We've owned a small half-duplex home for the past 7 years in the town where our main residence is located. While we lived overseas (2011-2016) we rented out our main house and used the duplex for seasonal housing when we visited in the summer and at Christmas. Our DD also lived there for a couple of years after finishing college and getting established with a local nursing job. After we moved back from overseas we moved in there for a few months while we did minor renovations on our main house. For the past 22 months, we've rented out the unit. We're currently on our second set of renters.
During the first 6 years of our ownership of this place, we never saw any evidence of rats, but we did occasionally see mouse droppings on the kitchen floor, so we left baited traps behind the fridge and beneath the range and we caught 2-3 mice during that time. The first set of renters never mentioned either mice or rats. A couple of months ago the second set of renters complained of seeing a rat in the kitchen. Our property manager took a few rat traps over to the house and baited and set them. They caught a couple of rats and for the next month all seemed well. Then the renter went out and bought a nice new sectional sofa for the living room, and within a couple of weeks, called up the property manager crying that the rats had ruined her new furniture.
Somehow I got called to go take a look at the damage, and sure enough the rat(s) had taken a good chunk out of just about every section and cushion in the sofa, presumably to build a nest somewhere. In response to this we've hired a pest service to go around the house and close all possible entry points, suck out all the blown-in insulation in the attic (which they said was contaminated), and set traps for any rats that may still be inside. The cost of this service was about $2500.
So my question is, what responsibility do we as owners have regarding replacement of the damaged new sofa? We've pretty well agreed that what attracted the rats was the plateful of wet and dry dog food that was perpetually left on the kitchen floor for the tenant's small dog. We asked the tenant several times not to leave the food out like that, but until the sofa incident, they didn't comply. When I took out the dishwasher to replace the power cable and drain hose that had been chewed through, I found a large hoard of dry dog food and rat droppings behind it. We're pretty sure that's what the rats were after. Still, I feel that we have some obligation to provide a pest-free environment for the tenants to live in.
The tenant thinks we the owners should pay to replace the sofa. The property manager thinks the tenant should replace it herself because she wasn't diligent with the traps and with the dog food. My DW thinks all three parties should share in the replacement since neither the renter nor the property manager was diligent in fully dealing with the problem, and the buck stops with us to deal with at least a part of the problem. What are your thoughts? BTW we are in California and the sofa cost around $2000 at Macy's.
During the first 6 years of our ownership of this place, we never saw any evidence of rats, but we did occasionally see mouse droppings on the kitchen floor, so we left baited traps behind the fridge and beneath the range and we caught 2-3 mice during that time. The first set of renters never mentioned either mice or rats. A couple of months ago the second set of renters complained of seeing a rat in the kitchen. Our property manager took a few rat traps over to the house and baited and set them. They caught a couple of rats and for the next month all seemed well. Then the renter went out and bought a nice new sectional sofa for the living room, and within a couple of weeks, called up the property manager crying that the rats had ruined her new furniture.
Somehow I got called to go take a look at the damage, and sure enough the rat(s) had taken a good chunk out of just about every section and cushion in the sofa, presumably to build a nest somewhere. In response to this we've hired a pest service to go around the house and close all possible entry points, suck out all the blown-in insulation in the attic (which they said was contaminated), and set traps for any rats that may still be inside. The cost of this service was about $2500.
So my question is, what responsibility do we as owners have regarding replacement of the damaged new sofa? We've pretty well agreed that what attracted the rats was the plateful of wet and dry dog food that was perpetually left on the kitchen floor for the tenant's small dog. We asked the tenant several times not to leave the food out like that, but until the sofa incident, they didn't comply. When I took out the dishwasher to replace the power cable and drain hose that had been chewed through, I found a large hoard of dry dog food and rat droppings behind it. We're pretty sure that's what the rats were after. Still, I feel that we have some obligation to provide a pest-free environment for the tenants to live in.
The tenant thinks we the owners should pay to replace the sofa. The property manager thinks the tenant should replace it herself because she wasn't diligent with the traps and with the dog food. My DW thinks all three parties should share in the replacement since neither the renter nor the property manager was diligent in fully dealing with the problem, and the buck stops with us to deal with at least a part of the problem. What are your thoughts? BTW we are in California and the sofa cost around $2000 at Macy's.
