From Zillow:

"As a landlord, you must make yourself, or someone you designate to act on your behalf, available to your tenants 24 hours a day in the event of an emergency."

Did you know that?

We are available by text, phone or email, I guess, if that's what they mean. But we don't have a 24-hour staff manning the phones waiting for a call. And the law certainly doesn't say you HAVE to.

Also define emergency. Fire? Call the Fire Department!! Water? Yes call! But also use the skills we taught you at move-in to turn off the water first.

I don't really put too much stock in zillow's opinion. They also had a whole development I did a flip in zestimates at 60k. The average house sells for 120k.

I refuse to do this business living by the phone waiting for tenants to call.

I respond in a timely manner. If it's leaking or sparking, shut it off and call me in the morning.

Jeff, what do you do if something leaks or doesn't work at 2am in your own home? Do you suck it up and wait until morning or go through the phone book until someone comes out at 3am?

This is a business like you say. It also is a business quite different than many other businesses by allowing us to have a lot more leniency.

I work mainly 9-5, up until 9-10 if it's an easy problem. When I go to bed, my ringer goes silent. That is why we have insurance.

Also, again, define "emergency." Because the tenant's idea of emergency might be markedly different than mine.

WMH, if you're too thin-skinned to handle a simple good question, you are in the wrong business. Or you're trolling.

NE, it depends upon the emergency. If my house starts flooding at 2 AM, I'm going to act right then and there. My manager and I are available by phone 24/7. I'm not going to jeopardize a multi-million dollar asset by hiding during an emergency.

Let's say the heat shuts off at 9:30 on a January night and it's 10 below (it's happened). I'd want to know about it now so that I could get it fixed a.s.a.p. If you wait, you could also wind up with frozen pipes and other problems.

If a landlord wants to risk not being available when a crime or other serious situation occurs, that's up to them. That's not how we roll.

Jeff, a crime is not my problem. That's a police problem. Dealing with it after the fact by repairing damage or moving towards evicting the tenant is a 9-5 issue.

Furnace going out in the middle of the night does not always lead to frozen pipes. Heat loss in a house isn't instant and takes a while to cool down.

Also, a responsible tenant should have a back up heat source of space heaters. Provided the power is still on.

If the power goes out and the systems go down, that's

out of my control. If I go to provide heat and am awake for the call, I am providing heat to save the pipes, not keep the tenants toasty.

I heard of something at the convention regarding "economics of scale". I haven't researched this much, but what he was getting at was the fact that much larger operations can do things a lot different than smaller operations.

You can hire everything out and hire 24/7 service when you have 100-1,000 units. Most people here can't afford to do that.

Wow Jeff, you seem a bit touchy today. Hope all is well.

We are more "Mom&Pop" than you are. We've got a few cottages, a few townhouses, a few cabins. It doesn't freeze here often but when it is predicted, we send out notices on how to deal, and we stay tuned. CO is different I'm sure!

A crime is definitely not my bailiwick. If a crime happens, my showing up is not going to help the police! Sheesh.

NE, sorry, but a crime on one of your properties IS your problem. How much of a problem depends on the level of the crime.

Counting on insurance to remedy almost any other emergency could be a problem for you.

I, too, could come up with justifications to be unavailable when something big goes down, but I am not willing to take that risk.

Okay, WMH, I'll be gentle here. I have been in this business since '97. No major crimes yet. For small stuff I have the tenants call the cops and then I deal with it later.

But if someone kicked down a main access door, I'd want to know so that I could get a maintenance guy out there as soon as I could.

Ouch haven't had that issue, Jeff! Don't have "Main Access Doors" that can be kicked down.

My POINT of my first post: it is not REQUIRED by law to be available 24/7 as a generic landlord. Maybe the laws ramp up if you own complexes and such, but for us, with our poor pitiful cottages and cabins, we don't have to available 24/7 by law.

We TRY to be but I remember one epic water leak when we were in a PLANE and upon landing, got all the texts about all the water...2 hour flight to a funeral.

WH, I seriously doubt that there is such a law like that anywhere. But the way things are going, where they have a law for almost everything, I wouldn't be too surprised.

Since 1997 I have had maybe 5 overnight calls.

WMH, when I went on vacation to Japan a couple months ago, I paid for the inflight wifi both ways , just in case something like that happened. I am considering doing that for a flight of any length where wifi is available.

Jeff, I am a responsive guy, if I'm awake I'll deal with tenant issues, But i'm not awake 24/7. so if it's an emergency:

fire: 911

police: 911

gas leak: utility

electrical line down: utility

sewage backup: the city (usually the police)

water leak: shut off at the fixture or the main shut off

Speaking of heat:

On good friday weekend, I was set to fly out to Denver for skiing. The afternoon before leaving, tenant texts me, furnace not coming on. I wanted this wrapped up before leaving for the airport so I called the HVAC company. They came out in less than 2 hours , $90, tenants paid and deducted from the rent they were about to mail.

I'm with NE here. Phone goes off when I go to bed.

There is nothing I can think of that cannot wait 8 hours. Including criminal activity. Flooding would suck but I show them the shut offs at lease signing.

Well, if Zillow said it on them interwebs it's GOTTA be true!

I don't picture WMH trolling. More likely surf fishing or even deep sea swordfish-ing. (Hmm...not a fisherman but I THINK they use trolling lines to find those big ones...)

In 39 years with tons of houses we have incredibly few if ever emergencies.

And when I am not instantly available it's amazing how people take care of the problem without my help. The call is usually first thing in the morning, stating "We had a ____ but my brother-in-law fixed it."

At the Lease Signing Ceremony we show them the elec main breaker and the water shut off.

We have 2 WalMarts open 24 hours where they can run to get 2 plug in heaters.

Our biggest crisis YTD: internet was down 24 hours.

It's o.k. WMH, I used to be a troller. I found I would rather just float around and cast.

Barbara, that reminds me of my rental fire. Total loss. My tenant never called!! My step-mom saw it on the news, hours after it happened.

She called and said, "Um Dude, you're house burned down, it's on the news!"

This was back when I worried about EVERYTHING!! My phone was on then.

Oh, the delights of having tenants who can differentiate between an emergency and a bit of a nuisance.

A current tenant had a pinhole in a flexible pipe feeding the water heater. He texted late on Good Friday - my phone was off for the church service, and I did not turn it on until morning. When I texted him, his response was, "Oh, okay, glad you caught me - I was just headed out to the Y for a shower (he'd shut off the house water) and then to the hardware store for a new pipe. Thought you might be away, so I figured I'd handle it myself."

At the risk of being misunderstood and possibly offending a few, the statement made by Zillow is really not a far-fetched statement. While it is not a legal requirement for most (if any) states, it is however, the IDEAL way an investor runs a rental business.

If we are brutally honest, most Mom and Pop landlords do not run our rentals like a business. And in most cases, most landlords, including myself, have been very fortunate that it has not caused us varying types of financial disaster. However, in some cases it has, but we simply don't hear much of those cases often.

Just because most of us mom and pop landlords do not run their business that way, does not make the statement any less true. Just know that those of you justifying your reasons for doing so (and again, I do it myself) are daily rolling the dice.

I'm not sharing my comments to debate. I just ask that you really be brutally honest with yourself. If you do, I belive most of you would agree that we are not always running our "business" in the most ideal manner (for whatever reason). And instead of being quick to justify your actions, I encourage you to always look, even in any small ways, to get closer to the ideal way of running your business.

And just think, here on our forum, this is an "above average" group of "responsible" landlords. The average landlord is no where near as attentive to possible concerns of their customers as most who visit this forum. Which I dare say is why so many cities are trying to enact laws to FORCE landlords to run their rentals more like an ideal business to protect legitimate concerns of their customers.

I don't respond after I go to bed...I often take a sleeping pill to get to sleep...am I supposed to get up and jump in the car after doing that?

I have 24-7 service ... it's called the Fire Dept.

My last two midnight phones calls came from the fire dept. Didn't know it until I got up the next morning.

My phone gets shut off when I go to bed.

Crime is the polices problem, don't call me.

Fire is the fire departments problem, I'll be over in the morning with my insurance adjuster.

No heat is fine, call the gas company.

No electric? Call UI, the entire neighborhood is probably out anyway so what can I do?

Jeffrey, you nailed it. I believe that the folks who turn off their phones at night truly fall into the mom 'n' pop category. They don't really see owning and operating rentals as a business.

Professional investors keep their eye on the ball. They want to be engaged in the business and they want to know what's going on with heir income-producing assets.

I really like Colin-CO's approach to the emergency contacts inside the cabinet door.

That's really the best way a small dog can do it. I know I cant afford to pay a guy to stay up all night long. Let them call someone else!

NE, I don't know where you get this "up all night" stuff. If your phone is ringing off the hook you're doing something wrong.

This is an interesting topic, at least. I'm not sure how I feel about it. I can tell you that my Android phone is automatically set to priority/silent mode from midnight until 6am. Mainly because I don't want to be bothered with stupid text ads at 4am when Kohl's screws up. But, because of that, a tenant could not reach me at 4am -- it would just go to voicemail.

I'm not sure I buy the Mom-and-Pop-vs-business idea though. I live in a college town and there are two companies that own the vast majority of student rentals. Big complexes that hold hundreds of students, have basketball courts and pools, and so on. They certainly run things "like a rental business." I even rented from them many years ago when I was a college student. Definitely no "mom-and-pop" sort of attitude.

But, I can tell you that if you call either of their contact numbers at 4am, you'll get voicemail. And they won't hear it until morning, at best. In fact, I bet you that'd I'd get my voicemail at like 7am and it would be WELL BEFORE that company had someone check their voicemail in the morning.

In my experience, the larger the rental company and they more they run it "like a business", the LESS likely to be able to reach them at 4am in an emergency... Because they feel like "business hours" are from 9AM to 4PM most days and that's it.

- John...

My ORIGINAL post was simply to comment/question the "fact" as stated by Zillow. It was part of a Landlord Quiz and I failed that question. Because I know it is not required by law, but it was stated as if it was.

How we personally handle emergency calls was not part of the discussion at that point.

We do not turn off our phones on a regular basis - but if we silence them out of respect for circumstances (the movies, for instance, or dinner with friends) then whatever voice message is left is translated by Google Voice to Text and I get the info right away anyway.

I'm thinking we've had two "after hours" emergency calls in 13 years, so it's not as if it's been a big issue for us.

My take is simple.

If you were renting, would you want your landlord to respond to an emergency in a timely manner.

This is an overblown topic, because it rarely happens.

Most tenants just want to know you are there and are going to do something about I.

TimJ, very well said. After all, we have tenants 24 hours per day. In my book, that means we respond any time, day or night. Landlords who treat tenants as the enemy shouldn't be in the business.

Also, if you treat tenants well, they will be less likely to bother you for something that they know can wait.

Being available for an for emergency - sure......

Call me after 10 PM and ask me if i have any openings .......and the prospect then has an emergency after they get barked at.

"Son, You are suffering from cranial rectal inversion....What makes you think that I would rent to anyone stupid enough to call me this late after normal working hours."

Not much we can do for real emergency.

We had a tenant died in the unit, no body told what happened. Someone relative wrote us a letter about he moved out.

I found out the problem when an other tenant gossiped to me about what happened about 6 months later.

I agree with Jeffery. Your residents pay good rent to have things working correctly and take care of maintenance. Yes, call 911 for security or fire; call the utility for electric or gas problems; water leak, shut off the water valve or main. HVAC is weather dependent - cold winter, call me, I don't want the pipes to freeze, otherwise wait until business hours. Just as instructed at move-in.

Landlords (slumlords!) who handle things poorly or not at all give the rest of us a bad name. That's why so many cities are passing landlord registration and regulations.

If we take care of things the right way our residents will be happier, stay longer, pay more, and you'll be a preferred landlord in the community. I'm fed up with the slumlords who shirk their duties and make me look bad.

I am responsible and responsive, I am a professional landlord.

The original post was not about "maintenance" at all. An emergency is, by definition, not routine maintenance.

In fact, based on the responses on this thread alone, I'm not sure exactly what requires a 24 hour emergency response from any landlord.

Ben/MA, what's your list of 10 emergencies? Might be good to know.