to learn from others who are so much smarter and more experienced then myself. With that said, I probably should stop posting on here because it may be giving the impression to others that I am an experienced LL when I truly am not.

I mentioned "due to my back ground" to point to the fact of the way that I think and why that I do some of the things that I do even though I know better. It has a lasting effect on my life that is completely different then the professional world, that I so want to be a part of. It is something that I constantly have to work on and this forum and all of you awesome LL's help me do that. I will continue working on this and will reflect on the honesty to improve.

Ok, I don’t see a lot wrong with what you have done. I’m with Plenty and Richard. 6x6, you are salvaging the situation, and it wasn’t such a hot mess in the first place. Really, pretty little things, in my never humble opinion.

We already know you aren’t looking to be the next tycoon of real estate, more of a side hustle for you, and maybe a study in human behavior. That’s what I do.

Never confuse the boring but really solid LL advice on this board with the popularity contest some would like to run.

Most people can form their own opinion without our help. Its pretty easy to separate the practical from the political. I mostly read this forum for its entertainment value.

The nut jobs and the armchair constitutional scholars are no end of fun.

You sell our fellow landlords short NE. It takes about 5 minutes here to figure out what's what.

What does on-line dating and a Landlord site

have in common ?

Not many things are (truly) as they appear.

6 x 6,

I have helped many young people who rented our homes learn to be responsible tenants. Part of our training is the lease signing which is extremely long. :-) I would say at least an hour and I bring pizza and a G-rated beverage for them to enjoy later.

Most of our leasing is done without a person thanks to lockbox showings, and DocuSign etc, but we do like for a real live person to walk them through the home. We go over every single part of the lease and we walk them through the house and show them how to clean an air conditioner filter if it is a window unit, or how to replace the central air conditioner filter. I assume that they do not know how to do anything.

I have had calls from tenants who were complaining about insects and wanted to know when we were going to be over to fix it. I send them the appropriate documentation from the lease saying that they were responsible for keeping the home in the same pest-free condition that they found it in along with the contact information of several local pest control companies.

My initial instinct is to get way too personally involved and want to run right over and fix the problem. I am training myself to not be that person.

In our lease, we have a clause which says if the grass is over 6 in long or whatever that we will mow the grass and bill the tenant. In our lease signing I explained that I will not notify them when I am sending our mowing gentleman over. In practice, the first time I usually give a two days heads up. Once that heads up has happened it gets mowed and we bill them. That bill is due with the next rental cycle.

I too have had people with yards that were one foot tall very aggravated with me because I had their yard mowed and billed them, because they had mowed a 6-foot wide strip and they were "going to do the rest of it later". I am very polite, but just continue to refer back to the lease.

We had one gentleman pay rent one year in advance and we had no problems. We continued to do our twice yearly inspection and if we had found anything wrong, we would have had no problems asking him to leave and then refunding whatever was left of his prepaid rent.

You are very right about times changing. Frank Rolfe, the mobile home park guru, talks a lot about how mom-and-pop owners of mobile home parks have not kept up with the times and they are usually not as profitable as they could be because of that. They have become friends with the tenants and do not want to raise the rent because Mr or Mrs so-and-so cannot afford any extra. I am guilty of that myself. They have not kept up with technology, they are still going house-to-house collecting rent, they have not utilized the internet, they do not have a website, Etc.

I am trying not to be that mom-and-pop operator!

All the best!

About the fruit flies try adding a 1/2 cup of corn oil to drains that are seldom used to close the ability for laying eggs in the water - this is a popular breeding ground for insects of many varieties and easy to operate, unlike cooking grease it remains a liquid.

Thank you for the added suggestions and examples.

I was thinking along the lines of Vee and deducting from the prepaid amount and also trying to collect at that moment and keep the prepaid amount in tact, something that I will be pondering.

I actually spent about 3 hours going over the lease with them and pointed out things such as pest control and the lawn mowing. In fact I had one of them read it. Obviously that didn't go to plan. Sending them a copy of that part of the lease is a good idea.

6X6:

Some people are placing too much value on the stars. If a person has never been to this site before, they wouldn't even know what the stars mean. Does anyone even notice the stars?

Anyone who has spent more than two weeks on the internet already knows that not all the advice on the internet is good and that not everything read on the internet is true, so everything seen on the internet has to be evaluated for possible worth. If they are too dumb to understand that, they aren't going to last as a landlord and their failure has nothing to do with this site.

BTW, it does sound as if the landscape is too complicated for a rental. I loved to garden/ but even I have simplified. No more bushes that need frequent trimming, no fussy plants, and make the grass shape easy to mow.

Yes, the world is changing. There are more and more tenants who don't have any experience (or interest) in tending a lawn, changing filters, spraying for bugs, etc. We've been landlording for more than 30 years now, and the knowledge level and interest in minor home maintenance chores has definitely decreased. All of our SFH's are within 20 miles of our home, so we try to do drive-by's at least once a month to make sure at least the grass is being cut and the outside isn't junky. We go over all our expectations (which are spelled out in our lease) before we offer the property, and again at lease signing. For things like grass cutting, etc. we do say in the lease that if it's not done we will get it done and charge them for it. I think I'll add a penalty clause as some have suggested above.

6x now that so many have given their opinion (s) lets go back to your post. You seem to truly want to learn and from what I've seen over the year (s) is a willingness to do so.

I for one would print off your post. Using what you now know make comments to yourself as to what you did right and wrong. Particularly make comments about your injection of personal feelings when dealing with rentals and placing people in them.

I certainly agree getting 1 year rent up front is a winner BUT as you see it has consequences-- but those consequences have been exacerbated but you not acting-- whether paid up front or not you have obligations to your property.

When reading posts that say nothing wrong it makes me back up and wonder who's posting this.

This site is to AID LL's and future LL's not sugar coat or make a popularity contest for posters. It is also a site to help LL's not tenants with legal traps for LL's as has been recently posted by someone in CA. giving specific direction to a tenant on the steps to sue his LL.

Again not to beat you up (you have done enough of that to yourself) but to learn-- you have potential in my book.