Renter's rat damage

[Retch The Grate]

We've got a rat living under our patio, saw it standing on the patio in broad daylight once. Dog hasn't caught it yet, which is good, since in a fight I'd put my money on the 1lb rat over the 19lb dog. The rats are better neighbors if they are still under there than the skunk. Not that the skunk does anything bad (aside from spraying that aforementioned 19lb dog once), but it smells so intensely that when it comes over for a visit and ends up crashing under the patio, we suffer inside the house.

 

[TwoByFour]

Renter's insurance will have a deductible, which the renter would then want you to pay, so RI won't really get you out of all liability.

My suggestion: (1) split the cost of the couch. Realistically, I think you both share some responsibility in this. (2) Change the lease to either disallow pets, or to require a bump in rent to cover things like this, and (3) tell the renter that if they want the 50% cost of a new sofa, they must accept the new lease.

 

[ivinsfan]

Renter's insurance will have a deductible, which the renter would then want you to pay, so RI won't really get you out of all liability.

My suggestion: (1) split the cost of the couch. Realistically, I think you both share some responsibility in this. (2) Change the lease to either disallow pets, or to require a bump in rent to cover things like this, and (3) tell the renter that if they want the 50% cost of a new sofa, they must accept the new lease.

I'm curious why you think the renter is 50% at fault..

 

[TwoByFour]

I'm curious why you think the renter is 50% at fault..

The owner had a house that was not rat-proof, but the renters attracted the rats, by leaving dog food out, even after being asked not to. Ergo, 50/50 split.

As an aside, rats are extremely devious and it is hard to make a house 100% rat proof. We had a rat problem years ago because they climbed a tree, jumped on our roof, chewed through the roof vent screens and got into our attic.

 

[travelover]

The owner had a house that was not rat-proof, but the renters attracted the rats, by leaving dog food out, even after being asked not to. Ergo, 50/50 split.

As an aside, rats are extremely devious and it is hard to make a house 100% rat proof. We had a rat problem years ago because they climbed a tree, jumped on our roof, chewed through the roof vent screens and got into our attic.

No house is rat proof. If you attract them with a food source they will find a way in. They are very strong chewers and can chew through screen, drywall and wood. And they don't just show up one day and trash a couch - there is more to that story than the renters are letting on.

 

[ivinsfan]

The owner had a house that was not rat-proof, but the renters attracted the rats, by leaving dog food out, even after being asked not to. Ergo, 50/50 split.

As an aside, rats are extremely devious and it is hard to make a house 100% rat proof. We had a rat problem years ago because they climbed a tree, jumped on our roof, chewed through the roof vent screens and got into our attic.

That's one devious rat, but just to be devil's advocate,what did you leave laying about your home that made the rates decide to enter.


Did you happen to notice in the first post all the attic insulation had to be replaced because it was contaminated by rat droppings? Obviously it was a long standing issue...

 

[ivinsfan]

No house is rat proof. If you attract them with a food source they will find a way in. They are very strong chewers and can chew through screen, drywall and wood. And they don't just show up one day and trash a couch - there is more to that story than the renters are letting on.

He said it was around two weeks so it's possible if the rat was nesting this could have happened. You said yourself they can chew thru anything.

Unfortunately for the OP since he didn't call an exterminator he's pretty much on the hook for the new couch. As least he can probably deduct it as a business expense.

 

[scrinch]

So, I wouldn't be so hard on the OP - I suspect there is more to the story that would implicate the tenants for encouraging rats to live in the area.

Well, thanks for the benefit of the doubt, travelover. And I guess you are right to a certain extent. My DW and the property manager got together a chronology of the problem last night, pulling together all the texts and emails that had flown around over the past couple of months. Of course these things are all news to me. I was just told to go deal with the situation when the rats had chewed through the sofa, not during the previous pre-crisis month!

As it turns out several abortive/ineffectual attempts were made to bring an exterminator in earlier. First the renter said she would have a "friend" in the business deal with the problem. He came, looked the place over, and said he would provide a quote for the pest work, but he never followed through to provide the quote. Once it became clear that this guy wasn't going to provide a solution, the property manager sent over her handyman to patch up a few spots that the first guy had identified as possible entry points. But following this the tenants continued to see and hear evidence of rats, so a second pest company was called. A week passed while this company tried to coordinate a time that they could come over when the tenant was available at home. It was at the end of this week that the sofa incident occurred and I was asked to take a look. We then contacted a third pest company, I met them at the property a couple of days later (with the tenant's permission), and we had the trapping and exclusion work done the following week. And during all this time, the property manager had provided rat traps to the tenant.

So I guess there was work going on to try to resolve the rat issue behind the scenes (as it should be since we hired a property manager so that we didn't have to deal with broken water heaters, collecting rent, and rat infestations) for a month or so prior to the sofa issue.

I'm not sure how all this impacts responsibility for the damage, though, if at all.

 

[ivinsfan]

Your condensed version left a lot of detail out. I think the property manager handled it fine. Clear breakdown of communications combined with the unfortunate purchase of a new sofa. Once the tenant injected herself into the process the time lag is kind of her issue.


Having said that What are you thinking of doing about the sofa? The wrong kind of person could trash your place out of spite.

 

[tb001]

A handyman is not a solution to a rat problem. Rats INSIDE a house should have been escalated to a pest control company immediately. We live in the west coast and rodents have become a massive problem in the last 5 years or so. If they actually saw a rat, it’s much worse than just that rat and while the food source isn’t helping, if the rats can get in they will, food source or not.

Your property management company should be paying for the sofa.

 

[scrinch]

Your condensed version left a lot of detail out. I think the property manager handled it fine. Clear breakdown of communications combined with the unfortunate purchase of a new sofa. Once the tenant injected herself into the process the time lag is kind of her issue.

Having said that What are you thinking of doing about the sofa? The wrong kind of person could trash your place out of spite.

Yeah, well I didn't know all the detail until last night. Nor did my DW. We never got a full accounting of what had been done and when from the property manager until last night.

My tendency is to offer to pay for the sofa and be done with it. But I do feel like we as owners have done nothing wrong here. We never told anyone to delay or scrimp in resolving the problem. We've always been willing to pay whatever it takes to deal with it. And we pay a property manager precisely to deal with problems like this. It wasn't our place to jump in and deal with it ourselves. We just happen to be the financial backstop that will have to cover for the delays and miscues that resulted in $2000 of damage.

 

[ivinsfan]

Yeah, well I didn't know all the detail until last night. Nor did my DW. We never got a full accounting of what had been done and when from the property manager until last night.

My tendency is to offer to pay for the sofa and be done with it. But I do feel like we as owners have done nothing wrong here. We never told anyone to delay or scrimp in resolving the problem. We've always been willing to pay whatever it takes to deal with it. And we pay a property manager precisely to deal with problems like this. It wasn't our place to jump in and deal with it ourselves. We just happen to be the financial backstop that will have to cover for the delays and miscues that resulted in $2000 of damage.

I agree with you that you and the property manager did nothing wrong. You could offer to pay for half the sofa, but I'm not certain 1000 bucks is worth having your tenant feel destructive. Only you can decide that.....

 

[MichaelB]

I’ve lived more years as a renter than an owner, and can’t imagine this being anything other than an owner responsibility. With rats in the picture there may be health code violations, and damaged furniture is not the worst that can happen.

Tenants have obligations, but in this case it’s to step aside and let management deal with the infestation. The contract should include some language allowing the owner / manager to enter the premise on demand if there are health or safety issues. Any disagreement or difficulty by the tenant should be seen as a violation of the contract.

IMO it sounds like the property manager was not on top of this. This is part of their job. Does the contract include any language regarding liability?

 

[ivinsfan]

I’ve lived more years as a renter than an owner, and can’t imagine this being anything other than an owner responsibility. With rats in the picture there may be health code violations, and damaged furniture is not the worst that can happen.

Tenants have obligations, but in this case it’s to step aside and let management deal with the infestation. The contract should include some language allowing the owner / manager to enter the premise on demand if there are health or safety issues. Any disagreement or difficulty by the tenant should be seen as a violation of the contract.

IMO it sounds like the property manager was not on top of this. This is part of their job. Does the contract include any language regarding liability?

I think the property manager did OK, but man the things you have to think of ahead of time. Since it was a code and safely issue the OP should pay up but clearly tell the property manager in the future you handle issues like this and don't let the tenant get involved. In hindsight the manager should have said this is an urgent issue, I have a company I work this and I will take care of getting it fixed. I never heard of any issue that didn't get bogged down when a third party stepped in.

 

[Bestwifeever]

I think your property manager was doing a lot of CYA in that report. Why let the tenant handle it at the beginning? Why couldn’t he meet the pest control company and let them in if the tenant couldn’t coordinate a time to take off work to be there, just as you did? It’s a property maintenance issue that the manager should have taken care of.

Rats. Ick.

 

[ivinsfan]

I think your property owner was doing a lot of CYA in that report. Why let the tenant handle it at the beginning? Why couldn’t he meet the pest control company and let them in if the tenant couldn’t coordinate a time to take off work to be there, just as you did? It’s a property maintenance issue that the manager should have taken care of.

Rats. Ick.

Ick yes and if I had a rat problem it wouldn't take me a week to coordinate a time when I was "available" to the pest control company. I'd make myself available or ask the property manger to troubleshoot without me.


The tenant is not completely blameless for the fact their sofa got munched on..and I'm not certain their dog wasn't having "fun" with a new piece of furniture.

 

[DFDubb]

It's very obvious if a dog destroyed the outside of a couch or a rat destroyed the inside. This is a silly point to be debating.

In light of the new info, I'd be firing my property manager after they paid for the couch. Why are they letting the tenant control this? If I called my appt office and told them there was a rat infestation, they aren't just going to let me call "my guy in the biz" to handle it.

 

[jollystomper]

In my view, your real issue is with the property manager, not the tenant. As a tenant, if I notify the property manager regarding the presence of rats, I expect pest control as the first response and the property manager to coordinate things, not just putting out a few traps and expecting the renter to to this.

The property manager, in my view, is playing you and the tenant off of each other, and saying "not my circus, not my monkeys".

My approach would be to pay the tenant's couch, and see if you can withhold/negotiate this from the property manager when the contract is up for renewal, or look for a new property manager.

 

[Amethyst]

It was not your tenant's job to deal with rats; it was her job to contact the PM and let the PM deal with them.

Your PM fell down on the job to both you and the tenant. One, rat traps to the tenant are not an adequate response. And two, not notifying you at once that there was a reported infestation in your valuable property. Even if it was just mice, you should have been informed right away.

We had a distant rental under property management for many years. The PM was extremely responsive to tenant calls. PMs usually have a "stable" of tradespeople they always call. For mice, let alone rats, she would have had an exterminator in the unit right away, and we would have heard about it as soon as she got a treatment plan and estimate (i.e. "We need more money from you than we have in reserves.") And THEN we would have heard about it from the HOA, who were a bunch of old ladies (of both sexes) with nothing else to do. So we would not have been able to go in blissful ignorance for more than about one day from the first tenant alarm.

Yes, your tenant needed to be more careful about picking up the dog dish and locking dry food in rodent-proof containers; that's just commonsense housekeeping, taking care of the landlord's property as if it were your own, etc. But that's way secondary to the main job, calling in pest control. Any decent exterminator would call attention to food being left out.

As for who's responsible for the chewed sofa, if it WAS the rats, it's the PM's fault but good luck getting anything out of them. If there's any way to prove it was the tenant's dog, it's the tenant's worry...but good luck proving that.

I wish I had better news for you, for despite my hard tone, as a former landlord I am sympathetic. It seems like such an easy way to get money, until suddenly it isn't.

 

[ivinsfan]

It's very obvious if a dog destroyed the outside of a couch or a rat destroyed the inside. This is a silly point to be debating.

In light of the new info, I'd be firing my property manager after they paid for the couch. Why are they letting the tenant control this? If I called my appt office and told them there was a rat infestation, they aren't just going to let me call "my guy in the biz" to handle it.

I don't think the OP ever said if it was the inside or outside just said the cushions were damaged....I would think a rat will pull stuffing out of the bottom of the couch from underneat, but thankfully I have no personal experience with dog or rat damage..

 

[ivinsfan]

In my view, your real issue is with the property manager, not the tenant. As a tenant, if I notify the property manager regarding the presence of rats, I expect pest control as the first response and the property manager to coordinate things, not just putting out a few traps and expecting the renter to to this.

The property manager, in my view, is playing you and the tenant off of each other, and saying "not my circus, not my monkeys".

My approach would be to pay the tenant's couch, and see if you can withhold/negotiate this from the property manager when the contract is up for renewal, or look for a new property manager.

Apparently the renter said they wanted use a friend in the business so it was the tenant's idea but I suspect in the future this will be non-starter.

 

[DFDubb]

I don't think the OP ever said if it was the inside or outside just said the cushions were damaged....I would think a rat will pull stuffing out of the bottom of the couch from underneat, but thankfully I have no personal experience with dog or rat damage..

You're right, I just went back and re-read the original post. He didn't specify. As someone who's had a couch destroyed by a dog, it's still easy to tell if it was done by a mouse or a dog.

 

[ivinsfan]

You're right, I just went back and re-read the original post. He didn't specify. As someone who's had a couch destroyed by a dog, it's still easy to tell if it was done by a mouse or a dog.

I guess it depends if your dog had good manners and leaves you a place to sit on said couch... no you're not beating your head against the wall,other posters mentioned earlier it might be a pet problem. It was rat too, but believe me I couldn't sit on a couch if I had to worry about getting a rat in my pocket...

 

[Amethyst]

The PM should not have allowed this unless they could vouch for the "friend's" business.

If the PM did allow it, the PM owed it to the owner to check back within a reasonable time (say, a week) to ensure that the "friend" was on the job.

After all, the friend's bill would be paid by the landlord; the landlord's job, when there is a PM, is to pay bills. The care of the property is the PM's paid responsibility. Many standard leases allow tenants to make minor repairs, but rat control is not minor.

Apparently the renter said they wanted use a friend in the business so it was the tenant's idea but I suspect in the future this will be non-starter.

 

[Jerry1]

I’m in agreement with many that this is the PM’s fault. Beyond all that has been mentioned, I couldn’t imagine being handed a rat trap or even told to monitor it. Also these week long timeframes would never fly. As a tenant, I’d want action in hours then some daily contact until the problem was solved. Seriously, wouldn’t a relationship with a pest guy be one of the basic must haves to call yourself a PM?