To manage your investment property effectively, you must ensure that the tenants are satisfied, and handling common tenant complaints properly. Because dissatisfied tenants won’t renew leases. It means a lot of work for property managers and owners to find new tenants, or the money won’t keep coming.
Additionally, long vacancy periods reduce rental income, and you may still have to pay for utilities and other costs that the tenant pays typically. However, resolving common tenant complaints is an unavoidable aspect of being a landlord.
The questions are: How quickly and efficiently do you handle common tenant complaints? How long can you retain your tenants? We know that tenants that don’t feel their concerns are more likely to move out. Fortunately, a tenant complaint can be classified into different categories.
This article discusses how to handle common tenant complaints.
Here are some common tenant complaints and how to handle them.
Common tenant complaints: Maintenance Issues
It is one of the most common tenant complaints. Tenants will, of course, be very dissatisfied with their living situation when they feel that maintenance is being performed incorrectly or taking too long. We all know that many tenants have had negative experiences with low-class service and slow order fulfillment. How you handle maintenance is an essential aspect of your business.
Remember the two critical components of good service; responsiveness and provider validation. Responsiveness in the sense that landlords will have time to hear their tenants, and on the other side, provider validation so that landlords will not just ignore what their tenants want to say. You should know how to handle maintenance requests, who to contact, and where to place work orders for tenants.
Common tenant complaints: Dealing with Noisy Neighbor
When someone complains about another tenant’s loud music, animal, or loud chattering, you should begin by directly addressing the tenants separately to avoid misunderstanding. If you don’t handle complaints properly, you might lose a tenant or cause trouble with the others. You can’t tell a person who complains about noisy neighbors that they are to blame because, in the first place, that person didn’t want to be disturbed by those rude people.
Nevertheless, the most manageable situation is when the disruptive neighbor is your tenant. The lease likely includes a section governing noise. In those cases, town regulation enforcement intervention is the fastest and most straightforward manner to clear up the issue. After all, if your tenants do not stop destructive behavior, you may consider eviction.
Common tenant complaints: Lack of Privacy
Privacy is an essential matter for a person. Tenants usually become unhappy when property managers pay too much or too little attention. It’s not just a matter of respect and courtesy. By law, tenants must be notified at least 24 hours before check-in. Please make sure that tenants are notified and always report visits in advance; on the other hand, direct emergencies and property hazards are the exceptions.
To avoid confusion and let people know that you are using a traceable method, everyone is strongly encouraged to use one. It will help prevent disputes and complaints from future tenants.
Pest-related Complaints
Few tenants will put up with problems for very long, but nothing can make you lose good tenants faster than a pest infestation from bed bugs to cockroaches to termites to rats. Try to find out who the best exterminators are in your area. Don’t wait until someone complains about pests to do anything. Write down their contact information so you can reach them whenever you need to.
When a tenant contacts you with a pest complaint, take action immediately. They will feel the care and importance at this point, so they will choose to stay in the apartment. Get in touch with the pest control company and let the renter know when to expect a visit.
In some cases, tenant complaints about pets include dogs, barking, and aggressive behavior. If your dog is barking, handle the problem the same way you handle the noise problem. First, you should try a peaceful settlement. However, if the dog owner can’t stop their dog from barking, the problem is logged with a warning. If the situation continues, you may send a written notice that eventually leads to an eviction.
Aggressive behavior in dogs requires prompt treatment. Let’s say a renter feels unsafe because an animal could be dangerous. At this point, the owner must take immediate action to fix the problem. If the problem isn’t fixed within a week, the owner must give a written warning and legally contact the city.
Complaints About Odor
All of us hate bad smells. Smell problems are not only an external irritant; they can also be an obvious sign of a more insidious room problem. Whatever the source, we want to respond to tenant odor complaints as quickly as possible for the health and well-being of both tenants and the building.
When a tenant complains of an odor coming from plumbing or bathroom, it needs investigation as quickly as possible- this could be when a blockage or other problem is causing and exacerbating the scent.
Also, it’s not uncommon for people who live close to other people to smell food being cooked on the stove. By being close to your neighbors, they can get into mechanical ventilation systems and spread to large areas. As a result, you can smell the constant cooking.
It is extremely difficult to contain or prevent this in a multi-layered environment, so high intolerance is essential when people of diverse ethnic backgrounds prepare hard-smelling.
Difficulty in Reaching You
As a landlord, the second part applies to you. If it’s hard for your tenant to get in touch with you, it could lead to misunderstandings. And late responses are among the most frequent complaints from tenants, and for a good reason. It’s especially sad to hear that tenants aren’t getting a response when they try to talk to you about the property. Even though it’s your property, we’re talking about where they live.
As the solution, hiring a skilled janitor or caretaker at a reasonable rent is the key to success. Someone who cannot miss out on phone calls. And always remind the one you assigned who asks for a good time to enter the unit and get clear information.
TO WRAP THINGS UP…
In the end, the tenant’s dissatisfaction is unavoidable. No matter what kind of complaint you get, remember that one of the main reasons your tenants will stay is because they will feel like their complaints are being heard. Also, getting back to them as soon as possible helps tenants and landlords get to know each other. It’s also one way to get your tenants to trust you.
Moreover, don’t ever ignore them; it will cause misunderstanding, leading to complications. And make it a habit to inform your tenants about your steps to feel that you respect their privacy.
Even if you have a good plan to stop tenant complaints and address their concerns, some will still happen. Tenants need to feel like someone is helping them solve their problems, and they expect landlords to make their lives easier by giving them a comfortable home where they can breathe easily and rest after a long day. Keep in mind that if you want to keep more tenants, you should handle common tenant complaints quickly, efficiently, and in the right way.
