What are some maintenance practices during COVID-19 that can help protect tenant health and safety?
Updating your rental plan for repair and maintenance issues to include CDC recommendations for health and safety issues and compliances with local and state guidances and directives such as social distancing should be a priority task. Changes in your maintenance repair practices to accommodate these important health and safety requirements should be communicated to your tenants. It is important that tenants understand your protective practices and the procedures for reporting and handling maintenance and repair issues.
Maintenance policies and practices during COVID-19 should clearly define what is considered essential services for emergency repairs, what is considered non-essential maintenance services and a protocol for each type of service. This information should be communicated to tenants with instructions on how to report service requests and the procedures for handling the requests.
Many landlords are prioritizing emergency type repairs at this time to help protect the health and safety of tenants, employees, and vendors. However, landlords should encourage tenants to report all work requests, whether maintenance items, or those repairs requiring immediate attention for health and safety reasons. Reporting maintenance items now can allow the landlord to include them in future maintenance scheduling when conditions return to normal.
For items needing maintenance or repair, it is helpful if a tenant could post photos and a brief narrative of the condition of the item needing service to the property’s website or tenant portal for evaluation and proper handling. Using online technologies, a landlord or a technician may be able to provide the tenant with step by step instructions that could resolve the issue without having to schedule an in-person service appointment. The uploaded information will be useful if it is later determined a service call is needed.
A landlord’s responsibility is to ensure a rental unit remains in safe, sanitary, habitable living conditions for the tenant. To do that, a landlord should work with his tenants to identify property issues that could make the property uninhabitable. Most state statutes address landlord responsibility for habitable housing to include essential provision of services for electricity, plumbing, heating, ventilation, and sanitation. If a tenant has a repair issue that impacts the provision of essential services, it is important that the tenant know how to contact the landlord for a direct and timely response for determination of emergency repair services.
Tenants requiring emergency repairs should be reassured that an employee or service worker will follow CDC health and safety guidelines such as social distancing, wearing protective equipment such as gloves, face coverings, or shields. It is recommended that tenants and their pets isolate in a separate room while the emergency repair work is being done.