Cost of Cleaning

[GwenTellier]

I recently had 2 tenants move out in Lethbridge, and I had to clean up behind them. How much do I deduct off of their deposit? I did send them a list of things they needed to clean, but they didn't look at it. Is there some kind of formula? They were good tenants.

 

[stevegwhite]

What's a deposit? Oh, Alberta

I would price myself at a dollar amount per hour. No less than $35/hr x the amount of time it took.

Or you could hire a company and 20% to the cost and deduct that.

By not charging you are telling them it's okay to ignore your lease agreement and you may cause headaches for their next landlord. So charge something.

 

[mortgageman]

The move out cleaning checklist I give tenants says the fee is $50 per hour if they don't do a decent job of cleaning.

I'm considering upping that to $75 per hour.

 

[Thomas Beyer]

A decent cleaner is $20 per hour .. Plus management fee. Or bill around $30/h plus any stuff you had to buy or rent, say a commercial carpet cleaning machine for 1/2 day. Painters are more like $30 to $50 per hour plus management overhead.

 

[invst4profit]

I can't believe how easy you have the business environment out west regarding tenant damage. In Ontario we are not allowed damage deposits and short of taking a tenant to small claims court, assuming they are not on welfare,there is next to no consequences for tenants. We paint, clean, repair damaged walls, doors, windows, counters, floors, carpets, appliances etc and all with barely any hope of compensation.

We operate on the principal that we get it back on the market asap and hope the next tenant does less damage.

Simply the cost of doing business for most landlords in Ontario.

 

[Thomas Beyer]

[quote user=invst4profit]I can't believe how easy you have the business environment out west regarding tenant damage. In Ontario we are not allowed damage deposits and short of taking a tenant to small claims court, assuming they are not on welfare,there is next to no consequences for tenants. We paint, clean, repair damaged walls, doors, windows, counters, floors, carpets, appliances etc and all with barely any hope of compensation.

We operate on the principal that we get it back on the market asap and hope the next tenant does less damage.

Simply the cost of doing business for most landlords in Ontario.
It's called vote buying !



I used to think that the Liberals were a centrist, balanced party. Gee, under Paul Martin they were almost right-of-centre. That changed rather quickly.



Perhaps with the "right" party it will change in 4 years !



The change in landlord-tenant act is easy to fix after a new election .. the other issues, especially DEBT, will take years .. decades most likely !!



Read this article here: http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/10/17/why-ontario-is-poised-to-become-canada%E2%80%99s-greece/



Or look at these debt to GDP ratios across Canada: http://worthwhile.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451688169e20153926ea5eb970b-pi



Add to that a failed solar feed-in-tariff, strong union power, very high
debt, overpaid civil servants with generous pensions and early
retirement age, land transfer taxes and a large uneducated immigration
population you have to be very VERY selective where to invest in
Ontario.

 

[invst4profit]

Gees things as bad as they seem I hope I am not stuck with my property forever. What good is freedom 65 if your not free. I may be better off just passing it along to my kids and take a cut of the profits. With the future of this provence in jeopardy they may be better off with the secure income it provides as a fall back..

 

[FraserCampbell]

[quote user=ThomasBeyer]Add to that a failed solar feed-in-tariff ...



Thomas, why do you declare solar FIT as failed, I missed the memo? All forms of power are massively taxpayer susidized to my knowledge. As always it's possible to find numbers backing up any argument ... such as true cost of building new nukes to be $0.80/KWh.

 

[Thomas Beyer]

[quote user=FraserCampbell]

Thomas, why do you declare solar FIT as failed, I missed the memo?


I did a solar thermal pilot-project on my roof in Canmore, AB. Expensive with no noticable energy savings. A payback of perhaps 50-80 years i.e. an ROI of 1-1.5%.



Basically, it is too expensive. It will be like N-Europe where electric energy is triple to quadruple that of BC's or Alberta's. 30-40 cents per kwh instead of 6-8 in BC or AB. A major competitive advantage lost in ON, where already it is 50% higher than in AB and BC and soon will be 100% .. plus bird clean-up costs of course from all those windmills .. plus dropping real estate values near-by from all the voom-voom-voom .. but I digress.



Some research here: http://cdhowe.org/pdf/ebrief_117.pdf



This debate is off-topic for the original poster.



I love solar .. and I think it is part of the future .. but there are better, cheaper & actually cleaner alternatives today, namely hydro and natural gas !



One day we will have buildings & windows that generate electricity, so called "solar windows". For example, see here: http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/green-tech/solar/solar-windows-new-ultrathin-cells-generate-power-from-artificial-light That makes total sense to me, especially in sunny climates like AB or AZ or CA.

 

[kir]

Ontario tenancy laws are strange!

It's hard to believe that a tenant can go without being punish for any damages that is obviously deemed beyond normal wear and tear, and assuming proper documentation has been done.



Does it make a difference if the place is brand new versus a house that has lived beyond it's effective age.

You can't expect a tenant to pay for, ex. damage floor, because it sort of "expired" long time ago (or lived beyond it's effective life). Obviously you need an appraiser to determine effective age.



Just curious,



Kir.

 

[bizaro86]

[quote user=FraserCampbell]Thomas, why do you declare solar FIT as failed, I missed the memo? All forms of power are massively taxpayer susidized to my knowledge. As always it's possible to find numbers backing up any argument ... such as true cost of building new nukes to be $0.80/KWh.



Which is the problem with Ontario right there, in bold. New gas powered electricity is <$0.10, and is more environmentally friendly than coal and (arguably) nuclear. Solar power for 5x the cost doesn't make any sense at all, and will push business out of Ontario as consumers and businesses are paying for those subsidies on their bills for decades.



Just becfause some other power source (new nuclear plants) is expensive and absurd, doesn't mean it's a good idea to spend a bunch of (taxpayer/ratepayer) money on a bad investment.