New tenants just moved into a gorgeous townhouse that the owner lived in for 3 years and OVERimproved to the point that she would loose $100,000 if she sold it.
In true tenant fashion - where NOTHING was WRONG - they found items that needed repair.....after a month in residence, a gas burner would not work so I suggested they clean it...they cleaned it and THEN it worked.
Then the fireplace UPgrade would not work. The owners left the instruction manual AND a How-To on how to turn it on. Tenant finally went to installer whose name was on the instruction manual and learned how to operate it.
Then the dryer took 2 hours to dry their clothes so the tenant investigated and found a "critter guard" at the end of the dryer vent on the exterior of the townhouse. He took it upon himself to have it removed. In his e-mail to me requesting reimbursement for the $273 he spent for the guard to be removed, he indicated 1) that it was not installed correctly; and 2) that they were against code to install because they can cause a fire.
After saying NO to his request for reimbursement, I advised him that sufficient heat in the dryer will cause it to stop operation for just this reason so the critter guard was not the issue AND that the guard was installed because of the construction in the area and the fact that "critters" * in the winter * would like a nice, warm place to sleep and the UNprotected opening of a dryer vent (the original plastic covering having disintegrated after the first year's warranty expired) was 5-star to them with the accumulated vent lint being better than maid-turn-down service.
When the dryer turned off completely, I had an appliance firm check it and they found a bad breaker for the dryer which my electrician will change out early next week.
I'll leave the issue of their "alteration" of the property in violation of their lease until they move out and then I will request that they have the critter guard re-installed at their expense.
