Does it have it in the lease that gardens/lawns have to be maintained by the tenant? If not, then no. A property manager would be silly NOT to put it in the lease though. As for the hose, no, that would be tenants responsibility.
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Does it have it in the lease that gardens/lawns have to be maintained by the tenant? If not, then no. A property manager would be silly NOT to put it in the lease though. As for the hose, no, that would be tenants responsibility.
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It is in the lease. It just seems a little strange that there would be no hose provided. In all of the houses we've rented before, a hose was either provided or we were asked to buy one and send the receipt to the property manager to reimburse us.
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It could be a grey area. I've never heard, or seen of a situation where a tenant would be supplied or reimbursed a hose to keep lawns maintained. However, tenants have probably never thought of trying itIt's a little like tv antennas. It's not the owners responsibility to supply one, but many do just to keep the tenant happy.
What does it say in the lease? Does it say to 'maintain lawns' or to 'keep lawns/gardens watered at all times'? If it doesn't say to actually water, then that would be your defense. Not sure of your water restrictions also, but you could also use that as well.
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No, it says to keep lawns and gardens maintained at all times.
They even sent a letter saying that it all has to be rectified and returned to the state it was in when we moved in by 19 January when they will do a follow up inspection to make sure we've done it...they even included photos of what it looked like a week before we moved in!
Tell you what, I'm glad I have 2 weeks off at Christmas time.
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If they want you to water and keep the lawns green, then let them know they will need to stipulate that in the lease when the renewal comes up. The wording of the lease is very important. Remind them that saying 'to keep lawns and gardens maintained at all times' does not necessarily mean to keep lawns green at all times. And insist that if this is what they want, they can provide the hose at the same time.
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maintaining lawns, imo, is ensuring they are kept mowed and neat - NOT watering. watering grass is a wasteful exercise when water is already in short supply. provided the grass is dying off naturally and not from you parking vehicles on it, i would fight it. if their expectation is to have it watered, i would put it to them that they supply water tanks or grey water systems to facilitate this as it is wasteful and not required
as to the rest of the gardens - yeah, it's fair to keep them alive and watered within reason. if they are elaborate gardens, they should be ensuring someone is there to prune them correctly on a semi-regular basis (if we rented this house out, we'd pay for someone to maintain the roses every year so that they were pruned properly)
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In Melbourne, i thought it was illegal (Under the 3A water restrictions) to water your lawns unless its from your own water tank?
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i'm a keen gardener, use buckets of water from the shower and bath to keep my garden alive, and i had about 80% of my plants DIE during our recent heatwave.
it's not realistic to keep a garden GREEN in the summer weather conditions we have in this city.
lawns need regular mowing to stay nice, they're a high maintenance garden plant and many varieties are very thirsty. Up to recently, it's only been legal to water here twice a week anyway.
i'm not sure your lease agreement is REALISTIC, but it's in writing, it's a legal document.
i hope the photo they took a week before you moved in, tallies with how the place looked when you moved in (not a photo taken YEARS before for example).
You can rectify the pruning (you're paying to get a gardener to do that), but i don't know how you can make a "lawn" of weeds, look like lush lawn by January, unless it all gets ripped out and new lawn is put in. And you don't know what the weather will be like for the next month anyway. Last few years MOST of summer here has been heatwave conditions.
i don't think your RE person or landlord is being realistic. you live in the driest state in teh driest continent, this is not northern hemisphere with heaps of rain!
whether you're a gardener or not, 43 degrees kills alot of garden plants. Heaps of mine turned into potato crips in one day - kaput.
we had big issues at our old house with our landlords and her "lawns" if its in the lease then you do have to maintain it but it is tentant costs stupidly and you wouldnt be able to water with a hose anyway due to water restrictions (depending where you are) we had to buy a grey water tank and install it ourselves
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Thats my beef too - if they want the garden watered no worries, just don't make me pay the excess water for 'their' garden!
Luckily we don't have grass out the front - and weeds out the back are better looking than they were when we moved in
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Well, we're gonna hire someone to prune all the plants. I was excited when we moved in to have a nice garden...but then quickly remembered that neither DH nor I know how to, or enjoy gardening!
I sware, when we get our own house, it's gonna have lots of paving, a bit of grass, and lots of hardy succulants or other drought hardy plants that look after themselves. (A set and forget type of garden)
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We've never ever been provided with a hose, but never been told to water either. But we always try to look after our lawns coz we like it & we like being able to let the kids run bare foot outside. We've always put in a bit extra money & time to have nice lawns & we try with gardens too, but the dogs aren't heping there right now!!
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I think it goes both ways...
we bought a house for the sole purpose of demolishing it and building a new home. We rented it out for a couple of years while we prepped ourselves for the build (moving from interstate, dealing with architects, a few changes of plan after being told that the house would cost more than double the initial figures, etc). The tenants wanted our house because of the big block, and because they were keen gardeners.
Fine, it was MY garden, but MY plans were to remove the whole things and start with a blank canvas (so to say). My tenants wanted the masterpiece in the interim. They claned up the place from the what the prior owners had left behind, planted lots of new stuff, and kept up the garden during the heatwaves last year then moved out about a month later. Should I be expected to pay for that, knowing that the whole thing was about to be bulldozered? It was their hobby - I didn't care if they let it die.
Just saying - sometimes it's not the owners who expect the garden to be a certain way. If the owner REALLY wants the gardens cared for then they should be employing a gardener - it's called property maintenance, and tenants shouldn't have to pay the landlord to maintain a property - financial or labour. It gives them good marketability on the house for the next time it needs to be rented or sold. If the owner couldn't care less, but the tenants want a pretty garden as a hobby or to show off to the neighbours then it should not be a burden on the owners to keep up with the aspirations of the extraordinarily keen gardener!!
having said that, I *do* think that tenants should at least take the time and effort to not let the place go to hell and look like something you would see on "Today Tonight"If the lease stated that the gardens should be cared for and the tenants didn't have the appropriate tools, I'd be more than happy to supply...
Last edited by somewoman; December 7th, 2009 at 08:44 PM.
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