Rental Property Maintenance Workers Guidelines

Rental Property Maintenance Workers Guidelines
By Wolfgang O

Any property is going to have to have a maintenance worker. It may be the property owner himself or a whole staff of workers. Each worker has certain responsibilities to take care of. There are many questions about maintenance workers that always come up. One, who do I hire for the job? Two, how do I know they are doing a good job? Three, what precautions should the workers take to protect themselves? Finally, when do I need to replace a worker?

When looking for a maintenance provider always check references. The best critics are those that have seen the worker in action. Don’t worry about what the worker’s mother has to say about it. Background checks are extremely important. These workers will be going into your residents homes to perform work. There are too many temptations for you to treat this part of the hiring process lightly. Be discriminate about who you hire. Not by race or disabilities but by history.

Once you have a worker make sure you put in a way for them to be critiqued. Send a questionnaire to the resident after the work is done. Or better yet make a personal visit to check up on things. This way you can keep track of what’s going on. Some questions you need to ask are: Was the work done in an reasonable amount of time? Were you treated with respect? Did you feel comfortable? Did you notice anything missing or not where it should have been? Answers to these questions will go a long way in training or disciplining the worker.

Precautions should be taken to protect the workers. First of all a good insurance program needs to be installed. Whether it’s a single worker or a group of fifty insurance is vital. On the job injuries happen all the time and you need to be ready. Secondly, certain precautions about home visits should be enforced. Some of these are: Always knock before entering a dwelling no matter how many cars are in the driveway. Always ask the resident if it is okay for them to be doing the job at this time. If a teenager or child is the only resident at home at the time, come back later. Always stay above reproach so that no one can entrap you. Always be gracious.

If any of these guidelines fail, then some actions may be warranted. Maybe discipline them with loss of income, suspensions, or last resort termination.