Episode 26: Landlording: Animals part 3 of 3 - Wildlife

Summary

In today's episode, we will explore part 3 of 3 regarding animals in a tenancy.  From the landlord perspective, how would you know about wildlife?  Is there a safety concern?  If there is, what do you do?  All of this and more in Episode 26 of My Life As a Landlord.

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Full Episode Transcription

Welcome to My Life as a Landlord, where we untangle all things housing and educate the curious. If

you're looking for some entertainment with some honest, awkward conversations, you've come to the

right show. I'm your host, Dr. Jennifer Salisbury. This is my life as a landlord. Welcome to it.

Welcome. Welcome to this week's episode number 26. I'm Dr. Jennifer Salisbury, your host and rental

guru. For those of you who are new to the podcast, thank you so much for joining me. We have five

predictable rotating topics, one each week that gets published on Saturday, either in Spotify or Apple

podcast or whatever program you are listening to us one comes out every Saturday. Thank you so much

for joining us. This week's topic landlord perspective of animals. This is going to round out a three part

series of animals from the perspective of a landlord. And today we're going to be talking about wildlife,

meaning not pets, not service animals, or emotional support animals, which was the topics of the

previous two podcasts. In this series, we're going to talk about non invited animals. I think that's a nice

way to say it. So in part one of the series, we talked about pets. We talked about the pet policy for

landlords and tenants, which pets are declared in and around units for comfort or pleasure. And I

encourage you, if you've got animal issues in your world as a landlord, go back to the Landlord Animals

part One series. It talks all about pets. Part two, we talk about non pets, which is animals in and around

the units, but they're service animals, emotional support animals. And in it, I explained and researched in

the US. Department of Justice, the US American Disabilities Act. And yes, it is US. Based. Mostly. But

we went through quite a bit on what a service animal is, what it does, what it means. Can you have a

service animal that's a service peacock or an emotional support squirrel? We talk about all of those

things. So I encourage you, if either of those are something that you want to look at, just go back to

those landlord. Landlord animals, parts one and two. Today we're talking about landlord animals, part

three on episode 26, and that is wildlife. Now, depending on where you are in your geographic area,

right, if you're in Texas or you're in Canada or whatever, you're going to have different encounters with

animals. Let's say you're in the desert or maybe you're in the mountains or whatever, you're going to have

different wildlife around you. So these animals are not declared by the tenant, they're not declared by the

landlord. They're basically nuisance animals. They're nuisance animals that are not invited, but they

interact sometimes. They can cause mischief, damage, injury, basically any outside animal. And there are

many, and we'll name a few, but this can be something that animals can be big, it can be big game, it can

be small. These can be rodents that can get into your house. They can be really nasty and cause a lot of

damage and can scare people. So we'll talk about it. So depending on where you are, examples of wildlife

can be bears, squirrels, hornets, raccoons, bees, snakes, gators, wolves, wild dogs, moose, mountain

lions, porcupines, rats, mice. I mean, basically any animal or any I want to say pest, because I do want to

include hornets and bees. And there could be many other slugs, there could be many others. But right

now we're going to talk a little bit about the animals that potentially could cause mischief, cause damage,

cause harm, and how to approach that. Now, is this an end all, be all for this episode? It is not. There is a

lot more to this. If you're having infestation issues of, let's say, ants, we're not talking about ants today,

we're talking about wildlife. So there is a bigger part to this. But as a landlord, how would you know that

you're having a problem with wildlife? So that's the first question. First point, how would you, as a

landlord, know that you're having a problem with wildlife? Well, what's going to end up happening is

either a tenant will call, a neighbor will call, something will happen. You'll drive by and you'll notice that

the window is broken and it looks like a bear is crawled through or something like that. But there'll be

some report to you in some way, whether it's they're seeing an animal, they're seeing damage, or their

report mischief. Or now that we've got cameras everywhere, you might see the wildlife on your cameras,

and especially if they are emotion triggered or light triggered. However you do it, some way you're going

to get alerted that something is happening. Whether it's a raccoon or a bear or a wolf, something is not

normal when this wild life is happening. Okay, number two. So number one is you're going to get some

kind of an alert. Number two, as a landlord, you need to ask yourself, is there a safety concern? Just

because you see deer walk through your yard, is that a safety concern? Likely not. But you never

know. Is there a concern for damage? Potentially. So what do you do if there's a bear, if there's raccoons

getting in your garbage? I keep going back to bear only because in British Columbia we have quite a bit

of bear activity and it's mainly during certain times of the year. Wherever you are, you're probably

thinking, yeah, well have this problem when this happens, and it's during a certain time of the year,

maybe it's not all the year and that's fine, but wherever you are located, whatever that problem is, my

question to you as a landlord, what are you going to do about it? If there is a safety concern, if there is

damage concern, what do you do in British Columbia? We call conservation officer. And what if that's

not an option in your area? What if you don't know what to do? Where do you even start? Well, I can tell

you. Call City Hall or call your mayor's office, call your county clerk and say, I'm having a problem with

wildlife. This I have no idea where to start. They will tell you there's usually an office, there's a

department, there's usually somewhere, some way that they will direct you and say, give this division a

call or something, a call, and if it's an emergency, you can call 911, but you want to make sure that it

truly is an emergency with a safety concern for that. But if you have nowhere else to go, you can call

City Hall or the county clerk. Now, the other thing that you can do is you could potentially call an

exterminator. Now, an exterminator may have business hours. If this is something after hours, they're

very likely not going to pick up. Or another option may be a farmers bureau. If you've got a farmers

group in your area that you're having problems with, say, wolves or cougars or some other predator, and

they're now encroaching in your area and they're causing either mischief or damage or they're threatening

to, your farmers bureau is very likely going to be completely aware of the situation. It is very likely that

they're going to have. Some kind of response or they will tell you where to go, where to call. And so

you can call an exterminator. There's four different options right there for you. And if all else fails, call

your local government office and just say, this is happening and I have no idea what to do or where to

call. And they will guide you. They will at least give you a place to go. Okay? So first thing, you're going

to be alerted that something has changed, that some wildlife is threatening your safety or your damage or

causing mischief. The second thing is, is there a safety concern or concern for damage? If the answer is

yes, you've got to take action. And then what? The third item in today's episode, part three of Wildlife is,

there is going to be a cost to this. And most of the times you're not going to have foreseen it. You're not

going to have budgeted for raccoons breaking into a fridge or something like you're not going to budget

for wildlife. But hopefully, if you are a Prudent landlord, which if you're listening to the podcast you are,

you've got to have some kind of contingency budget just in case. Or some insurance policies might

carry coverage, or there might be a rider that you can buy to include unforeseen wildlife damage. So if

that's the case, I would highly recommend talk to your insurance agent and see if that is available in your

area. It may be included already in your coverage as a landlord on your rental. This is the kind of stuff, as

a landlord, you need to call and have these awkward conversations and educate yourself on your policy,

at which point your insurance agent may just say, yeah, sure, look on page six or seven and here's this

part about wildlife and it'll say it's specifically excluded. Or you can say, hey, if I wanted to have

coverage for potential wildlife threats, how would we add that? Or is it even a possibility? But there's got

to be some kind of a budget for the wildlife aspect in your landlording world. And again, it depends on

your location. If you're downtown LA, you're probably not going to have a lot of problems with bears, but

are you going to have problems with rats or mice or wasps or other little creepy Crawleys, maybe snakes

or something? Yes. And if you're listening to this somewhere and you've got a problem with wildlife that

I have not mentioned, please let me know in Facebook, in the comments, and just let me know and say,

hey, Jen, you missed this. Absolutely. Remember, my perspective is Hawaii. 1s Some in Texas, some in

Oklahoma and British Columbia, and I'm learning about the other states and provinces at the moment as

we go. But it is not lost on me that many of my listeners are also experienced landlords. And I'd love to

hear your story, but it all goes back to you've got to have a budget for potential what ifs, and the wildlife

aspect is the what if. I can tell you that one time we had a report in British Columbia for where my

rentals are, that we had a bear in the dumpster. Not just on the dumpster, in the dumpster. And it had a

plastic cover that was lockable, and the bear had ripped open the plastic cover, the plastic lid, and was in

there having dinner on everyone's garbage. And so I was able to call the dumpster company and say,

look, we need a bear proof dumpster, which and I super appreciate our vendors because they were on it.

Obviously, we had to call conservation and conservation. By the time conservation got there, the bear

was gone. But this was a little bit of an interesting situation, because where the dumpster is located is in a

one way in, one way out location with multiple tenants. Not just our building. There's another building

next door. And so there could have been a wildlife encounter in the center of this little town that we are

in in British Columbia. And so there was there was a bit of a danger there. I was very concerned, but

when conservation got there, they were able to confirm that the bear was gone. Where the bear went, I

don't know. And there was no injury or damage. But then we had to then recover the dumpster and say,

okay, look, I can't have a dumpster with plastic lids. I need metal lids. It's still locked. It still serves the

same function. And that is what we have now, is we have a metal lid dumpster, even to this day. So that's

just one example. Let me give you another example. In Hawaii. There's no snakes. In Hawai, but there

are pigs. There are pigs, and the pigs can be really nasty. They can root around quite a bit, and depending

on the location of where this is occurring, the hunters do go and take care of the pigs. They have to kill

them is what they do. Sometimes they trap them, but most of the time they kill them. They kill them for

the meat, right? This is Hawai, and there's a lot of hunting for food here, but they do it properly and all of

those things. But there's still when damages occurred from wildlife. I just gave you two examples. But if

you have a family of raccoons that have broken into a kitchen while your tenants were on vacation, let's

say, and they've made a whole mess and they caused a lot of damage, you have to understand what is

your budget, what is your role, what is your response in all of that? Do you call an exterminator? Do you

call conservation? How do you actually work to recover from that? And then who is there coverage? Is

there insurance coverage? Otherwise, you've got to pay for that out of pocket, which doesn't sound fun.

As we conclude this episode, I want to just go through, as a landlord, how would you know you've got a

problem with wildlife? Well, somebody's going to give you a phone call somewhere or a text and say,

hey, we've got a problem. And then two, what do you do if there is a safety concern? We talked lots

about that. And then three, there's got to be a budget, there's got to be a plan to recover from that, and

hopefully these pesky wildlife animals will go away, and you can recover successfully from any damage

that has been caused. But here's your call to action. All my landlords out there, if when I don't want to

say if. When you get a call that you've got some wildlife activity on one of your rentals, what is your first

call? What's your plan? Do you have a plan? Do you have a local exterminator in the area of your rental?

Many of the landlords listening may not be physically located. It near your rentals. It may be in another

state or province. Does your management company have a plan? If not, you need to ask them and say,

okay, management company, if we have a report of a wildlife animal, what's your response? What's

going to be your reporting back to me as the landlord? These are all really interesting, awkward

conversations that nobody thinks about until it happens. It's happened to me, which is why we're having

this podcast. Well, as we close out this week's episode, let me know your thoughts. Again, I'm sure I did

not hit all high points on wildlife. I very likely missed something. And I'm sure there are landlord stories

out there to share. I'd love to hear them. And maybe I need to do an additional podcast on this topic. Let

me know in the comments. Ask a question I'd be happy to expand. And remember, I create all my new

podcast episodes from the questions and comments that I get most. And I want to provide the most value

to you as the listener. And so more comments and activities I get, I can craft more episodes around that to

provide value to you. Next week's topic is as a tenant, how do we have an awkward conversation with a

landlord? Oh, my favorite topics. I love talking about awkward conversations. They do not get better

with age. So as a tenant, how do you have an awkward conversation with your landlord? Stay tuned for

next week. We will get into it then. Thanks so much for listening. Bye bye.

Thank you for joining us this week. To view the complete show notes and all the links mentioned in today's episode,

visit our website at www.mylifeasalandlord.com. If you're looking for educational resources for getting into real estate

investing, becoming a landlord, or even a better tenant, then I have a page on my website to get you

started looking for a solution to the pickle that you're in. I've suggestions for that too. You can throw

your situation on my Facebook group, My Life is a Landlord, and let our community help you with

solutions. Also, before you go, make sure you subscribe to the podcast so you can receive new episodes

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on, or you can sign up at www.mylifeasalandlord.com. Thank you again for joining me, Dr.

Jennifer Salisbury, in this episode of My Life as a Landlord. I'll see you next time.