A lawng mower story and landlord's dilemma Resolved

[lucian]

Well here I am again at a cross roads.  It all started this past spring spring when my tenant and I struck an agreement concerning the yard maintenance at our rental she has occupied for the last couple of years.  She has been an ok tenant , pays on time ect. but has not been exactly forthright on a couple occasions.  Last winter she did not touch a snow shovel once, and let the second exit become completely blocked,  even though that responsibility lay's with her in the original lease agreement.
 I finally had to bring my snowblower over to clear the back walk and exit. I soon found she had left three plant pots frozen solid under the snow on the walks which promptly destroyed the auger differential of my trusty Ariens. 
   This is what prompted the said , new agreement.  I was to take over all snow removal and in exchange, she would take over the lawn mowing in the summer, deal.
 The existing push mower was an old and dangerous affair.  It had holes rusted through the mowing deck that could have easily caused bodily harm and it was not easy to start and operate. Fine for me, for her not so much. I decided the right thing to do was to go and get her a nice new mower with auto choke and self propulsion and all the things that would keep her safe and the lawn mowed without incident.
 I was pleasantly surprised all this summer when I would drive by and observe what a good job she was doing keeping the grass cut nice. Seems we had a good arrangement.
  Untill,,,,,,,,,, The other day after winterizing a few bikes, an outboard motor, a pressure washer and a few other small engines I remembered the new Snapper at the rental unit and went over to pick it up and bring it home for a service and winterization.  There it was in the garage, looking like the brand  new machine I had left. The funny thing was there was another, brand new, push type reel mower next to it as well. I figured she must have bought it to not need to deal with gas and stuff when the lawn did n't require a power mower. What the hell, the grass got mowed , all good.
 Any way, I got it home and proceeded to fire it up and run some fuel stabilizer through the system. When I pulled the chord I instantly notice some ting wong.   All I got was cklunk, clunk ,clunk ,and then oil running out of the top of the motor down onto the deck, WTF over?
Onto the lift and out with the tools.
Well here'se what I found and it aint good.



It seems as though she must have hit a rock or a stump or something so hard it actually cracked the engine case / bearing boss right off. And It gets better.
The friggin thing stopped so quik that the inertia of the magneto nearly sheared the keyway in half. Holy crapp.



Digging further and to my disbelief, of course the crankshaft is friggin BENT! 



It can't get much worse right?  Wrong.  The sump pan is cracked as well and one motor mounting ear snapped right off. Jesus









 So,  the motor is junk as replacement cases are not  available even to a dealer,  new motor ? around 450 bucks.

Here is where it gets even more twisted. 
I thought , surely the blade must have a huge chunk out of it right?






Oh no, she had someone put a brand new blade on it. The thing still has the paint on the cutting edges.
This explains the new reel mower.
Give me a break, never said a word. After toasting a brand new commercial grade mower.
So here I am , at a cross road. What to do?
A   Call her Out?
B    Throw her out?  [ kidding)
C     suck it up , fix the damn thing and move along?
D     Up the rent ?
E      re negotiate the lawn/ snow agreement? 
     I really hate it when people duck and hide on shit like this. 

[LowRyter]

I'd raise the rent $50 and take care of the lawn work (and I've never run a snowblower, so whatta I know?).

Or I'd forget about it and not worry about the lawn maintenance. 

[oldbike54]

 Dunno , is she cute ? 

 Seriously , how hard would it be to find another tenant who would reliably pay the rent ? I might choose E .

 Dusty

[fotoguzzi]

Make her pay for the mower then make it into a lawn ornament in her front yard.

[Lannis]

Thanks, and thanks again for this experience.

It reinforces my lifelong decision to (despite opportunities) NEVER EVER EVER rent to anyone.   I don't even LEND any power equipment to anyone; anything I ever lend either doesn't come back, or comes back damaged or destroyed, sometimes along with the "friendship".

Several folks I worked with owned rental houses.   I would never on this earth, for any money, put up with the crap and the lying and cheating and thieving that I heard about almost every week .....

Lannis

[oldbike54]

 Then again , a friend in Tulsa owns like 100 rent houses , and very rarely has a problem with tenants . YMMV .

 Dusty

[Perazzimx14]

I'm with Lannis. I'd sell the rental and not worry with tenants, payment, grass mowing or snow removal. 

[Lannis]

I'm with Lannis. I'd sell the rental and not worry with tenants, payment, grass mowing or snow removal.

My mother-in-law was the resident manager for the apartment complex she lived in for 20 years, about 50 units.

She was in court every month to evict deadbeats, constantly sending dunning letters, finding apartments beat to pieces when the tenants left, getting calls about dripping faucets in the middle of the night ... and everyone was paying their own rent here, this wasn't Section 8 stuff.   

I lived in rented apartments for 3 years of the 42 I've been on my own until I could buy SOMETHING, ANYTHING, and I hated even being on the renter end .... !  Guess I'm just not suited for it ...

Lannis

[acogoff]

     Just write it off as an expense and move on, I say. No different than when I was farming for a living and having a rock run in the combine or some such unexpected $$$$$ happening. Just part of your rental business, it seems.

[calfruit]

At one time i had 9 rentals, for every good tenent, there are 1000 bad ones  out there. Seems like if they do not come to you, you find them somehow.  Currently i have one rental and my son and i are in the process of rebuilding it after kicking the last tenent out.   No more for me, i will either sell it or stock it up for monday night fooball with my pals.

[lucian]

Thank's guy's,  It's not the $ so much as the cover up that burns my ass.   That and a flame about three feet high. 

[Aaron D.]

I've rented a house out for the last 8-9 years. It isn't generally the horror that Lannis thinks it is but it isn't like living there myself.

Keep in mind it is your property. Also keep in mind that tenants, even good ones, may not have the coping skills you might hope for.

Frankly, if she broke the new mower she likely didn't know how to tell you and took the way out that she thought best. I would say if she pays her rent and did a decent job with the new reel mower, let her continue. Write off the old one and be thankful she pays.

Remember, you are the landlord, not the daddy. It isn't your job to teach.

[pebra]

She pays the rent on time, which is good.
She can't do any maintenance, so she must pay you to do it (or you have to do it for "free")
Is the rental ok otherwise, i.e. she's not damaging it in any way?

Not telling you about the damaged mower is a bad sign.
If she fesses up and apologises etc and pays for the damages on the mower and you come to terms on the maintenance, I'd give her one more chance.
You should not accept any lame excuses for those damages. Then you have to get her out.

We've done quite a bit of rental over 30 years, and haven't had much problems  -  some problems, but not much. You need to be principled and firm.
There certainly are some strange people out there… most are ok, though.

[lucian]

Yeh, I've got to re think this whole thing. Thank Christ she didn't  get her foot under it or get shrapnel injuries or something.  I 'd need a lawyer and a proctologist.

[RinkRat II]

  It's a business, period. You've been too lenient and have set a precedent you now have to live with. If she pays the rent on time and is agreeable to an increase if you do the landscaping, all is good. If not, put her on notice.  Just my $.02

      Paul B

[Turin]

If that's the worst of it, then you aren't doing too bad. I'd renegotiate the rental agreement and have the landscaping taken care of.

Two short nightmare stories I've witnessed.
 
1- a customer of mine had 3 rental houses. all had renter issues, but the worst was a tenant who had 20 more cats than what was allowed in the rental agreement ( and 1 cat box). He only found out after the neighbors complained to the police several times about the smell. Have you ever seen drywall disintegrate from pee saturation? The estimates to gut the house ranged between 30-40K if I remember correctly.

2- Years ago when I lived in Scottsdale, the lady who lived next door bought a second house and turned this one into a rental property after living there for two years. Her
 new tenants were the worst you can imagine. Two older parents with a meth problem, and 3 nightmare boys who would run amok at all hours of the night knocking over trash cans and other mischief . A couple of years later they were evicted and she showed me what they did to her house.
 Inside:
You would have sworn it was a halfway house for wayward racoons. The carpet in addition to being permanently stained various colors, had holes cut in it where they had placed their furniture ( mystery never solved) . The kitchen cabinets had holes in every place that a door wasn't missing and the uppers had been gutted as if someone had been sleeping in them . All of the doors had round holes in them at eye level height and the door knobs had been disabled with some sort of glue. I don't know what they ate, but the toilets had a permanent stain that acid wouldn't remove. I witnessed all of this AFTER two professional cleaning crews had come in and done their very best. You never want to see guys in hazmat suits leaving a property shaking their heads. As for the structure, there was no flat surface left unmarred or spared from their drug addled creativity.
 The Back Yard :
A little back story, the original owner was a good old guy who wad a 78 corvette pace car that looked like new. The perfectly manicured back yard was a small oasis with a custom pool with a pretty little waterfall. He sold it to the lady who ended up renting it out.
The pool water had been left to evaporate, and was replaced by 2x4s, Wal-Mart pallets and other scrap lumber of various lengths. The rest of the back yard was filled with sections of wrought iron fencing ( none matching any of the others ) and dozens of small appliances ( ovens, dishwashers, mini refrigerators ). The empty spots had bits of shopping carts placed to fill in the gaps. The block wall surrounding the back yard had to be demolished to extract this magnificent collection. The amazing part was I never noticed this stuff coming in, I'm sure nothing ever left unil the skid steers showed up. /she couldn't afford to put the block wall back up and had to go with a wood picket fence.

Your tenant seems incompetent when it comes to power tools. Not everybody gets to handle the chain saw.

[maquette]

If her lease is up, throw her out. Good renters aren't that hard to find in my experience.

[Ncdan]

I have had a rent house for 15 years and it's my feeling that no renters are perfect as people in general not always does the right thing. My renter pays the rent as we agreed too in the beginning and if he cant he lets me know and always catches up.  Our agreement is when little things go wrong he fixes it and gives me the bill unless it's major I'm not bothered with the trivial stuff. As far as push mowers goes, there are a dime a dozen around my area at yard sales for 25 bucks. I've got one now I've used for 15 years:)

[Lannis]

It isn't generally the horror that Lannis thinks it is .....

The experiences expressed on this thread aren't doing much to ease my mind on the subject .... !!    

[oldbike54]

 Geez , sounds like the only thing worse than being a landlord is being a Moto Guzzi dealer 

 Dusty

[John Ulrich]

Thank's guy's,  It's not the $ so much as the cover up that burns my ass.   That and a flame about three feet high.

She's probably clueless to the extent of damage.  It's not her thing to know mowers...... Just think how may motorcycle mechanics are "clueless" to Guzzi's  I've been "remodeling" a home for almost two years that had been owned by someone (gender not important) who was clueless to home upkeep.  Nothing wrong with that...as Clint Eastwood said... know your limitations.  But what's obvious for many of us is not for others. 

Renting a home.... not something I could do with my pickiness.

[John Croucher]

I stopped the bartering and trading deals.  You pay me rent, I pay you to remove snow, cut grass or other maintenance.  Or I pay someone else.  No reduction in rent, no trade offs.  You work, you get paid.  You pay the full amount of rent, I pay you to work or pay someone else to work.  No advances, no "I will work it off"  No workee, no payee. The only people I give credit to are people I have a voided check, ach agreement, state and federal tax i.d. number, copy of drivers license and tax exemption certificate on file. Keeps the deadwood out of my life.   

[John Croucher]

I've rented a house out for the last 8-9 years. It isn't generally the horror that Lannis thinks it is but it isn't like living there myself.

Keep in mind it is your property. Also keep in mind that tenants, even good ones, may not have the coping skills you might hope for.

Frankly, if she broke the new mower she likely didn't know how to tell you and took the way out that she thought best. I would say if she pays her rent and did a decent job with the new reel mower, let her continue. Write off the old one and be thankful she pays.

Remember, you are the landlord, not the daddy. It isn't your job to teach.

You are right.  There is a major battle for land in my County right now.  $14 Billion in rental income, $500 Million in profits in new home construction is up for grabs.  Our County is expected to grow by 50,000 in labor to work in River Ridge Commerce Center.  The Billionaires are fighting it out for land to build high density housing for low income workers.  Toyota Towers and Amazon Arms, Phase, 1, 2, 3, 4.

[Huzo]

Don't be too hard on her.
She is buying you a house. By the time she's paid it off for you, you can keep her there long enough to scrape another $450 then give her the arse..
Everyone's a winner...!

[Aaron D.]

The experiences expressed on this thread aren't doing much to ease my mind on the subject .... !!    

Us humans tend to think of the salient as the normal.

[toolittletime]

Thanks, and thanks again for this experience.

It reinforces my lifelong decision to (despite opportunities) NEVER EVER EVER rent to anyone.   I don't even LEND any power equipment to anyone; anything I ever lend either doesn't come back, or comes back damaged or destroyed, sometimes along with the "friendship".

Several folks I worked with owned rental houses.   I would never on this earth, for any money, put up with the crap and the lying and cheating and thieving that I heard about almost every week .....

Lannis

What he said!!!

[lucian]

Don't be too hard on her.
She is buying you a house. By the time she's paid it off for you, you can keep her there long enough to scrape another $450 then give her the arse..
Everyone's a winner...!

Unfortunatly Huzo,It's not the case with this rental.  The rent covers the taxes and utilities and maintenance.  She will have to be there another thirty five years to cover the cost of the renovations and mortgage.  I just bought the place as a project to renovate and flip but it became apparent that it would make a nice plan B for us someday when the time comes to downsize. We decided to try renting and so far it hasn't been too bad.  I'm just going to mow the lawn myself next year and cut my losses. I just got to wonder  after this,what else we don't know about.

[jwinwi]

Hoping that you inspect the inside of the unit periodically. I'm wondering what else she may have broken and covered up

[larrys]

I would buy one of those cheap ass Chinese Predator motors from Tractor Supply for $100 and put the machine back in operation. Get her to tell you what and where she hit and remove the offending object.
As others here have noted, YMMV.
Larry

[Kiwi_Roy]

What sort of a lawn has big rocks that wreck the mower?