Tenants

Love em or loathe em, unless you have em you aint got no business.

Mostly I have found our tenants to be absolutely reliable and reasonable people. They don't want to have lots of hassle about accommodation. They want to live in a well maintained, decently modern, fair-rent house. And for that they're happy to pay on time, do their bit in keeping their end of the deal by looking after the property and communicating if they have problems. We do our bit by phoning them back as soon as possible, addressing any problems as quickly as we can, and sorting out niggles like sockets not working or leaky taps as soon as they arise.

That way, you develop something that all relationships need in order to be fruitful and fulfilling - TRUST. We have to trust them, they have to trust us. And yes we do have a contract that in effect, defines the duties and behaviour of the two parties to the contract. But you know even contracts can't cover everything. Some things you just have to work out between you.  For example, who mows the lawn?

Grass is just a flower bed in waiting

In one of our properties which is on a large corner plot, we always had a gardener. Yes, a real, live personal gardener! He came with the property (now there's an added extra you hadn't thought of)! It meant that the tenant had no worries about where to keep the lawn mower, and could spend valuable weekend time with the family rather than the lawn mower. Tis true that the addition of a gardener is not a benefit for those who would rather be with the lawn mower, and who spend their Saturdays ruminating over seed catalogues when the grass growing season diminishes to a standstill. That's when the secateurs appear I suppose.

However, in this particular property the addition of a personal gardener proved super-attractive to a prospective tenant who had ME. Not being able to garden, yet with two young children to care for, she absolutely LOVED the idea of a built-in gardener (sadly for her he was not as built in as the dishwasher). With two young children to care for, it meant that she could spend her time watching them play in the garden rather than worry about how to find them (and fish them out) in the vastness of an unkempt prairie which would have resulted had she not had the gardener.

With the change of tenant came a review of this particular benefit, and sadly we had to say goodbye to our man with the super duper ride-on mower. The new tenants were more than happy to take on the garden, and   demonstrate to the neighbourhood what Monty Don never discovered. That a pair of blunt shears and a Flymo can be just as effective in creating a postmodern landscape feature as any fancy tools you choose to use.

Ok, so the garden may need a bit of an added tidy up when they leave. But for now, we're happy. The lawn is being mowed (to a degree), the house is being cleaned and most importantly the rent is being paid. We could insist on green-fingered tenants in this particular property, but we've found that if they're reliable in paying the rent, take their tenant responsibilities seriously, and the relationship works well, then we'd be foolish to think that the grass was greener on the other side.