if your tenant(s) are unable to use areas outside of their rental due to required maintenance? (Lease states areas outside of rental are given gratuitously)

if your tenants are unable to use a room in their unit because they chose to store belongings there because required maintenance was being done? (Shelving was provided to minimize the floor space used.), but tenant did not use it.

if your tenants had to relocate for a week due to a sewer backup caused by improper work done by a hired contractor. Tenant stayed at fiance's rental while she was out of town. Her rental is closer to tenant's place of employment than his current unit with us. He has not submitted additional expenses incurred.

Hey Oreo!

I am a little confused by the comments. Is this all one thing that has happened or a few things non-related to each other?

Jumping to the last sentence. If tenant is not complaining then all is good.

If tenant complains and wants reimbursement for loss of use then it seems you need to get with the contractor and file an insurance claim.

Now jumping to the first part. If you have a garage that you do not rent to them but allow them to store stuff in there. I had this with my first rental. I did not like the garage. It was leaning bad but I didn't have the funds to remove it at the time. Tenant's used it. Lease said they could not but I allowed it off the record. If they complained about not having access then I would have gone back to the lease.

Second on the list sounds like part of the dwelling was out of bounds due to a longer term maintenance task. Now it depends on the tenant and the reason for the loss of use. I had a roof leak bad enough that the ceiling came down in a bedroom. Tenants left the room closed, with all the stuff in there. I got the roof taken care of asap but didn't get to the room repair for a week or so. Got the new rock in, insulation replaced, and then worked on getting everything patched and painted.

If this is a long term resident, I tend to try and do the right thing for them even if I don't have to.

If they are a marginal TENANT, this would be the crack in the door to ask them to move out. Those are the two extreme situations. But what do you do for those in the middle? Well the answer is it depends. A good gesture goes a long way when things go wrong. Landlords historically have not done well with public relations.

I disagree with Ray on this one. A good gesture goes nowhere.

You may call this an update to the specific mold issue maintenance mentioned in previous posts. One maintenance issue with several different legs of maintenance.

ZERO: Hey ZERO! He does have a garage; I hadn't thought of that option he had. He only stores his motorcycle in there with loads of room to spare, and his car outside. He could have used his porch; some of his items stored in the room are porch furniture. Both those options would have freed up the room, and he could have used the porch. He is complaining about not being able to use the porch, the room, a basement storage area, and having to use his girlfriend's apartment for a week when she was not there. Using the options available to him, this problem would not exist. He who helps himself...

ADDITIONAL INFO: This is a two year tenant; marginal. By some of his actions it appears he has not read his lease. I've used the "If this isn't working for you, you may move without repercussions" three times he had complaints I had no control over. He didn't want to move but rather reimbursement. He had other options. I mentioned checking with his renter's insurance; not sure he has any. The drain tile company did something wrong causing an issue, as well as this tenant: wipes down the toilet that caused a backup. drain tile company didn't get the palmer valve on the floor drain, and got cement down the floor drain. Wipes from the tenant clogged in the system causing a sewer backup. The drain tile company took a look and said something was wrong. We hired 2 independent plumbers, one to remedy the backups, test the drain tile system and a larger company to excavate the floor, replace the floor drain and pipe with cement in it, replace the pipe so the sump pump would work. We did not have the drain tile company do the work as they weren't licensed to. They do not have a plumber on staff and you need to be licensed to do the work to fix their mistake.

I'm not sure what the situation is.

Basically, if they can't live there you should return a prorated portion of the rent for the days that the unit was uninhabitable. Depending upon what state you are in, you might be on the hook for a motel room.

Nope. No reimbursements. Stuff happens. I own my home and I don't get reimbursed by anyone (except my insurance agency) when my property becomes temporarily unusable due to maintenance issues, so why should a renter?

Property owners have a greater "bundle of rights" with a property, so if I can handle being denied my full rights for a time due to maintenance, so can a tenant. After all, they're simply renting SOME (not all) of the bundle of rights from me. Why would they deserve more rights than I deserve?

I recommend studying up on the legal definition of the bundle of rights. It will help clarify a lot of situations beyond this one. Just because a person rents doesn't mean he is entitled to everything being perfect, or he gets some/all of his money back.

I think Moshe is (was?) the only person here who ever suggested that tenants should be comp'd any time the property suffered a 0.0005% usability diminishment temporarily.

SFH? Plumbing worked fine before? Plumbers found wipes in the drain?

Oops, I missed the part about wipes in the drain in your follow up.

Yeah, that's definitely a NO-GO. No comps and tenant gets the bill for repairs. I also add a 10% surcharge (Admin Fee) for work that has to be performed during and after the tenancy as a result of damages, misuse, abuse or neglect. Think of all the hassle you've had to deal with over this. Time and mental energy that could and should have been spent enjoying your own things and people. There needs to be compensation for you having to solve their problems.

I like several ideas so far. Upgrading my lease this year and will be adding many of them!

SID: The admin fee yes; has anyone had pushback on this?

SISCO: Yes, not only is there a shortage and incompetence; this was a 5-star company touted as southeastern WI TOP drain tile company.