funny you ask I just moved yesterday to a house that stated it had fans online but it doesn't! silly me didn't even notice during the inspection! I pay $390 a week for a 4 bedroom and there is only one air con in the entire house, maybe I should ask too! my poor sons are suffering, this house was only built 3 years ago too! let me know how you go with your landlord.
it is totally your call.
we have spent $4000 on "improvements" to our house for the tenants and they are now going silly and asking for even more (im not talking fans im talking luxury items) and i think that is just being rude as a tenant!
I thought that amount was a bit wierd - but I am not sure how much wiring/electrics needs to be done and how that will impact/change current lighting scenario. Would be completely better with AC at that point! Will see how the written quote comes back.
I think only you can make the call as to whether it's a reasonable request
the house we're in now has air con in the family/kitchen area, but nothing in the bedrooms - and they get ALL the afternoon sun. we've had to keep DD in our room (the coolest of the rooms) through the last two summers as her room is just too hot most of the time. the aircon kinda helps her room but not much - and does nothing for our room. in theory, we COULD put a pedestal fan in her room, but we won't - she's a shocker for touching the fan we have in our room, and i don't believe it would be safe. we contemplated asking fo fans after last summer but thought we'd see just how bad it was this summer - and probably will ask - at least for the main bedrooms we use. our study is unusable on hot days so i guess we'd request four or five (four bedrooms plus the other lounge room). i don't know if it will be approved, but we've discussed staying long term, so who knows. i know the neighbours on either side are in similar houses with no cooling at all, and they're contemplating moving out as the houses are just too hot. both have had to put shadecloth and foil over massive windows just to make the house livable. we all have blinds rather than curtains, and they just don't block out enough. and we all have massive windows - great in winter for letting light in, but also shocking for letting too much heat in during summer!! if hubby doesn't have us in lockdown (lol) all day on a hot day, the house is unlivable
in our area, four bed houses are hard to come by, so i believe they would get tenants in no time if we moved out - but i don't think may people would stay around more than one summer with the heat in the houses. we're hoping the fact we've increased the value of the property at our own expense (built garden beds etc) that it may work in our favour if we ask for fans. we've also repaired anything that has gone wrong ourselves so zero maintenance for them
i guess you need to weigh up the value of your tenants, the outlay, how it will help you get or retain tenants etc. $2000 does sound like a massive outlay but i'm assuming it would be a case of taking out lights and replacing with light/fan combo like my bro did at his place....
I would perhaps do this for good tenants. Our current tenants are WONDERFUL. We totally refurbished (read ripped out and totally replaced) the bathroom of our cottage before they rented it so we won't do much to the cottage for a while. We charge VERY low rent which has not gone up for 2 years as we want to keep the tenants. They live on our property and since all our bedrooms don't have ceiling fans I would not install them in the cottage. We are planning to fix up the kitchen in the next 12 months, just waiting for the tenants to go on holiday so we don't disturb them too much. It's a hassle for them to empty their kitchen before they go away as it is.
We have had very demanding tenants in the past who have whinged and whinged if little things aren't fixed immediately. Living where we do means there is sometimes a bit of a wait for a tradie. These current people "get" the rural thing so it works wonderfully.
Could you offer to purchase some fans for them? We recently bought some tower fans (no blades, so very safe for little ones) for the bedrooms and they are fantastic! They were about $150 each, but are good quality and very safe.
When our ducted heating wasn't working properly last year and the landlord was struggling to get someone to fix it (long story) they bought us electric panel heaters to get us through while they sorted it out.
I've always wondered if requesting for air con to be put in was unreasonable. The house we rent has none and the curtains are very thin. The master bedroom is like a furnace in the mornings and by evening the back bedroom was 35 degrees the last few days (same as our weather!) Luckily the sun sets at the back of the house, so by night our bedroom is somewhat cooler.
Our Landlord seem fairly reasonable. When we moved in there was no line on the clothesline and the shower dripped constantly (which has caused the wall to go mouldy in one place) And we put in maintenance requests and it was all fixed except for the wall (which I thought in time would completely destroy the whole wall???). But the back fence is almost falling down and we have 2 dogs. Before we moved in they said the Landlord was looking into it and we still haven't heard anything.
Maybe we should ask.....
ETA: It was winter when we moved in!
Last edited by Marley&Me; January 31st, 2012 at 08:06 AM.
They should be able to wire fans into where the light already is just means they will have to be fans with the lights in them.
Im with a PP that said depends on the tenants and if you want to feep them but if you live near the rental can you purchase the fans yourself and just get the real estate to install them.
Being a tenant I would never ask for fans. If it was a big deal for me i would make sure i moved into a house that had them already or buy pedistal fans, they are sooo cheap these days.
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They might say yes.
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