10 Repairs that aren’t your Landlord’s Responsibility
Find out who is responsible for repairs and maintenance in your rented home.
As a tenant you’re typically not responsible for any major home improvements for your rental home, such as repairing a leaky roof or updating carpets and appliances. However, not all damages to the home are your landlord’s responsibility. Below is a list of some home repairs that aren’t your landlord’s responsibility, so you should be prepared to handle them.
1. Replacing light bulbs, batteries, and HVAC filters
During the course of your tenancy, failed light bulbs are a tenant’s responsibility to change. The same is true for replacing batteries for smoke and CO2 detectors. Tenants are also required to replace air filter in HVAC systems every few months or so (sometimes filters will be provided by the landlord). It’s important to check whether this in your lease to avoid confusion about who’s supposed to handle what part of the home’s safety and upkeep.
2. Unclogging backed-up drains that you caused
Never throw potato skins or egg shells down the garbage disposal if you don’t want to clog the sink. When this happens, it won’t be the responsibility of the landlord anymore. The same goes when foreign items are flushed down the toilet. Unclog it yourself or call a plumber before the clog turns into a bigger problem. While you’re at it, practice other cleaning habits, too, such as removing hair from drains to keep pipes in working order. If your landlord ends up doing this for you, they have every legal right to demand payment from you for the maintenance.
3. Pest infestations
Make sure that the house you’re moving into doesn’t have any existing pest infestation problems before signing the lease. Don’t just take the landlord’s word for it — verify this on your own!
Once you move in, you’ll often be responsible for any subsequent pest problems due to your lack of cleanliness or improperly leaving garage outside.
Termites, on the other hand, can infest any building regardless of your living habits. Pest issues like this will be shouldered by the landlord.
4. Lawn care and snow shoveling at single-family homes
Unless your landlord agreed to handle the mowing and snow shoveling in the single-family home you’re renting, you really need to get out there and do it yourself. While you can put off mowing the lawn for a few days, most cities require sidewalks be shoveled within a few hours after a snowstorm stops. Failure to take care of the lawn or snow may result in fines from the city, that the landlord can charge you for.
If you’re renting in a multi-unit residence, the landlord will usually address the lawn, but not always the snow. So check your lease agreement to confirm what you need to do.
5. Negligence resulting in damage to the property
Good tenants take responsibility for damages caused by their own negligence. Your landlord is not responsible for your clumsiness or even that of your family members or guests. If your kids draw on the walls, someone puts a hole in a wall or breaks a window, you are responsible for the damage. If you don’t repair the issue in a professional manner, the landlord can legally have it repaired and bill you for the cost.
6. Carpet cleaning and repainting
Carpeting should last 5-7 years, so don’t expect your landlord to replace it if you caused the damage or wore it out faster. The same goes for paint, which should last 3-5 years.
If you choose to repaint during your tenancy, be sure to repaint to the original color(s) when you move out. Remember to contact your landlord before doing any painting and get any agreements or approvals in writing.
7. Damages caused by pets
Although most pet owners are responsible tenants, property damages caused by pets often occur. Tenants can be held legally responsible for most types of pet damages including: scratch marks around the house, chewed wooden fixtures or trim, carpet odors and destroyed landscaping.
8. Malfunction of appliances due to misuse
If any appliance in your rental just stops working, let your landlord know ASAP. Often, they are responsible for appliance repair or replacement. However, if the tenant used the appliances improperly, that shifts the responsibility to them. The rule with appliances in your rental is simple: you break it, you fix it.
9. Holes in the wall from frames and shelving installed by tenants
Note: Holes in the walls are not wear and tear. The tenant is responsible for repairing any holes he or she has made, even if that means using the security deposit to do so.
10. Anything and everything else outlined in the lease
Read your lease carefully before signing. Every landlord/tenant responsibility is outlined in the rental agreement. Review it when issues arise so you can quickly assess whether or not the financial responsibility on the repairs to your rental falls on you. If you feel like something outlined should be the landlord’s responsibility, discuss it early on so a revision to the lease can be made.
Really interesting article! This one is really helpful for the landlords who spend hours for the maintenance of their rental property.
Not sure why laws pertaining to landlord responsibilities even exist, since landlords seem to skirt them with impunity. The law says that the landlord is responsible for putting trash and recycling on the curb? No problem, change the lease and make it the tenant’s responsibility. Same goes for cleaning common areas. Give the tenants “chores” on top of paying rent. If a landlord violates a law and you complain, he can get rid of you. State laws……such a help.
Thanks for your input!
We also hear complaints from landlords about tenants not paying their rent, yet expecting repairs to be made, along with other issues.
Landlord-tenant relationships are like any other relationship – both parties must make an effort to get along:)
You think the landlord should take out YOUR trash? Fine, I’ll come into your house every week on trash day and haul it out, I’m sure you’ll love that.. Are you serious?
the point he’s making isnt about the actual action, hes using an example (albeit a poor choice) to help describe an abstract concept.
Maybe abstract concepts are difficult for you? are u serious?
A better example would probably be better:)
Also, in general, tenants should expect more responsibilities when they rent a house, or a home in a 1-4 unit property, versus renting an apartment.
Those renting houses should expect to be required to cut their own lawn, including weeding, shovel their own snow, change furnace filters, change lightbulbs and more.
It’s not that tenants dont want to take out their own trash. It’s that landlords now make lease terms denying us the right to do so. They label it concierge garbage service and require us to put our trash out in the hallway In a little garbage can all bagged up and separated. So a paid for service can come along, pick up each bag and walk it to the end of the hallway and put in in the floor of the trash room because the garbage chute is locked. It sits there stinking up our building everyday and night while maintenance does nothing about it. If we don’t comply with this “amenity”, we will be assessed a service fee of $28 per bag.
This is my problem wuth landlords and trash. Our building regularly smells of rotten trash. There’s no windows or access to outside air. Landlord didn’t feel like installing real operable windows. So they didn’t follow the plans they submitted to the city. City didn’t care because well… the city doesnt care about any tenants. I live in Berkeley ca. In a brand new building that’s either multi-family housing or off campus student housing depending on who’s asking. Landlord is a multi-billion dollar corporation with buildings just like ours all over the country. Crappy buidlings badly built with a nice facade and unnecessary amenities like pool tables and concierge garage service. Instead of utilities covered by rent.which is what all tenants could really use appreciatively.
Why don’t you just move?
My tenant always have 7 to 10 bags of garbages every garbage day,I have to sit in the garage and sort them all.I put 2 bags for upstairs and put sticker on 3 bags for them.. It still have 4 bags in the garage..who is responsible for all the extra garbages.They are only two people yet too much garbages.
Why are you sorting tenant garbage?
Why doesn’t your lease make them responsible for disposing of their own trash?
I spent $250+ on a large trash bin w/covering lid, hind-wheels, xL per unit..which is also a write-off. I even attached a speaker wire to a gutter spike and drilled through the lip of lid at a slight angle (to prevent racoons from throwing a free party at our expenses and wow) I tell them to have trash in bags tied up and in the bins by Tuesday morning aka trash day. I have 3 tenants + myself. The garbage dude charges me $60 a month in which I pay him every second Tuesday of the month. It’s really not that difficult if you put just a LITTLE BIT of thought and effort into the situation at hand. I’m a high school DRop+out=btw.
We agree. THanks for posting.
where I live in an apartment building of 40 apts the sorry landlord just took away the trash dumpster and it s in the lease to have it.All they want is your money, the even took away internet and cable that was in the lease alos. But I will sue for ALL my money back!
If a service is specifically in your lease, you may have a case. Consult with an attorney.
I live in Michigan can a landlord charge for a bed being removed from the dumpster after I moved out that’s the only thing there charging against my security deposit because I left the apartment in better condition than I got it
Typically, trash companies will not pick up a dumpster with “bulk” items in it.
So, your landlord may have had to remove your bed placed in the dumpster and arranged other means to dispose of it.
It this was the case, then your landlord was within their rights to charge you for this.
Recommend you verify with your landlord.