rental homes

[Greg Loe]

Owner calls to have carpet cleaned, back door unlocked, just clean carpet.

You go and find they just finished fixing it back up for the next renter. Drywall chunks, putty on carpet, nails and screws, trash from their lunch, paint buckets, left over drywall strips. :x :x :x :x :x :x :x :x

I'm there to clean the carpet, not to do construction clean up. I'll clean it up if that's what the owner wants$$$$$. But can't get a hold of him. :x :x :x :x .

I just walked till I can talk to the owner later. I hate charging a trip charge because you don't want to lose future jobs, but oh well, he's getting one.

 

[Bruce Humphrey]

Tell the land lord your price for cleaning carpet , then tell him if you have to clean up construction mess that his 3rd handy man did not clean up you will have to charge him extra. I ran into this same problem just this year when I started cleaning for a new land lord.

 

[Brad_Smith]

I do lots of rentals. If it will take more than 5 minutes to clean up I'm gone. Only 1 in a hundred require 5 minutes of clean up. Drive time doesn't matter too much since I run a make shift route. They will just have to wait til next time.

 

[kmdineen]

Construction clean up is not included in our maintenance cleaning charge. I would charge an extra $25, $50 or $75 dollars depending on the size of the mess. The landlord will have no trouble passing the charge back to the construction company. Each trade should be responsible for their own house keeping, whether they do it or pay someone else to do it.

 

[Brian R]

I would charge also to clean it up.
If you can't get ahold of him then just do the job.
If he complains about the charge, I would let it slide this time and let him know what will happen next time.

I am not a house cleaner either, but a little clean up sometimes can be common with prop managers.

 

[Scott S.]

take pics, clean it up charge $100 per hr 2 clean up take after pics. i almost always take pics.

 

[Jimmy L]

They really like it when you gather their stuff and THROW it in the bathroom.

They quickly learn.

 

[RandyHilburn]

Greg,

No doubt that arriving to such unexpected conditions was highly irritating!

After running into several similar situations, I subsequently began explaining to the prospective client about our Trip Charge and the general conditions that triggered such charges (e.g., lock-outs, no power, etc). Once I worked this information into my regular phone speech, I started having fewer problems.

Today, we carry a leaf rake, broom, dust pan and some trash bags on our trucks. When we run into rentals that require additional carpet clean up we immediately take pictures and then call the owners. If the owners answer, we give them a new price based on the conditions. If they are not available, we rake things up and place in trash bags - and then proceed to clean the carpet as previously requested.

When supported with photos, we've found that we have a better chance of getting paid for doing the previously unrequested clean-up (prior to steam cleaning the carpet) than we did of getting paid for the Trip Charge without cleaning the customer's carpet. On our invoice, we list this service as a separate charge called: "Prerequisite Services" and then explain what needed to be done in order to clean the carpet (attach photos) and send them the bill which includes a reasonable charge for doing the carpet cleaning prep work. [We do only what's necessary to make carpet cleaning possible].

In the future, should you decide not to do the janitorial carpet prep work, I'd still recommend that you take and attach photos when you submit your Trip Charge invoice. We use the cameras on our Blackberry phones and then email the pictures to our office and/or client. If you are really sophisticated, you can upload a YouTube mini movie of the conditions for your landlord's viewing pleasure.

 

[Jimmy L]

Talking to your slum lord "Clients".


Oh you're from Mississippi now I understand.

 

[RandyHilburn]

Careful there Jimmy. Does a Nebraskan have room to be pok'en fun at Mississippi? Well, maybe.

Anyway, our company does the full cleaning and restoration of thousands of rental units each year. The sheer volume of rental work we now do has brought a new level of appreciation for rental property clients in general.

My observation is that the move-out conditions left by the average Mississippi tenant is really quite stunning. My guess is that the deposit seldom covers the restoration cost.

Landlords that are actively managing the activities and trades people in each of their rentals get better results than the landlord's who manage rental property on a part-time basis. Painters, electricians, tile layers and various trades people will absolutely throw their containers, paint buckets, mud, empty boxes and trash on the floor and/or carpet without conscious. I've seen painters scrape onions from their lunch hamburgers directly on newly layed carpet and then walk on them and grind them in over the course of their day. I've seem plumbers dry their nasty hands on clean carpet fibers.

Other than 'trust' that the trades people would not damage the property they were being paid to work on, the client did nothing to contribute to the conditions discovered when our carpet cleaner arrived.

 

[Jimmy L]

What do they say when yous calls them "Clients"?

 

[RandyHilburn]

Don't know what they'd say, 'cause we calls them by their names!