Daily Archives: April 12, 2022

When it comes to home repairs, owning a rental property is not much different than owning your personal residence.  The main difference is that by law you must make the necessary repairs for your tenants “right to peaceful enjoyment” of the unit they are renting from you.   Here are our Top 10 Most Common Rental Unit Repairs, along with how we handle them when they pop up and the best ways to be proactive to minimize them happening in the first place.

1. Garbage Disposal Issues

Either they got something jammed in there or the bottom rusted out and it’s leaking.  We do periodic inspections twice a year.  Each time we go in, we check the bottom of the disposal for rust.  To deter rust from happening in the first place, encourage your tenants to run the disposal each time they rinse dishes.  The smallest of particles don’t go down the drain and that wet muck sits in bottom of the disposal, eventually causing it to rust out.  The life of a disposal can last 3 times longer when tenants do this one task.

We also check to make sure the garbage disposal wrench that came with the disposal is still under the sink.  We tape it to the inside of the cabinet under the sink.  Don’t have one? You can order one here.  Check out our “FIX IT” tip on YouTube on how best to fix a jammed disposal.  Save and send this video to your tenant when they call complaining their disposal won’t turn on or blades are jammed.  We tell them to watch the video and use the tool we left under the sink.  Every. Single. Time. The tenant comes back with “WOW, IT WORKED”!

2. Toilet Repairs

From a running toilet or broken handle to a leaking tank, toilets are definitely a common rental repair.