I have been a landlord since 2005, the year I rented out the very first property I bought in San Francisco after buying a single-family home. Since then I've been through all sorts of disputes. Neighbors texting me that my tenants were running across their roofs during Fleet Week. A heaping pile of trash left on the sidewalk. A shower leaking through to the lower unit.
Being a landlord will test your faith in humanity. For survival's sake, you learn from every incident by bolstering your lease and screening prospective tenants like the CIA. It is not worth the extra money to get a tenant who doesn't respect your property or the lease compared to taking your time finding ones who do.
Luckily, I have yet to have a tenant situation that called for an eviction due to non-payment or excessive damage. I attribute this largely to charging slightly below market rent, spending one-on-one time interviewing tenants, and doing a thorough background check before moving forward.
I've made some tough calls, like choosing a different applicant at the last minute over one who kept trying to renegotiate the rent after we had already agreed on it. For the most part, things have worked out.
But I know things will not always work out. I recently experienced something new that I want to open up to the community for your opinion.
A Text From My Tenant's Neighbor
On a Saturday at 3:35pm, I got a cordial text from the neighbor across the street from my rental:
“There's a loud beeping sound coming from your rental. It could be an alarm or smoke detector. I'm not sure, but you might want to check on it. It's been beeping at least all day today. It seems like your tenants are not home.”
Oh great. What are the chances a fire alarm goes off while the tenants are away on a trip? High, I guess.
I had just gotten back from five hours with my kids and all I wanted to do was take a nap. But you can't nap when there's a chance your rental property is on fire.
One of the main reasons I sold my last rental property in 2025 was the Pacific Palisades fire that came out of nowhere and erased an entire neighborhood in a day. So no, I wasn't about to take that glorious nap. Could you?
I hopped in the car, drove six minutes to the rental, parked, and got out. I could hear the alarm going off nonstop from the street. I emailed my tenant a heads up along with a video of the sound. I waited five minutes for a reply. Nothing. So I let myself in.
Three Smoke Alarms Stacked On The Garage Floor
I went to the garage first, next to the entrance where the sound was loudest. There I found a stack of three smoke alarms sitting on the ground, with the top one screaming away.
I fiddled with it and finally killed it with a switch.
Then I walked the entire house to make sure there was no fire and no electrical sparking anywhere. About 10 minutes later I was done inspecting. I emailed my tenant a second time with a video of the alarm, told him there was no fire, and said everything looked fine.
Then I drove home and took my much-needed nap.
Six Days Of Silence
I didn't hear back until the following Friday, when I got this:
Hi,
The information is helpful. Definitely wanted to know that it was bothering the neighbor. We were in the process of throwing those away as they have all hit the end of their life and started beeping.
Also, in the future, when there is a situation where you need to come to the house for something, can you send a text to me before you head over?
Thanks
Six days had passed, so I had actually forgotten I'd even gone over. My immediate reaction was, where's the thank you for driving over to make sure there was no fire, protect your belongings, and call the fire department if the place was burning?
Instead the response was almost robotic. Helpful information received. Sorry it bothered the neighbor. No relief that the house and their belongings were fine.
The delayed reply doesn't bother me. It is what it is. What didn't sit right was the combination of no thanks plus a request to text before I head over.
In An Emergency, Time Is Of The Essence
Asking me to text first is a reasonable ask on its own. I had already emailed before entering, so a text is perhaps a faster channel.
But run the scenario forward. I text him that the neighbor says the alarm has been blaring all day and I'm heading over to inspect. He doesn't respond at all. Am I supposed to sit outside my own property listening to an alarm scream, knowing there's a chance something is actually burning?
Of course not.
Now imagine he texts back and says he's not comfortable with me entering, it's probably just a false alarm. That's a red flag. I'm not rolling the dice on a fire spreading through one of my most valuable assets.
This was my old primary residence and it's now an important piece of my passive income portfolio. If it burns, my income drops, I pay a deductible, and I spend months on the phone with insurance adjusters.
So no. There is no version of this where I don't go inspect when an alarm is blaring and nobody is home.
The tenants might be embarrassed by whatever's lying around or worried something might get taken. I don't care how messy the place is and I'm not touching their stuff. This is a business transaction that's working, and I have zero interest in wrecking it.
Can A Landlord Enter Without Notice In California?
In California, a landlord can enter a rental without notice in an emergency, and a fire alarm blaring in an empty house qualifies.
California Civil Code Section 1954 lists the only situations where a landlord may enter a rental unit, and the very first one is “in case of emergency.” That exemption covers two separate rules. It waives the written notice requirement, and it waives the normal-business-hours restriction, which matters when your alarm starts screaming at 3:35pm on a Saturday and nobody is home.
My lease says I'll email at least 24 hours in advance to access the property for maintenance. That covers the routine stuff. It does not override the emergency provision, and it couldn't even if I wanted it to. A tenant can't waive that right and neither can I.
The Part That Should Actually Worry Me
I just realized something new.
Three smoke alarms were on the garage floor. Not one. Three. And nobody told me.
Under California Health and Safety Code 13113.7, since January 1, 2014, the owner of a rented single-family home is responsible for testing and maintaining the smoke alarms. The tenant's job is to notify the owner when an alarm is inoperable. Then my job is to fix or replace it, unless the tenant wants to on their own.
So for some unknown stretch of time, my house may have had no working smoke alarms in it. That can't happen in the future. Both tenants and landlords have to be on the same page in the name of safety.
How I'm Improving My Rental Lease
Every tenant experience is a learning experience to make the next tenant situation even better. Here are three fixes going into my lease and my routine:
- Spell out the emergency entry right and cite Civil Code 1954 directly, so there's no ambiguity about what happens when an alarm is going off and nobody answers.
- Add an explicit clause requiring written notification within 24 hours of any smoke or CO alarm becoming inoperable, and prohibiting removal of any alarm unless replaced.
- Record the dates of each newly installed release and add 10 years to set a reasonable end of life date for new installation.
The lesson is that a slightly cold email is worth far less of my attention than three dead alarms on the floor.
Red Flag, Or Am I Overreacting?
I'd love to hear how you'd think through this.
Could you have ignored the neighbor's text? Could you have pulled up, heard the alarm, and driven away? Does six days of silence, no thanks, and a request to text first read as normal to you, or as something worth watching?
I'm always looking for blindspots in my thinking, so your perspective and your own war stories are always helpful. And whichever side of the lease you're on, a little warmth costs nothing.
The Older And Wealthier I Get, The Less I Want To Be A Landlord
Every year my desire to be a landlord goes down, and every year my desire to earn income while doing absolutely nothing goes up. Even though I could have made more money holding my last rental, I am thrilled to have sold it and reinvested the proceeds for lifestyle reasons.
Nobody has ever texted me on a Saturday afternoon about a private real estate fund. A fund has never left three smoke alarms on the garage floor. It has never run across a neighbor's roof during Fleet Week, leaked into the unit below, or made me interview a stranger like I work for the CIA.
That's why a growing chunk of my real estate exposure now sits with Fundrise, which manages a diversified portfolio of private real estate for over 350,000 investors. I can invest a set amount, keep the exposure, and skip the 3:35pm phone calls entirely.
Physical real estate still has its place. I own plenty of it. But the tenant management portion of the job has a shelf life, and mine is expiring. Truly passive income is the whole point of building wealth in the first place.
Fundrise is a long-time sponsor of Financial Samurai and I have personally invested with them since 2016.
Sam,
Hi! I’ve been enjoying your newsletter for a handful of years now, and I’m always inspired by your unique perspective.
I’m writing in response to your article about the current tenants in your former primary residence. I have to admit, I was boiling for you, so I slept on my response.
To give you a brief background, my husband of 45 years and I were landlords in Akron, Pennsylvania, for 11 years. We owned a duplex and lived in one half while renting out the other. It was a provincial neighborhood, to be sure, and probably virtually nothing like the sophisticated heartbeat of a major city in California. Still, people are people, no matter where they are or what they do or say.
Having said all that…what planet were your current tenants cast off from? Honestly, please indulge my meager deductive reasoning.
I don’t believe for a minute that they didn’t know the house had previously been your primary residence. So, of course, you would still have some ties to the community—you used to live there. It should come as no surprise to them, then, that you were alerted to and chose to respond to a “disturbance.” I say kudos to you on all counts. Of course you are motivated by protecting your property, but that goes hand in hand with protecting your tenants’ safety, too.
And I have to ask: What were they planning to do with the dismembered smoke alarms? All three of them? How long had they been sitting there? Were they ever going to tell you that the darn things didn’t work…anymore?
Having been a tenant myself, I know what tenants do. Among other things, they complain to the landlord when things go wrong or don’t work. Enough said.
His vapid, cold, unfeeling, and completely remorseless response did not do wonders for my good humor. I cannot imagine what it might have done to yours. And taking issue with the manner in which you chose to communicate with them really took the cake! The entire incident belies a complete and total lapse in better judgment on their part. Shame on them.
In closing, no, I don’t believe you are overreacting in any way, for any reason. You have worked very hard for everything you possess. That’s worth protecting and, if it comes to it, fighting for.
I’m under no illusions that tenant psyches are the same as they were when we rented. However, had they chosen to be forthright and brought the malfunctioning smoke detectors to your attention, all of this could have been averted. Big picture, if they don’t value their own safety, what else don’t they value?
Not my call, and you certainly don’t need any advice from a conservative old lady like me, but…if it were me, we would be having a face-to-face chat at our soonest mutual convenience. And come lease renewal time, I would, as you suggested, be adding some addendums, riders, or whatever they’re called nowadays, to ensure this situation doesn’t recur.
Sincerely,
I bought a duplex 20 years ago and my first two tenants were fine, but then a year later a new one moved in and all hell broke loose. The two tenants were fighting with each other about noise, etc. It was a mess and I ended up losing months of rental income getting both of them out. Eventually I moved into the duplex and rented the other half. Easier to manage when you live in the place than be an absentee landlord. When something arises I’m there and I fix it right away. I also have a 10 year stretch keeping the rent very low, almost too low for a tenant but never had issues with them. I learned a lot those first few years and I didn’t screen the tenants well which didn’t help.
Now that I’m in my 50’s, I may stand to Inherit my family’s duplex, but I think I will probably sell and and not take on new tenants. Just the other day on their property they had some kids late at night run into their fence and break it. Wasn’t even the tenant… so you’re not only dealing with the tenants themselves but mother nature and other bad actors. Not worth the money and potential stress and libability at this stage.
I think you hit the nail on the head….”the older and wealthier I get the less I want to be a landlord”…truer words have not been written. I think switching out of being a landlord can be heavily affected by age and amount of wealth. We are early retirees (57 and 62) who retired 7 years ago and real estate has been a huge driver of our ability to retire early. We flipped multiple homes (after having them 2 years so no capital gains tax), ran Airbnbs on a vacation home and garage apartment, and also had a couple of investment properties that were long term rentals. So we are definitely experienced real estate investors and have done fantastic on real estate over the past 20 years BUT being a landlord has always had an expiration date for us. I have notes in my income projections such as “can be fully in passive income at year X”. Real estate rentals are not “passive” income…as soon as any problem comes up it’s immediately apparent. We have had great tenants for the past 8 years and we are still about to list that property for sale next month. We have one final rental property that we can’t sell until late 2027 and then we are officially done. The older you get the more the small issues wear on you…the stress that wasn’t a big deal all of a sudden is.
I love owning real estate but I can’t be hands off enough for it not to be an ongoing stressful situation. I’m happy to take sell my properties and invest my proceeds in something simple like index funds and just take a variable percentage of whatever that does each year.
Once your nest egg is big enough that a small percentage is not only safe but is sustainable and large enough to enjoy your lifestyle why deal with a renter with attitude or inevitable problems that will arise??
Omg this!! I made it to 10 years with my duplex rental property and finally decided to sell bc L.A. regulations are getting even more pro-tenant and I just don’t want to deal with the stress and attention on it anymore. Realized that passive real estate investing is the way to go for me.
Hi, We are retired and got tired of the tenants. Many stories of tenant discontent-the guy who didn’t want us to show the apt while his stuff was in there. I’d made friends with his pitbull so I went in anyway (before days of video cameras). Last tenant was great, paid on time, super quiet BUT had a fit when we went into their basement after leaking water showed. Spent hours vacuuming up the water to protect their things. Received texts about lawyers/we know our rights instead of a thank you. Renting WAS great for building our wealth!! But we got tired of the issues. We tried to find a single family in our neighborhood for over a year. We ended up staying in our duplex (it borders a state park). We knocked down walls and added upgrades so it is now our dream home, with full bath on first floor to age in place. So we’re living on our wealth, slow FIRE. Thanks for all your posts/info Sam, been a follower for years.
“ Last tenant was great, paid on time, super quiet BUT had a fit when we went into their basement after leaking water showed. Spent hours vacuuming up the water to protect their things. Received texts about lawyers/we know our rights instead of a thank you. WAS great for building our wealth!! But we got tired of the issues.”
I just don’t understand this attitude. It feels like a red flag. You have the right to enter in an emergency when there’s a leak. I would be super grateful if you came in and helped remediate the issue so quickly.
Maybe it’s because they have never been property owners or landlords themselves that they don’t appreciate the work that you did.
So that’s the thing. You can’t control how people react to you, so it’s good to just get out of the situation entirely.
Ahhhh, rental issues. “When she was good, she was very very good/And when she was bad, She was horrid”
I can’t figure out what this article does more: offer comforting reassurance that I am not alone in my landlord saga or trigger my rental-related PTSD. Ha.
Lil’ red flag on your tenants. Minimally, their judgment is off a little. And I would immediately send out a dining gift card to the neighbors who alerted you. Very important. Interesting about the phone number and that they didn’t just alert the fire department or PD anonymously.
I think you did great. Maybe video walking into home. I try to bring a person with me. I’ve seen Tenants unplug or disconnect alarms (smoke and CO) when batteries are low . Follow up certified letter maybe. Landlording is passive aggression income at times. Getting out is the tax problem!
The way I see this is that this was a very easy problem to solve, there is zero reason to get upset in the least otherwise physical real estate isn’t for you. We all know rental property isn’t passive and we have to accept that if we choose to own it. This is very normal tenant behavior and you easily addressed it. I’m not saying it’s right but humans in all aspects of daily life can be very dumb. Tenants are our customers and if we need to jump in and help with easy tasks sometimes so be it. I would’ve called/texted my tenants in this situation, many people don’t have email notifications on their phone or really care to open an email from their landlord on demand. To me this was not an emergency but I understand your concern. How much do you net per month on this property? Just view it as you made/saved the amount you would’ve paid a property manager to do that same task. Bottom line is this is just part of the game.
Indeed. I will call and text next time instead of email before driving out. We have an email policy in the Lease by the way.
I’m not sure most people are able to sit outside their rental property while the fire alarm is blaring and not go in. I would compare it to not being able to eat a Wagyu steak dinner after not eating for two days.
When the fire alarm is blaring, time is of the essence. There have been too many fires in California not to take it seriously.
How long have you been a landlord and how many rental properties do you own?
I bought my first rental house in 2007 so 19 years. I’ve had as many as 22 units alongside my full time job in the fire service and always self managed. I’ve had multiple low end properties, done a fair share of evictions and have been through all the frustrations a landlord goes through. I learned years ago to shut off my emotions when it comes to tenant behavior and just provide the best customer service I can. I have a sense of relief when I address a problem like you did and it ends up costing nothing except a little time. A month ago I went to a property and ended up having to spend $7k on a sewer lateral repair. Real estate has helped my family tremendously over the last 19 years and I try to appreciate the tenants who have made that possible. With all that said, I only have 6 units left as I am starting to favor liquidity at my age (52) and especially with all the publicly traded options available now with the various REITS, ETFs, etc.. Additionally the return on equity has gotten down into the single digits after years of ownership.
Thanks for sharing. Going from 22 units down to six is the right trend as we get older. More hundred percent passive income the better.
Sounds like despite the evictions and all that, you still appreciated and enjoyed the process.
“The Older And Wealthier I Get, The Less I Want To Be A Landlord”
This is the correct way to look at it.
I have a friend that’s a landlord and does an Airbnb. Sounds like a good option at first, but the juice just isn’t worth the squeeze compared to other wealth building vehicles.
I definitely CANNOT do Airbnb with all the turnover. That would be like giving me a new mini-job to do, which is exactly what I don’t want in FIRE.
Sorry, misread your question –
Could you have ignored the neighbor’s text?
No, it was downright rude (thought you meant the renter’s text).
No, they were doing you a favour, even if it came across as unfriendly. I’m sure an alarm blaring for hours would irritate most people.
The neighbour really is an early warning source. If they don’t like your tenants then they will be keeping an eye on them.
In that respect you’ve got a neighbourhood watch system going on.
I’d be bringing the neighbour a box of chocolates as a thank you for kindly alerting you and as an apology for all the noise.
Oh, I don’t think the neighbors texted me was rude at all. I’m extremely appreciative of her notifying me just in case there really was a fire.
I was just annoyed with the timing because I’ve been out with the kids for five hours and I was about to take a nap. But of course, if you get a text like that, there is no napping.
At least you were less than 10 minutes from the house which is a big factor. Keeping friendly with the neighbors is a big plus. Sometimes I keep my garage door open by accident and my neightbor sends me a text to remind me to close it because its been open all night, so no one goes in there. Good to have eyes and ears around your property. I also have Blink camera on the outside of my properties, so you can check in remotely.
Nope you are definitely not overreacting.
However, you missed the red flag of a bundle of fire alarms on the floor. Maybe because you were tired?
The ones I use (required by law) all have batteries that can be replaced.
I’m curious why they came to the conclusion that the alarms had come to the end of their life? Maybe alarms in the US are different?
And who permitted the tenant to remove an alarm? It’s there for a specific reason. They need to be vetted again.
Could you have ignored the neighbor’s text?
No, it was downright rude.
Could you have pulled up, heard the alarm, and driven away?
Definitely not, and as a landlord certainly not.
Does six days of silence, no thanks, and a request to text first read as normal to you, or as something worth watching?
Definitely not normal and yes they need watching. Clearly they lack respect and manners, have poor boundaries regarding items that don’t belong to them and basic common sense.
What were they like on the rental interview you did?
Smoke alarms do have a lifespan of about 10 years expected service life. Not because of batteries or power supply, but because the internal sensors and circuitry degrade over time due to continuous use and environmental exposure (ie dust, grease, bugs, etc).
After renting my previously owner occupied properties for more than 25 years, I finally moved on and sold my rental units after I hit my early 50s. I had an opportunity to liquidate with limited tax exposure and I took it. I had experienced much of the same sentiment and frustration that you have about dealing with renters – and it only got worse as I got older. In the final years of one rental I installed the Nest Smoke detectors so I could monitor their status from my phone. The tech definitely helped me feel better about negligent tenants making poor choices in my property. Does Fundrise offer any ability to transfer gains through the 1031 process into their RE fund?
I think Fundrise may have had the option to do a 1031 exchange, but I’m not sure at the moment.
I’ll look into Nest Smoke Detectors. They could be a great upgrade.
Equity returns usually beat income real estate returns as you well know. Of course income +. appreciation has been a winning combo but I’ve always avoided direct income RE investing for this exact reason. Good column.
I feel the same…
Sam,
When I read your article today, I was just thinking exactly the same thing. I am also becoming more dreadful about being a landlord, and this has deterred me from buying more rental units recently. You may not remember me, I commented on one of your articles a long time ago. I used to live in LA area and moved to Oahu, Hawaii just last year July. Before moving, I transferred 4 of my rental properties in LA using a 1031 exchange and bought the replacement rentals here in Ewa Beach and Kapolei areas. I still have a couple of rentals left in LA and am just waiting for the current tenants to move out or terminate their leases. This year, I sold my old primary home in LA and planned to buy additional rentals here in Hawaii, but I changed my mind after seeing some potential properties. Its not the price nor the locations; I’m just getting tired of the rental scene. I’ve gotten really tired of different BS from tenants in the past, I think I experienced worse rental issues in California than I have here in Hawaii. Chasing rental payments, handling evictions, and remodeling the house after the tenants trashed the place—I was done, constantly telling myself and my wife. I’d rather take the money and just put it in an ETF or the stock market to earn both dividends and see capital appreciation. My strategy in the stock market has been simple: buy low and just sit in the market for long term. I rather just travel around when I have the spare time, go surfing and just enjoy my semi-retirement life here in paradise. I still own the casket import and wholesale business and sold partial company shares to my relatives, but I still work remotely a few hours a week to help with PO and certain company issues. I am still the majority company shareholder and hope my current partners will buy more shares eventually. Well, hit me up whenever you are back in Hawaii again; I’d love to chat some more.
David
Howdy David, sounds good. Yeah, once we have a sizable amount of capital, it’s way easier to just own stocks. Don’t need the leverage anymore.
Enjoy Hawaii! Hope this summer ain’t too muggy.
Besides thinking of a horror movie with the beeping, it’s totally illegal to disable fire alarms. I’d have responded that you should have been informed me and I would have replaced them asap.
Hi Sam,
Thank you for sharing all the challenges and successes with owning and managing rental property. When I was in my 30s and 40s, I really wanted to own rental property, but now that I am in my 50s, your posts are such good reminders on why passive real estate investing is the superior choice for my situation.
Can you please clarify if the smoke alarm on the garage floor was actually making an alarm sound or if it was just doing a high pitched beep every 30 seconds or so to indicate that the battery was low? The neighbor’s text to you does not indicate how frequent the high pitched noise was, but your description of the alarm noise when you arrived at the rental and after you went inside, indicates that it was the actual fire alarm noise that you heard.
If the fire alarm was going off, then this absolutely qualifies as an emergency, but the battery low warning does not. In reading the renter’s reply, it seems plausible that they think that the alarm was just making a battery low alert noise vs. an actual fire alarm which could explain their delayed response, lack of gratitude and their reasonable request to text in the future for what they think was a non-emergency issue. It’s possible that from their perspective, you entered their rental for a non-emergency so that may be where the disconnect is. I would definitely clarify with the renter to let them know that the actual fire alarm was going off so they are aware that this was an emergency situation and not the battery low alert which, while annoying, is not an urgent a matter. Also, I would not read too much into your renter’s request to text (instead of emailing him/her) prior to entering the unit as texting or even calling is a much faster way to get a hold of someone in an urgent situation when a quick reply is needed.
The alarm was going off. How have your experiences been with your tenants?
I have zero experience with this so take my armchair quarterback comment with a grain of salt. I would have called the tenant directly, probably the second I got the text from the neighbor. If no answer I would drive over there and let myself in like you did.
Completely logical. There is a derivative dance going on here though, because I have never heard from my tenants Neighbor so I’m surprised she had my number. And there were some typos so I wasn’t exactly sure whether she was texting the right person.
There is also a desire to have as minimal contact with the tenant and landlord as possible, so as to not make it a customary thing. It’s desired from both sides.
Some determination was that since the alarm has been blurring for a while, according to the Neighbor, and she doesn’t see a fire or smell of fire, that hopefully it was a false alarm, and I didn’t need to call my tenant or text, just email.
But if my neighbor texted me saying that she sees and smells of fire, then it is immediate contact and dialing for professional help ASAP.
Good article, Sam. Very interesting! I would have done pretty much the same that you did.
Question: can’t you just evict such an obviously callous tenant?
I have one idle property that’s locked up and I have absolutely no intention of renting it out. I’ll wait for a decent appreciation and then flip it.
No, eviction would be irrational. They did nothing wrong. A terse e-mail is not a violation. They pay on time and are diligent tenants who care.
I work in the electrical industry and smoke alarms are one of our bugbears. We always check the dates on alarms when we go to properties to do other work, because it seems like nobody else does. Whether owner occupied or tenanted, I’d say at least 50% of them are usually out of date.
If owner occupied then it varies whether the owner is thankful to be told or grumpy because they think we’re ‘costing them extra money’, as one guy told us. To be clear, we just advise them that the alarms are out of date and it’s up to them whether they ask us to fix them, we’re not putting the hard sell on anyone. And to be grumpy at somebody trying to save your life someday for the cost of a replacement battery is for sure an interesting choice to make.
The tenanted properties are the far bigger concern though. Very, very rarely do we ever find a tenant who’s pro-active at testing them regularly. Most of them have the attitude of ‘that’s the landlord’s responsibility’, and are surprised that their lease often requires them to test them monthly. We’ve also had plenty of cases like yours where the tenants have taken alarms down, taken batteries out to use in their own gadgets or put bags over detectors so they can smoke/cook without them going off. It simply doesn’t occur to any of them that their homes are unprotected when they do that, and in the worst scenario it can (and does) kill people. People always just think that it won’t happen to them.
The landlords themselves are often too cheap to pay for the proper detectors for the right areas, so we have cases where the system was installed to the correct regulations but then the landlord has later removed detectors, installed replacements incorrectly, or installed ‘bargain’ foreign ones bought online which don’t meet safety regulations. We found some that were entirely counterfeit with nothing but foam inside. No help at all if there’s an actual fire.
And the property management companies are next to useless. When we find out of date alarms in a tenanted property we let them know. They usually had no clue, even when the property had been recently inspected by them. They rarely keep records of when tests or replacements are due and haven’t got even the most basic training in regulations or how/when to test and replace things. It’s literally their job to keep on top of things like that, I honestly don’t know what they get paid for most of the time.
I’m absolutely certain that if there was ever a fire in any of the properties then the landlord, tenant and management companies would all be blaming each other for negligence. They all only ever seem interested in it not being ‘their fault’. Actual safety is way down the list.
Thank you for this insight and perspective. So important to share.
I will happily pay your company to do the inspection and install the latest and greatest fire alarms. And after this incident, I will be contacting my existing tenants to test them.
I have several properties that I have been self managing since 2014 so I have some experience in these matters.
1. You absolutely did the right thing by going to the property and entering to ensure there was no emergency.
2. Emailing the tenant and giving them a heads up was the right thing to do.
3. Ignore the tenants response. Since it’s SF, you have a higher proportion of entitled snobs or neurodivergent tech bros in your rental pool. Just chalk it up to people sucking and move on with your day.
4. I buy the CO/Smoke alarms with the 10 year lithium battery. I write the expiration date on the unit with a sharpie so I can visibly read it from ground level when I’m walking by. I buy in bulk and replace them all at the same time.
5. I am with you! As I get older I have less tolerance for being a landlord and just want to be as passive as possible. But RE is a patient man’s game. That’s where the true long term wealth comes from. Every time I consider selling and putting all proceeds into VTI, I crunch the numbers and it never makes sense to sell. I cash flow too much and have such a low mortgage rate on the properties (2.75 to 2.9) that long term, I will be much better off continuing to rent the homes. Perhaps I will consider hiring a property manager in the future and trial that angle before reconsider selling.
Yes sir, Real Estate is a patient person’s game. My patience was healed last year when I sold a rental property. But every incident knocks it down a little bit, so I need some time to rebuild that patient. Hopefully there’s nothing else going on for a while.
This fire alarm incident also as a reminder why insurance companies don’t ensure empty properties a lot of times. It is also a reminder that I need to see this situation positively, as Tenant should be viewed as guardians of your properties.
I have definitely been frustrated with smoke detectors in my own home. Some of them are placed 20 feet above the floor and sometimes not even safe to replace without professionally moving furniture. I like this idea of having long-lasting units, installed all at once, and just call somebody to do it.
Oh my what a “fire drill.” Tenant issues can be so stressful and unsettling. When I was first reading this my initial reaction was confusion about why you emailed (mostly because I’m terrible at checking my email and definitely wouldn’t open any email within five minutes of receipt unless I just so happened to have it open, which is low probability) versus texted him at first. But now that I read the whole article I totally understand your perspective and the Tenant was definitely in the wrong here. You absolutely did the right thing by going in and inspecting for any fires. The fact that the neighbor could hear it is alarming (haha I’m just full of puns today) and actually very thankful that they let you know to check things out. I think that’s a smart idea on adding those details to the lease as well. When it comes to rental property, you have to do everything you can think of to protect yourself as an owner. Hopefully they will give you confirmation asap that they did in fact replace those alarms. Otherwise, you have every right to push back and get them installed asap.
“In the process of throwing those away?” With the batteries in them? That doesn’t make any sense.
This is a simple matter, imo. If you have reason to believe nobody is home (message from your neighbor) then it’s perfectly reasonable to let yourself in. I’d even argue that it’s your responsibility to enter.
You can think of it another way. Your neighbor could have called 911 or the FD and they would have entered, probably. And the fact that it’s wildfire country adds even more responsibility. It’s not a privacy issue, but a safety issue.
Never found real estate attractive probably never will partly because of this. I get the pull to wanting a bigger fancier house and or diversifying. But is it really worth it or even optimal financially? I guess the answer depends on personality.
Sam, I 100% empathize with you and you acted rationally. Having said that this post reminds me of why I’m grateful that I am no longer a renter. Having my landlord come in my place to test the smoke alarm was something that always annoyed me (although I know why it’s important). It’s just not pleasant having a stranger come into my living space. Have you considered “smart” wi-fi connected smoke alarms? Then you could check remotely if anything bad happens. Also, if / when you move to Oahu, will you divest of your SF rental properties, seeing as you won’t be able to jump in during emergencies? Thanks
I’ve used a property manager for the past 15 years to handle these kinds of issues. Besides having them take care of most of the work, I prefer keeping some distance between myself and my tenants. A property manager adds a level of authority and professionalism that’s hard to maintain when tenants deal directly with the owner. It also helps reduce my own stress and anxiety. On top of that, I get a discount on their fees when I place additional properties under their management, along with eviction protection.