At least once a month, I do a drive-by of each of my SFH that are rented. I usually take a camera with me and if I see anything out of the ordinary (ie. car parked on the front lawn) I will take a photo of it and send it to my tenants the next day.

Do you do similar type 'drive-by' visual inspections of your properties on any regular basis? If you see something that irritates you, do you ever knock on the front door and start asking questions right then?

Lets assume you see nothing out of the ordinary, however, you do see your tenant(s) sitting on the front porch. Do you stop and say 'hello' ?

I would not stop and say hello. I don't want to talk to them .

It wasn't me.

NE,

Are vehicles have tint, they can't see us. Our handyman, painter, scraper, trash out guy, and other keep an eye on our places more than us. They know if we don't make money, they don't either.

If it irritates me, I do a little introspection first.

What is the issue? Am I over reacting? Is it causing a hazard to the property? Is it illegal? Could it compromise my insurance? Will my lack of dealing with it make me for liable for anything?

It falls back to the case by case enforcement. It really really does.

We are at our building once or twice a week. We always say "Hi" and are friendly to tenants, but too busy to stop and chat. We avoid the apartment building on weekends, when most of our tenants are around.

We're by our properties on a regular basis. We live by the motto "don't start none, there won't be none". If we see something that's gonna cause US problems, tenants get written notice. If it's something that we wish was different but not hurting anyone, we pick our fights. Because if tenants drove by our place.....with the mountain of condensers, furnaces & A-coils waiting to go to the recycler, I'd likely get an eviction notice.

Every Thursday. (like Clockwork)

And yes, my (signed) Lease Agreements are clear about that.

This is about being Proactive. Not Policing or Controlling.

You can go your own way, ........................

Roy, a quick, but friendly text might just nip that pile of debris in the bud.

'Hey tenant,

I saw you have been doing some cleaning out. If the stuff is still useful, ReStore or Goodwill would be glad to have it. Or, if it's no longer useable, the city 'dump' center is open Tuesday through Saturday, 7 AM -3PM 666 Industrial Drive. You'll have to show valid license with city address.

Thanks for clearing up the clutter.'

And then I put a flower from the emojis. Being a guy, maybe a tree, leaf, or sun might be more comfortable for you (or not, I'm not judging)

I do drive bys and I advise all of my tenants of that (that I do them). They are sporadic and not "planned" (usually). It depends on what the issue is but if it's something that I typically do NOT see (such as what you are referring to Roy) I may take another swing by in a few days to see if they moved it. If they haven't at that time then I would most likely follow up with a text (or however you correspond with them).

I do not typically stop to say Hi or wave unless they happen to be outside as I'm driving by and notice me and wave. I'm not going to be rude by any means.

Many times I will text them to make sure they mow their lawn (if they are responsible for it) before we get hit with a reminder from the City Codes. If it's true garbage - then I probably would text them immediately.

Any chance that this "junk" that's on the front yard is not "junk" but is for a garage/yard sale? You obviously would know more than us on this as you know your tenants. Junk is in the eye of the beholder! LOL

I drive by my properties every week or two usually looking for garbage, dog poop, extra cars or high grass but I never drive by for a visit. The less direct contact the better. This puts my mind at ease and eliminates some problems before they get out of hand. As far as the furnace filters I have been using the 3 month ones for our quarterly inspections.

I pay a guy 50 dollars per unit which includes the filter and he takes pictures of the whole unit, checks mechanical and emails them to me. I find this works well for me having someone else do this. Whenever I had a lot of direct contact with my tenants they start to think we are friends, the relationship changes and then they would ask me for unnecessary things or test the boundaries.

Roy,

If they see me with our company name on my truck I wave. They don't want to stop what they are doing and entertain the LL.

If they spot me at a storage garage or a vacant they usually have a laundry list of problems.

If I see something wrong I snap a pic and text it to my helper if it needs his attention

OR

I mail them my DRIVE BY LETTER form with the offense checked, reminding them we'll drive by in 7 days to check for completion or they can text us a pic to show they cleaned up. And $35 per hour for us to clean up.

After doing this 40 years I FINALLY learned that talking to them is worthless, just flappin my lips in the wind. A letter is dated, with a deadline, and documented.

We go INSIDE twice a year.