# What's the most pretentious request you've gotten from a tenant?
**URL:** https://community.avail.com/t/whats-the-most-pretentious-request-youve-gotten-from-a-tenant/328
**Category:** Landlord Questions
**Created:** [August 22, 2019, 10:03pm UTC](https://community.avail.com/t/whats-the-most-pretentious-request-youve-gotten-from-a-tenant/328 "2019-08-22T22:03:10Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Judith](https://community.avail.com/u/Judith)
#### Post date: [August 22, 2019, 10:03pm UTC](https://community.avail.com/t/whats-the-most-pretentious-request-youve-gotten-from-a-tenant/328/1 "2019-08-22T22:03:10Z")
What’s the most pretentious request you’ve gotten from a tenant?
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### Author:  [@community.manager](https://community.avail.com/u/community.manager)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2019, 9:07pm UTC](https://community.avail.com/t/whats-the-most-pretentious-request-youve-gotten-from-a-tenant/328/2 "2019-08-26T21:07:23Z")
As a prior roommate of tenant who was hard to room with I can tell you, there are a lot of people out there who really push the limits with their requests. I’ll defer to others to respond to this one but a bad one would be “You cashed my rent check and made all of my other checks bounce, now you need to pay my overdraft fees” - there are probably worse ones out there but that’s just a quick example. There are other strategies that can work when dealing with a difficult tenant though; I’m listing some of those below:
1. Know who you’re dealing with.
2. Acknowledge the complaint.
3. Allow time for the tenant to cool off.
4. Avoid asking “how high?”
5. Work to find a compromise.
6. Be straightforward about your perspective.
7. Create a formalized plan and proceed.
Curious to hear other LL’s examples of terrible tenant requests! @Judith
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### Author:  [@Maylon](https://community.avail.com/u/Maylon)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2019, 7:49pm UTC](https://community.avail.com/t/whats-the-most-pretentious-request-youve-gotten-from-a-tenant/328/3 "2019-10-08T19:49:35Z")
You can hear all kinds of odd requests. I only have houses so no condo issues.
1. A tenant asked me to start paying his water bill… with no increase to the rent. We ended up working out a deal where I took over the water bill (which comes every two months) and an average amount was added to the monthly rent. This way it was spread out for him and he did not have cost fluctuations.
2. A tenant asked me to re-landscape the yard. The plans they had in mind was a higher cost than an entire years worth of rent. In this case lawn maintenance was the responsibility of the tenant in the lease so I said no.
3. I had a perspective tenant tell me that she thought landlords should let tenants stay for free since the landlord gains equity in the house. She had no idea the costs behind a rental. Obviously she was not selected as a tenant.
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### Author:  [@BobPleau](https://community.avail.com/u/BobPleau)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2019, 8:09pm UTC](https://community.avail.com/t/whats-the-most-pretentious-request-youve-gotten-from-a-tenant/328/4 "2019-10-25T20:09:09Z")
Had a tenant ask me if I could redo their kitchen… after it was just renovated the year before last (new granite countertops and new stainless steel appliances).
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### Author:  [@Pete](https://community.avail.com/u/Pete)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2019, 9:53pm UTC](https://community.avail.com/t/whats-the-most-pretentious-request-youve-gotten-from-a-tenant/328/5 "2019-10-25T21:53:40Z")
> [@Maylon](#):
>
> I had a perspective tenant tell me that she thought landlords should let tenants stay for free since the landlord gains equity in the house. She had no idea the costs behind a rental. Obviously she was not selected as a tenant.
That’s one of those moments where I wouldn’t have been able to hold in my laughter. It is amazing to me how little knowledge some tenants have in terms of homeownership. or costs behind renting a property. Smh.
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### Author:  [@DHinDenver](https://community.avail.com/u/DHinDenver)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2020, 5:08am UTC](https://community.avail.com/t/whats-the-most-pretentious-request-youve-gotten-from-a-tenant/328/6 "2020-06-30T05:08:56Z")
Question asked like a tenant for life, who has never owned. Would you let someone use your car or wear your clothes for free? Then just bring you back the car and tell you the tank needs filled up, brakes need fixed, tire is flat, and your friend wants the car detailed NOW!? How about wear your clothes, and dump them off to you once a week to be cleaned and ironed, and get the stains out and mend the buttons? No? What’s the problem? These items aren’t even expected to gain value over time. We’re just talking about maintenance and upkeep here.
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### Author:  [@DHinDenver](https://community.avail.com/u/DHinDenver)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2020, 5:21am UTC](https://community.avail.com/t/whats-the-most-pretentious-request-youve-gotten-from-a-tenant/328/7 "2020-06-30T05:21:54Z")
My tenants from a few years ago called me to replace lightbulbs. Then they called me to say there wasn’t enough hot water. First I sent out a repair guy, paid 125$ to be told that my tenants didn’t understand the concept that there is a 40 gallon water heater. That’s the finite amount of hot water that you will get at one time before waiting for the water heater to cook more hot water. They had lived in motels and apartment complexes with unlimited amounts of hot water.