It happens every year.  Every year I get cited by the city for something at this one particular property.  It’s located right downtown where there is a lot of foot traffic, so the city watches the grounds, the upkeep of the building, and particularly, the sidewalk in the winter.

They cited me last year for peeling paint on the window frames of the garage.  My property manager took photos of the window frames and we sent them to the city as we challenged the citation.  They dropped it.

Last year they also cited me for allowing ice to build up on the sidewalk.  Local ordinance says that you must keep public sidewalks free from any obstruction or hindrance at all times.  They had a date on the citation of when they saw the ice on the sidewalk, and my property manager insisted that there was no ice and that he had been keeping up with the shoveling and salting.  I checked the precipitation history with weather service and found that there wasn’t any snow or rain within the timeframe of the date of the citation.  I lost that battle and later my property manager was fired for a pattern of neglect.

This week I received another snow removal citation for the same property.  This time there it includes a photo with a date stamp on it.  Sure enough, there is packed snow all over the sidewalk.  Someone could easily slip and fall, a wheelchair would have a hard time making it through, and when it starts to melt it will turn to ice.  Big problem.

The thing is, each tenant in this building has agreed to keep the sidewalk shoveled.  There are 8 people living in the building.  Each one believes it is his/her job to shovel, so we have 8 layers of redundancy to get the job done.  We provide shovels and salt and they sit handily by the entrances.  The final layer of redundancy is the property manager.  He knows the tenants have been told it’s their responsibility, and that it is his responsibility to enforce the rules.  If they don’t shovel, he needs to remind them of what they agreed to.  Ultimately, if nobody shovels he needs to do it so we avoid a citation.  So my 9th level of redundancy failed also.

What do we do to prevent this kind of headache and the expense?  The expense is easy to eliminate.  We’ll bill out the tenants for the $114 citation.  Split between 8 people, it’s $14.25 each due with next month’s rent.  A copy of the citation and photo can be provided if necessary, along with a copy of the tenant house rules that were signed with the lease.

As a landlord, you will have these kinds of headaches.  We can attempt to prevent them by setting clear expectations with tenants and putting these expectations, along with consequences, in easy-to-understand writing.  The tenants definitively know that they need to shovel.  They know that if they don’t, and we get a citation, they will be billed for it.  It’s all spelled out as a line item house rule in their lease addendum.  The property manager is the final safety net.  Either he can enforce the rules or enforce the consequences, or he can prevent the consequences (and perpetuate the laziness) by doing it himself.

As the investor, what is the headache quotient I suffer in this situation?  Very minimal.  I have tight leases and a property manager in place to filter most of the headaches from ever reaching my awareness.  Some of it reaches me.  I receive all the mail that comes from the city.  I received the citation so I am aware of it.  I posted a message in the online workspace that I use to communicate with my manager letting him know of the citation.  I expect him to take care of it from here and I won’t need to think about it again.

Is this one of those “tenant headaches” that landords and would-be investors speak of?  Yes.  Is it bad enough to consider NOT investing in rental properties?  Definitely not.  This is simple stuff.  Part of the package.  Easily remedied when viewed as a simple task that takes mere minutes to execute.  I haven’t found a way to make money yet that involves zero headache.  It’s just part of life, and we can minimize our headache quotient quite a bit by how we set expectations, how we handle the situations when they arise, and how we view the magnitude of the problems when they occur.