Autumn brings with it a comprehensive list of exterior property maintenance items. To have your Lynchburg rental property’s yard and exterior ready for winter, you may have to check the lawn to make sure whether it has to be dethatched, leaves cleaned up, and trees and plants made ready to weather the cold temperatures.
It’s true that tenants play a big part in the upkeep of a rental property. Being the people actually living in the home, so much of the cleaning and light fixes are done by the tenants themselves. However, when it comes to certain tasks that carry an element of risk or tasks that require technical expertise, tenants shouldn’t attempt to do them. They can only bring harm to either themselves or to the property. So, when it comes to seasonal yard maintenance, there are some things that should not be part of the tenant’s responsibility. It doesn’t matter if you want to make sure that the job is done well, or the task would jeopardize your tenant’s safety. These sorts of maintenance activities are better off left to the experts who have thorough experience in doing it right and cautiously.
A rental property’s lawn is a critical factor of the whole appeal and value of the home. Consistent lawn maintenance should be a prime concern for both you and your tenant, as should other seasonal lawn maintenance tasks such as aerating and dethatching. Ultimately, the soil underneath a lawn will become compacted with dead grass and other debris. This collected material is called thatch. While a healthy lawn will benefit from a little bit of organic material, when thatch builds up too much it can prevent water and essential nutrients from penetrating the ground and reaching the roots of your grass. This can trigger the lawn to turn brown and stop growing, quickly ending in landscaping ugliness. However, reducing the thatch levels thickens up your grass and makes it strong— helping keep away diseases. Reducing thatch also encourages more water, air, and nutrients to come in and reach the root zone of your grass plants.
There are two ways to address the thatch problem: dethatching or power raking and aerating. For small-sized lawn locations, it is feasible to eliminate thatch with a dethatching rake. The tines of the rake are developed to drag the thatch upward, loosening it and separating it from the soil. To dethatch a lawn by hand, the lawn should be mowed to half of its normal height and then raked thoroughly. The loosened thatch can then be removed with your next mowing. To aerate a small lawn, you can rent an aerator machine which will remove small plugs of soil.
If it follows that you are going to bring about this task yourself, ensure that you clearly mark all sprinkler heads or utility lines for the reason that you don’t run over and damage them. You’ll furthermore have to comply with the guidelines safely to see to it that the aerator doesn’t damage your lawn in the process. There are, moreover, professionals who extend these services that you may like to confer with.
By all means, if your rental property has a larger yard, these practices will be unbelievably tedious and drawn-out to perform yourself. You could rent a dethatching or power raking machine to provide assistance with that work, notwithstanding, the same with aerating, you’ll be mindful not to damage your irrigation system or different sections of the yard. Lawns that have been aerated or dethatched must subsequently be attended to with care or risk more destruction. Proper watering and fertilizing are steps that should be taken after a dethatching or aeration, to both protect your lawn and encourage the roots to grow.
Though your tenant may appear able, it is not a good idea to expect them to perform dethatching or aeration on your property’s lawn. If, in any case, they don’t carry out a great job or have no idea what they are fulfilling, they could possibly cause extensive damage to your rental home’s yard, irrigation system, even septic or other utility lines. The equipment required to perform these maintenance tasks is not what most tenants have or will have engaged with in previous homes, largely raising the probability that something will go bad and that they could even hurt themselves in the process.
Having your tenant’s safety at risk is never a brilliant idea, as it could give rise to your being held liable for their pain and suffering. You could bring about lawn maintenance on your property yourself, however, dependent on the extent of your rental home’s lawn, you might like hiring a professional company to get in and execute these important lawn maintenance tasks for you.
Instead of passing your time on seasonal maintenance tasks, ponder on the payoffs of contracting Real Property Management Cairn to attend to them for you. As a real estate investor, your time is practically money. Free up your time by employing us to attend to your rental property for you. Our property maintenance services will make sure that important seasonal tasks are being fulfilled regularly and well, keeping your Lynchburg rental property in good shape year-round. To learn more, contact us online or call us at 434-215-3028 today.
We are pledged to the letter and spirit of U.S. policy for the achievement of equal housing opportunity throughout the Nation. See Equal Housing Opportunity Statement for more information.
