State Specific Question About: CALIFORNIA (CA)

The short scoop:

Our month-to-month 5 year tenants have responsibility for gardening/ yard/ lawn maintenance. They performed the duty in part, but let the lawns go to weed. Blamed it on the drought.

The front yard was the worst, and we replaced it in December with beautiful river rock and plants.

Come spring, weeds came. Tenants were advised they needed to put in 10 minutes a day to keep up with it or a gardener would be hired at their expense. They made some attempts, but these were unsuccessful. They also sprayed "something organic" without permission.

Gave them the good news a week ago that a gardener would come every other week to spray weeds/crabgrass with Roundup as needed and pull weeds at a cost of $25 a month.

Got an emailed reply that they FORBID spraying and that NO ONE was allowed access to the property to spray. Then they called the gardener, told him he could not come on Tuesday as scheduled by management, and that they would contact their lawyer if the gardener stepped on the property. The upset gardener called us to let us know.

We gave a week's notice on this, and the gardener has 20 years experience with no problems. He works in the neighborhood.

I cannot find any info on what is required for notifying tenants for specific spraying of Roundup. This is the front area only with no food production, and it is spot treatment, not overall general spraying.

Legally, I think we have the right to maintain the property, while the tenants, since they are responsible for yard maintenance, think they have the right to "do it as they see fit, when they see fit."

Has anyone else had problems with tenants not maintaining the yard, and not wanting to have any spraying done?

Thank you for reading.

The tough part about having the tenants maintain the landscaping is that everyone has different ideas about yard maintenance. As I always say, a tenant is a tenant for a reason. Most don't want to be bothered with yard maintenance, nor house maintenance. When things go wrong they want to call the landlord.

They sprayed something that you did not approve, yet you want them to maintain the property? Kind of working against yourself here. Plenty of people are afraid of roundup and pesticides. I can understand that, although if they read more about roundup they might realize it is not as bad as it seems and it doesn't linger in the soil.

Personally, anything that is green and survives being mowed is fine for a lawn for me. I actually planted clover in my lawn to fix the nitrogen as well as it stays green when the lawn starts to brown. Plenty of people consider that a weed. I prefer the grown together cottage garden look of flower beds rather the the mulched single plant here and there. And what exactly is weed? Some have very pretty flowers at maturity. I have some cultivated weeds the wildlife really likes in my gardens

For $25 per month, if I was particular about how something looked, I would not rely on tenants but have that included in the rent. Of course the rent would be $25 or $35 higher because it includes yard work. At this point depending on what your lease says about this, I would eat the gardeners cost if it were that important to me. If you don't have it in writing that they will be charged it will be hard to do that.

Raise their stinkin' rent by $200 a month, not 25.

Send the gardener anyway. Tell them he is using an approved spray and since it is approved (by you), it will cost extra.

Don't be bullied by tenants.

Roundup has been shown to cause Lymphoma. Ask me how I know!

What does your lease say?

They are month to month, although I seem to remember CA is a 60-day notice.

I would send them written notice of the change in terms and that your new policy is that lawn maintanance is now included.

Include an increase in rent as needed, as much as you care for, the minimum time forward you can. So July or August the rent goes uo.

give them the choice... they organic gardener can come (get a quote) for $200 a month increase in rent, OR the other guy can come for $25 a month. Or they can move.

Sounds like what was a good five year fit has changed... so either you allow the tenants to stay and be happy with how they keep the yard, WHICH you put in to your liking,,, or give them 30 day notice to move.

Always better to hire someone to do mowing and special landscaping like weeding. Then you build that into the rent and the tenant just pays the rent. You messed up.

In my high end Hancock Park rentals tenants have private garden areas. On tenant has a 20' x 20' garden area with dwarf Orange variety of mature fruit bearing trees I planted over 35 years ago.

That tenant has added various fruits and vegetables but doesn't cut back, trim, spray or allow for walk ways. It is a jungle. Because it hasn't been kept up, fruit droppings have attracted all sorts of small flying insects.

So I asked the tenant to clean up the area and spray my tree's to protect them from getting sick. Or allow my gardener to spay them. The tenant refused to comply within a reasonable amount of time.

I then gave that tenant a written letter asking the same. No action.

I finally gave my tenant a 5 day notice to perform or quit.

My tenant hired my property gardener to clean up the area. Within 3 days it was perfect...

In California pesticide or weed control spraying must be performed by a licensed company or the proper postings and notifications must be posted on the property.

Thanks to everyone for the great advice. The place is a 4 + 2 on a quiet street and the new landscaping is drought tolerant and will be full and beautiful when established. It is only about 1000 sf in the front area. No crabgrass left apart front what is coming through the weed block and through the rocks.

A big downside to staying out of it and letting it go is that--not to mention the thousands just spent--it would making rerenting hard and brings the neighborhood down.

The gardener was to start this week, but notice of 60 days was given for the rent increase. They had a rent increase a few months ago that was $200 and brought it almost to market value. Their security deposit was also raised.

Considering that hassles with these tenants are ongoing, I think it is time to move them out. Just a bit concerned about damages as they are angry types now and not reluctant to express it with four letter words. Big changes with them over the last couple of years. There may be a mental health issue involved.

We did give them options after they canceled the gardener, but no reply apart from angry email venting. They don't like the options, and I am sure they don't want to move.

Fortunately this is our first experience with tenants like these, but it is sure uncomfortable.

Then there is my answer to the PITA problem. Raise the rent enough to make it worth your while to put up with them. They might move because of it, but you win either way.

Next time just raise the rent $50 a month and tell them you will take care of the entire outside. If you want your places to look they way you want than you are going to have to maintain them.

you changed the lawn to river rocks and want them to climb around on those to pull weeds? You remind me of my first landlord who sent me a notice that I was not allowed to leave my underwear on the floor as it was embarrassing when he brought his friend in to show him the apartment. Oh and he raised my rent ten percent.

Well I wouldn't want someone spraying Monsantos Roundup where I lived. Yes its your property but its where they live.

Thanks for the advice again. I have the same landscape in a larger area and pull the weeds by hand. I don't like using pesticides either, but I do spot spray in difficult areas like sidewalk cracks. It is easy to maintain. It takes very little time, but does require consistency.

Thank you all for the great options you have brought up. One of them is sure to work!

I had a tenant couple like that. They did not have any real health problems, they just believed every stupid internet post that they read, and were just bizarre people. I have to admit that I simply applied stuff to the lawn when they were away, and never told them.

They came home early once and saw me once with the spreader, applying fertilizer, and asked what was in the spreader. Fortunately, it was a chicken manure-based product that I was trying out. Phew! Didn't have to lie! (And the fertilizer was pretty worthless, as it turned out.) They left after only just over a year, mostly because we had put Kilz II primer on newly installed sheet rock after a ceiling water pipe leak. The internet said it was "Toxic!", and even though it was the latex form of Kilz and we had them read the can and pull up the MDS, they believed the false information over the official.