Our Houston property management teams and our Dallas property management teams understand that tenants and homeowners living in our HOA communities can become frustrated by the obligations of maintaining their home.
Some new tenants may not be aware or appreciate that renting or owning a single family home is different than living in a apartment complex. Tenants who live in single family homes are expected to be more involved with the maintenance of their homes than maybe expected at the apartment complex.
For example, many tenants who choose to rent homes often do rent a homes because of a desire to have a yard and their own space. This is a wonderful reason to rent a home, but it also adds responsibilities for upkeep and maintenance of those areas. Remember, landlords at single family homes in Dallas or Houston do not have onsite maintenance crews who can take care minor items or non-emergency repairs. This is why our Houston and Dallas property managers emphasize to our tenants the importance of using this library and understanding your obligations as tenants. Our property managers hope that this library will save you time, inconvenience, and money dealing with repairs that arise.
Examples of headaches and cost that can arise from requesting our property managers to handle minor repairs or obligations:
Homeowner in our HOA communities can utilize this library as a resource to help make your homeownership experience more pleasant and less expensive.
Benefits to our HOA communities include:
For you homeowners who are in HOA communities, you may find our maintenance library a resource to help you handle your small repairs or DIY maintenance projects. Please feel free to visit and explore what we may have found to share with our tenants and homeowners.
NOTE: These videos are not a endorsement of a vendor, but simply a resource to provide owners with ways to handle the maintenance themselves.
Tenants need to be aware that putting the wrong things down the drain can cause damage to the pipe. This can cause back up and waste water to back up in the drain. For example:
Visit our page for tenant video and guidance of what to avoid to put down the drains in the home.
Sometimes you can pull out the debris in a drain if it is hair in tub drain or sink drain. You can use a pair of pliers or tweezers to grab some of the easy to reach debris that clogs drains. However, there are other tools that you can buy very inexpensively from local hardware stores like Home Depot or Lowes.
Click here to see a video demonstrating how tenants and homeowners can clear a drain with simple tools that you can buy at local hardware store for a few dollars.
Toilets often get clogs and the clogs are both very gross as sewage will back up, and it is very expensive to clear. Often times, plumbers will find that the wrong types of products were put down the toilet. For example:
Click here to visit our page where we show several things you should never put down a toilet.
Tenants and Homeowners are responsible to use all items in the home appropriately. If they do not use things like a toilet appropriately, tenants can face expensive repair bills from their landlords, and homeowners living in a community with shared lines can have those cost billed back potentially. To clear a toilet, you can use a plunger, but you can use no tools to clear a toilet.
You will need:
Click here to see an instruction guide on how to attempt to clear a toilet without tools.
Tenants and Homeowners may have to use tools to clear a toilet. Luckily, a effective but also affordable tool is a plunger. Remember that with home warranties, leases with repair deductibles, etc there are cost to maintenance for homeowners or tenants, so it is important to try and resolve matters in a cost effective maanner.
Tenants and Homeowerns often complain about high water bills need to undertand that the bill is higher because the rate has increased or usage. With a sudden increase, it is a sign there is high water usage, which indicates a leak (often called a silent leak).
A leak is usually visible, so if tenant has not notice large puddles of water, discoloration, a faucet dripping, then this is usually a sign that the toilet is constantly running.
Tenants need to test for it, and they can take a video to see if they see a leak or not if they want for our property management to verify its a silent leak, if not sure.
Usually there are two culprits in a toilet that often cause water to flow constantly. One is the fill valve being set too high and it makes water fill past the level of the overflow tube. The other is a flapper that is not sealing well in the tank. Links to the two repairs are below.
Yes, tenants and homeowners can review your bill to get a idea of what your average water usage. This way, you can get a idea of when a leak shows up that the usage is abnormal.
In the City of Houston, they have a great program where homeowners or tenants can setup their account to get alerts when their usage goes over a certain level.
When there is any leak, the first step is to turn off water supply. For that you need to find the main water shut off valve. Here is the video which will help you to find it.
There are 3 huge reasons why people should be regularly changing the filter on their homes?
1) Not Changing Filters can cause huge repair bills. Filters become a low priority due to a misunderstanding of what filters actually do. The filters main job is to protect the AC system from becoming damaged.
Over time, the problem will get worse if you continue to ignore it. The filter itself isn’t the only thing that will stop functioning as it should. Dust in the ducts will degrade the moving parts, making them run slower and draw more power. This will wear out the mechanics of your AC much faster than normal use. The average lifespan of an HVAC unit is fifteen to twenty years. Without a regular change of the AC filter, that can be shortened by five to ten years.
2) Changing your filter keeps the home cooler. and save you money
Changing a filter can save up to 5 to 15% of energy bills per year as documented by the energy department.
This kind of savings can add up for a home whether you are an owner or a tenant. Texas heat can be difficult and put a lot of pressure stress on a air conditioning system.
3) Additionally, there are certain filters that are designed to remove allergens.
1) Locate Air Filters
2) Get correct size filter
3) Make Sure filter is pointed where arrow points towards the director or air is flowing.
4) Clean the area around the filter
5) Write dates on the filter of when it was changed to remind you the date.
Here is a step by step by instruction by Home Depot on how to properly clean and change the air filter.
1) Keep area free of debris, mulch, or plants away from the unit
2) Check if the fins are bent
3) Clean the exterior unit
Here is a video series to help demonstrate how to clean and maintain your exterior condenser unit.
Homeowner and tenants need to realize that the thermostat in most homes are battery operated. When your system does not seem to be changing the temperature, it maybe that the batteries are out on the thermostat. The batteries maybe out on their thermostat, and they may need to be changed.
Over the past few decades, temperature has been slowly getting hotter in Texas. Many homes that were built years ago were not built to ventilate or be insulated to handle these extreme heats. Therefore, the AC system is cooling, but the home is struggling to reach the optimal temperature.
This is why we suggest tenants :
1) Change filters
2) Keep debris from outside unit
3) Put up knockout curtains or blinds to reduce window
4) Use fans
Homes are not designed to withstand consistent 100 degree plus days so the system will seem like its not a comfortable temperature. We can try to find a solution, but it may not be just the AC unit or it may be a function of the home, location, and some of the other factors noted above.
https://www.aaaheatingandcoolinginc.com/why-isnt-my-house-cooling-down/
Garbage disposals are a great convenience in many homes. However, they often can trip and stop working. Many times the disposal can be reset and cleared to begin working.
A few common ways to fix the disposal:
How to reset a garbage disposal instructions
It can be easier than tenants or homeowners think to replace a burner on a electric stove to get it working again. You may need to swap out your electric stove burner to get your stove working again and save yourself time and money coordinating a repair.
Cleaning your gas burners can help insure stove works appropriately and gets appropriate heating. Tenants and homeowners can save money and repair coordination time by cleaning your gas burner to get your stove working again.
Sometimes grease blocks the igniter from igniting the gas. This maybe why stove is not working and may have a simpler solution.
Dishwashers are similarly built so the ways to check across many dishwashers work the same way.
1) Check garbage disposal
2) Check drain at the bottom of dishwasher
To see 4 steps to try to clear your drain:
Tenants and homeowners will have to change smoke detector batteries periodically to insure that they work as intended.
This video is aimed to help educate you on importance of changing the batteries.
A easy tip is to change batteries 2x a year as good rule of thumb, and homeowners and tenants can do it when we change the clocks for day light saving time adjustments.
Tenants and homeowners who have ice maker and water dispenser will have a filter for the water. This filter has to be changed periodically. Tenants who are provided a fridge at a rental property. You have to have to find the filter which can differ depending the model and style.
This video can help you identify areas of a fridge to look for your filter. After finding filter, you can order a replacement filter at a hardware store or online by looking at the information on the filter.
Also, you can google based on the model number that you can usually find on the inside of the fridge what kind of filter it may require.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFqk3RHI9YA
Water on ceiling can come from 3 factors:
This is why it would be very helpful for our property management team if tenants would try to help us diagnose where the water is coming from if possible.
Examples of things to think about:
https://preferredservicesca.com/blog/why-do-i-see-water-stains-on-my-ceiling
Houston Phone: (832) 364-6025
Dallas Phone: 972-863-2080
Leasing Line Houston- (832) 295-0541
Fax: (832) 364 -6025
Texas Corporate Office:
5444 Westheimer, Suite 1000, Houston, TX, 77056
Texas Mailing Address:
3120 Southwest Fwy Ste 101 PMB 93424
Houston, Texas
77098-4520