A rental home’s garage adds a lot to a home’s overall appeal. However, some tenants, wanting to help, unwittingly damage a rental home’s garage without realizing it. Damage to garage interiors, garage doors, windows, and other elements are known to occur, and misuse and neglect aren’t always why it happens.
Sometimes a tenant does things to help out but they just don’t know the proper method of cleaning and maintaining a rental home’s garage. When that is the case, expensive and unnecessary repairs are often the result. By giving your Pasadena tenants the right information, you can do a lot to prevent unintentional damage and keep your valuable investment in good condition.
A garage is an important part of a quality single-family rental home. An excellent garage door increases the home’s curb appeal, while the interior, windows, cabinets, and even the garage door opener can have a big impact on a tenant’s satisfaction. But every one of these should be kept in good condition, and that means they should be maintained properly. If one part of the garage is damaged, then every other part would also be affected. The whole garage will turn into more of a burden than an asset.
The garage door needs to stay working properly and looking nice since it’s the most visible exterior element. That means regular cleaning and maintenance for it is required. There are different ways a tenant could accidentally damage a garage door. They could use the wrong tools or cleaning products when cleaning it or they could forget to do basic maintenance tasks. For instance, the materials used for each garage door differs depending on the kind of door. Some are painted, while others are vinyl or metal. Let’s say a tenant attempts to power spray a painted door clean, that could cause extensive damage to the garage door. They may be well-intentioned, but using the wrong tools to clean a door may cause big problems. Harsh household cleaners may also damage a door’s exterior finish, causing far more harm than good.
Beyond the looks, a garage door also needs a functional opener, springs, hinges, and rollers to be able to close and open properly. These components can rust, wear out, or break over time and through heavy use. In fact, when a garage door opens and closes and it produces a loud noise, that may mean the door’s hardware is in trouble and needs to be lubricated. This very easy maintenance task can profoundly extend the useful life of a garage door.
The windows, floor, and cabinets in a garage are the parts that usually suffer from unintentional damage. A leaking car engine may make oil stains on concrete floors that are very hard to clean up. Exhaust fumes, dirt, and other substances can gather in windows and seriously compromise the tracks, locks, and glass. Cabinets may be crushed or broken by heavy storage items or even parking a vehicle too close. Comparable to the garage door, routine cleaning and maintenance can easily stop all these issues from happening. What makes it a real problem is that the tenant may not know the correct way of doing it.
For instance, dealing with motor oil stains requires a distinct process that is different from cleaning up other substances. The correct tools and cleaning materials must be applied or else the attempt to clean it may make things worse instead. Harsh chemicals or scrub brushes can scratch or damage windows and window tracks as well as cabinets, but regular household cleaners may not be enough to get the grime off either. To stop continued wear and further damage, a tenant should have the correct information and also a substantial amount of oversight to make sure that the garage of a rental home is kept in great working condition.
Keeping track of a tenant’s cleaning and maintenance record can be time-consuming and difficult for property owners. That is why hiring a professional property management company is a really smart option.
At Real Property Management East San Gabriel Valley, we assist the property owners in instructing their tenants on the proper care and upkeep of their rental homes in Pasadena and conduct regular checks to ensure that such tasks are being done. Our team of property management professionals can help guard your valuable investment against unintentional damage and prevent expensive and unnecessary repairs. If you want to know more about what we can do to serve you, don’t hesitate to contact us online or call us at 626-600-2884.
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