State specific to CA: Rural 300 acre property with several manufactured homes and lots and lots of wildlife. Tenants are having problems with rodents. Should this be the landlord's or tenant's responsibility? Thanks all!

Judi.. good post.. and Hi from Oregon.. glad to hear you got the shipment of extra indigenous critters.

Most likely there is a Ca. code on pest indigenous or not..

typically the LL is resposable to keep the home safe and deal with pests, ants, spiders, etc. regardless of if they are attracted by the tenants actions or not..

However you may have a cause of action, if the tenants are causing the pests to be attracted, say pet food set out..

Judi,

What does your lease say? This is a common situation in almost every home. Even in the middle of town we have mice.

My lease is clear: pest control (insects, rodents, birds, bats, wild animals) is part of everyday housekeeping and as such the responsibility of the resident.

Crazi Cali might have a different view.

Cleaver Judi... they seem rather smart. Can they read? Post a sign "no wildlife beyond this point"

Suppose if you and the tenants work together it could be manageable. But every year or season it will be a reoccurring issue. Stop calling it a problem. It's just part of living on the edge or in the middle of the woods.

I found the sound things that plug in the wall very helpful in my mobile homes to keep away the field mice...yes field mice sounds different than rats.

Go to the Farm and Home or Lowes and look for those sound plug ins for mice. They aee working for me.

Mice, squirrels and other critters in a rural area are a fact of life. At my rural properties, I share the responsibility with the tenants. I need to keep the trees trimmed back, the fields mowed, the brush cut, and the holes in the building sealed. They need to keep the inside clean, trap and dispose of any that do get in and let me know where they are found to help me find the entry.

Are you renting the homes themselves, or renting the lot that they have their home on. If it is the own the unit, you could push the sealing up to them.

I have a cockroach story.

I rented a house with a clean, no pest history to a seemingly nice couple. After 6 weeks they informed me that regrettably they had to break the lease because the wife's dad died and left her a house. Fine.

They moved out and left a million roaches. Not half a million, but a million.

I called a pest control company, they treated the house 3 times in 10 days. Problem persisted.

I then started fumigating myself, every day for 20 days...before I saw a drastic reduction in the roach population. Then finally, after 20 more days, they were all gone.

I deducted the cost of eradicating the bugs from the S.D.

The tenants took me to small claims. To my surprise, the judge sided with them, even though my contract said that household pests were their responsibility.

CA has a proposition on Nov ballots, to turn the whole state into a rent controlled state. If passed, the state will create 539 new boards to deal with Prop 10 violators. History tells us that those who suffer at the end the most are exactly the same folks whom the State pretend to protect.

NO ON 10!

How much of the 300 acres are kept short, like a lawn? :)

Wildlife live in the wild. So if you have a house near tall grass-- whether it's a city lot, a house on the outskirts of town, or a house next to a field-- you're going to have more mice, rats, scorpions, snakes, and other fun stuff, than you would if you were in the middle of Beverly Hills.

So, it's super-important to keep the grass as short as possible for as far as possible, to keep the wildlife over in their part of the 300 acres, and not in your part.

Who's responsible for lawn care for this development?

But the tenant also has responsibility to keep food put away, keep the trash taken out, possibly store things like rice/flour/sugar/beans in glass containers, and so on. Mouse traps baited with peanut butter are a good idea. An outside poison bait feeder station is helpful. The plug-in sonic rodent-repellents are good. Making sure there's no cracks to let the outside in are good.