Why are property managers so fixated on oven cleanliness?

[MashedBanana]

Rant: I'm over renting!! Been a tenant since leaving home at 18.

Being inspected every few months just feels degrading. A stranger comes in and not picks over the cleanliness of your home. Nothing is ever good enough.

Rant over. Wish it was cheaper and easier to get a deposit together to purchase my own home.

[MashedBanana]

I mean nit picks. Rather than "not picks"

[iris lily]

Rant: I'm over renting!! Been a tenant since leaving home at 18.

Being inspected every few months just feels degrading. A stranger comes in and not picks over the cleanliness of your home. Nothing is ever good enough.

Rant over. Wish it was cheaper and easier to get a deposit together to purchase my own home.

dirty ovens casue fires? Maybe that's why, I remember the rental manager saying that to me 25 years ago.

[Left]

I think most would leave you alone, you said you have been renting since 18, have you been in the same place?
Just wondering if the manager is using this as an excuse to visit with you to check up on you? Concern for you since you are young?

[MashedBanana]

That'll be it then.

Problem is the oven wasn't even dirty. Just looked dirty I guess, because the paint down the bottom had burnt off leaving a few little patches exposed metal. I focused on the oven for the inspection because last time we were told it wasn't clean enough, even after cleaning it. Sigh.

[MashedBanana]

I've been in a new place every year since 18. I'm 26 now. So have been renting for 8 years.
Just over it!!

[Elliot]

No one has ever inspected my apartment while I was living in it.

[MashedBanana]

No one has ever inspected my apartment while I was living in it.

That would make my life!!

[geekette]

Definitely not a U.S. thing. I've heard of it in England, though, and probably other places.

[MashedBanana]

I'm in NZ

[Less is More]

Im in NZ too AND I was a landlady for 12 years.

Ovens are an issue due to fire hazard if not cleaned regularly.
Also if they are not cleaned regularly the dirt bakes on and means the oven has to get replaced sooner.If I buy a brand new oven I want it to last about 10 years at least although I expect to pay for a few small repairs in that time.
In sympathy, one thing I hate cleaning is the OVEN. :)

[MashedBanana]

It is getting to the point where it feels like harassment. I get that the landlord should be able to keep tabs on things, but I can't wait until I don't have to deal with someone in that capacity every few months. It always just feels so negative even though we are top tenants.

[Astatine]

In California, a landlord can only enter the property for a short list of specified reasons. Inspecting the conditions of the property is not on the list.

Other states do allow inspections, but in every state, the landlord entering the apartment too often would constitute harassment.

Entering "every few months" as you mention would likely be considered harassment in the US or Canada.

Oh wow, that would explain some Americans being enthusiastic about renting. That would be bliss to rent and not have 6-monthly inspections of well, everything inside and outside the house. I found it quite degrading and intrusive to have someone come and inspect when I was renting. Hated it so much. Some real estate agents are super fussy and you get told off if there's a weed in the yard or the ceiling fans aren't perfectly clean and dust free. Do not miss it at all.

[nora]

There are good and bad agents. Our current agent drove past our place once and then emailed me about a weed growing outside the front fence! Luckily that was the only inappropriate thing she has done all year. Needless to say I didn't reply to the email, although I drafted a few terse responses which I never sent.

If you know or see your actual landlord, you could suggest they save their cash and cancel the regular inspections. I did that once, and the agent stopped coming around every three months which was great.

I don't clean my oven at all anymore. I pay someone professional to clean the whole place when we leave. It is really cheap to do this compared to the hours I have spent doing it in the past. I haven't had an agent complain the oven isn't clean enough before. You could try putting a lipped tray under your cooking to stop the overflows getting into the bottom of the oven. Also cover splashy items with foil, e.g roast meat makes a fatty explosive mess if done very hot, but less so with foil placed loosely over it.

[Primm]

The 3 monthly (yes, that's how often they're allowed to do them in Australia!) inspections were a driving force behind us asking the landlord if we could sack the management agent and rent privately. They used to send us notice but then get snarky when I asked to reschedule, they always seemed to manage to make an appointment when I was trying to sleep after a night duty. I used to clean the house until it sparkled (it was usually pretty tidy anyway) but they always found some little thing. When I found out that the reason the overflowing front drain every time it rained hadn't yet been fixed was because the landlord hadn't been told, 3 YEARS after I'd started hassling the agent, we rang him and asked if we could do this without them. Thankfully he said yes, and the last 3 years of our tenancy (we were in the same house for 10 years) we had no inspections.

[kathrynd]

We have 40  rental units in canada, and we never inspect when a tenant is there, unless it is checking the smoke alarm, fuse panel etc.

Not for routine cleanliness.

I would hate doing it.

[geekette]

It sounds like a "service" that's sold to landlords, so of course they have to make themselves useful.

Maybe our ovens are different (or cooking styles, or what have you), but we've lived here for 20 years and I can count on the fingers of one hand how many times I've cleaned the oven.  It's a "self cleaning" oven, though.  Lock it, set a timer, and it heats up and burns stuff off, cools down, and unlocks.  It's pretty average in the US, but I don't know about other places.

[Eric]

What happens if the oven is "not clean enough"?

[Angie55]

Our management company is supposed to do them every 6 months but we somehow got off the list. We only got back on a month after I wrote an awful yelp review. I think it was because we were farther away than most of the other houses they manage. This was the first lease I've ever seen that clause in and I've been renting 13 years (10+ places).

We once had notice of a "roof inspection". There's a GIANT branch about 10ft long sitting on our roof. Still there after the inspection. Gutters are filled with junk and they remain the same.

It's obvious the main reason my company does it is to find things that need repair so they have an excuse to charge the owner $100 a pop to send a "repairman" who shows up and never fixes the problem. They will literally come once with no tools, agree that somethings not right, then never come again.

[MashedBanana]

What happens if the oven is "not clean enough"?

If they had deemed our place bad enough they would have issued a 14-day reinspection notice. In which case they would have given us time to reclean. If at the end of the reinspection of it's still not at a "reasonable" level, they start the process of evicting tenants. That's what's happens in NZ.

[Eric]

What happens if the oven is "not clean enough"?

If they had deemed our place bad enough they would have issued a 14-day reinspection notice. In which case they would have given us time to reclean. If at the end of the reinspection of it's still not at a "reasonable" level, they start the process of evicting tenants. That's what's happens in NZ.

That's hilarious and sad at the same time.  I can't believe that a landlord would actually evict anyone for having a dirty oven.  I mean, the process of eviction costs a lot of money, as does finding new tenants (who may not keep the oven any cleaner).  There's very little non-malicious activity that a renter could do that would cost the landlord more than having a vacant unit for a month.  I realize that you probably can't take the chance, as it's hard to find new places to rent with evictions in your past, but man, I'd almost be willing to tell them to fuck off and see what happens.

I guess this also opens my eyes to how great we renters have it in the US.  In most places, you have enough rights as a renter that the only reason a landlord can enter the property is to perform maintenance.  And they still have to give you 24 hours notice even for that.

[MashedBanana]

What happens if the oven is "not clean enough"?

If they had deemed our place bad enough they would have issued a 14-day reinspection notice. In which case they would have given us time to reclean. If at the end of the reinspection of it's still not at a "reasonable" level, they start the process of evicting tenants. That's what's happens in NZ.

That's hilarious and sad at the same time.  I can't believe that a landlord would actually evict anyone for having a dirty oven.  I mean, the process of eviction costs a lot of money, as does finding new tenants (who may not keep the oven any cleaner).  There's very little non-malicious activity that a renter could do that would cost the landlord more than having a vacant unit for a month.  I realize that you probably can't take the chance, as it's hard to find new places to rent with evictions in your past, but man, I'd almost be willing to tell them to fuck off and see what happens.

I guess this also opens my eyes to how great we renters have it in the US.  In most places, you have enough rights as a renter that the only reason a landlord can enter the property is to perform maintenance.  And they still have to give you 24 hours notice even for that.

To be evicted in NZ you'd would have to be fucking the house up pretty bad, punching holes in the walls not cooperating with the land lord to repair them etc

One of my friends had to replace her whole kitchen after her tenants moved out. The had stopped paying rent, left trailer after trailer load of rubbish on the property, holes. Dog shit, broken doors, crayon on the walls. It was awful! That house was in a bad area though, so that didn't help. If she hadn't been able to inspect it, she wouldn't have known how bad things were getting. But the process of evicting a tenant takes so long that things just got progressively worse anyway. Now the tenant is paying her back at $10 a week for the rest of her life to pay for the repairs.

[Spork]

Im in NZ too AND I was a landlady for 12 years.

Ovens are an issue due to fire hazard if not cleaned regularly.
Also if they are not cleaned regularly the dirt bakes on and means the oven has to get replaced sooner.If I buy a brand new oven I want it to last about 10 years at least although I expect to pay for a few small repairs in that time.
In sympathy, one thing I hate cleaning is the OVEN. :)

I am skeptical of this (as someone with a 65 year old oven that is dirty more often than it is clean).  Sure, if there is a big pile of stuff in the bottom, it has to go.  I don't think normal gunk film isn't going to catch on fire, nor is it going to last shorter.  It is just ugly.

[Mississippi Mudstache]

No kidding. I've never actually heard of a oven breaking. Where the heck to you Kiwis buy your ovens anyway? My grandparents only recently replaced their 50-year-old oven during a renovation, and it still worked fine.

[Spork]

No kidding. I've never actually heard of a oven breaking. Where the heck to you Kiwis buy your ovens anyway? My grandparents only recently replaced their 50-year-old oven during a renovation, and it still worked fine.

The newer ones do tend to break ... but it's the fancy circuit boards that go out.  I don't think cleanliness has much to do with that.

[MashedBanana]

Not sure, I've never had to buy oven as there has always been one supplied with the flat

[MashedBanana]

Our current oven at the flat is a Westinghouse Neptune, I think it's the model 1 up from the cheapest

[geekette]

Ovens sure are different there!  Wow. 

[rocksinmyhead]

Haha, this is a fascinating thread!! I hate renting enough as it is, I can't imagine cleanliness inspections every 3-6 months. Really the only reason I hate it is it's like pulling teeth to get our landlord to fix ANYTHING. Just this week they're finally ripping out our tub and putting in a new one... the old one had a HOLE in it for TWO YEARS, and it was practically a part-time job for my boyfriend and I to call these asshats every week. (I know, it's bizarre that we didn't move, but moving is a hassle, and this house is cheap and the location is insanely awesome... like, would not be possible to rent a house in a similar location, and would be hard to rent an apartment that would allow two dogs).

Oh, and the place I shared with two roommates a few years ago, where initially we split the rent three ways, but then one roommate's husband moved in with us and they started paying half the rent, but the other roommate and I didn't realize that, so the asshole management company collected 117% of rent for several months, until somehow we figured it out amongst ourselves!! Would they have just kept the money if we hadn't said anything?! What the fuck?!!??

Other than that, I guess renting is pretty cool. Oh yeah and we haven't cleaned our oven since we moved in 2.5 years ago. Maybe I should do that. It's a pretty crappy oven.

[electriceagle]

In California, a landlord can only enter the property for a short list of specified reasons. Inspecting the conditions of the property is not on the list.

Other states do allow inspections, but in every state, the landlord entering the apartment too often would constitute harassment.

Entering "every few months" as you mention would likely be considered harassment in the US or Canada.

T'aint so. Inspections are on the list of reasons that a landlord can enter a property in California. Every three months would be considered excessive/possibly harassment, however. It is normal to have the landlord enter and inspect the property once a year.

[swick]

In California, a landlord can only enter the property for a short list of specified reasons. Inspecting the conditions of the property is not on the list.

Other states do allow inspections, but in every state, the landlord entering the apartment too often would constitute harassment.

Entering "every few months" as you mention would likely be considered harassment in the US or Canada.

T'aint so. Inspections are on the list of reasons that a landlord can enter a property in California. Every three months would be considered excessive/possibly harassment, however. It is normal to have the landlord enter and inspect the property once a year.

In BC (Canada) offsite landlords are required to enter and inspect every three months or their insurance can be voided and they can be held liable for any illegal activity. They are concerned about illegal grow-ops. It's a pretty new rule.

[geekette]

I've never actually heard of a oven breaking.

Mine broke a couple of years ago. The kicker? It stopped working right after I had it self-clean for the first time (the oven was ~15 years old, I was new to the house). The guy who came to look at it said the thermostat or something probably overheated during the self-clean

My parent's oven's thermostat gave up the ghost after a self cleaning, too.  We didn't know it was broken, so that was the quickest Thanksgiving turkey ever!   

Handy Dad replaced the thermostat and it cooked for many more years.

[Mississippi Mudstache]

I've never actually heard of a oven breaking.

Mine broke a couple of years ago. The kicker? It stopped working right after I had it self-clean for the first time (the oven was ~15 years old, I was new to the house). The guy who came to look at it said the thermostat or something probably overheated during the self-clean

My parent's oven's thermostat gave up the ghost after a self cleaning, too.  We didn't know it was broken, so that was the quickest Thanksgiving turkey ever!   

Handy Dad replaced the thermostat and it cooked for many more years.

Interesting. I've never used the self-cleaning function. Or most any other oven-cleaning function, for that matter.

[Wolf_Stache]

Because a dirty oven CAN and WILL burst into flames.

*TRUE STORY*

I moved into an apartment that wasn't cleaned before we moved in. Seriously, it was gross. So we cleaned the whole house, but didn't think about the oven. Two days later, we were cooking a pizza when WHOOOOOOOOSHHHHHHHHHHHH

The oven burst into flames.

Scariest damn thing ever. We were lucky the apartment didn't burn down, and the only reason it didn't was because the apartment had come with a built in fire extinguisher that actually worked.

[Jack]

I've never actually heard of a oven breaking.

Mine broke a couple of years ago. The kicker? It stopped working right after I had it self-clean for the first time (the oven was ~15 years old, I was new to the house). The guy who came to look at it said the thermostat or something probably overheated during the self-clean

My non-self-cleaning gas oven "broke" the other day: the glow bar ignitor failed and I had to swap in a new one (~$30 for the part). The annoying thing was that the plastic electrical connector had been baked for so long that it basically disintegrated when I unplugged it, so I had to snip off the remnants and use the weird ceramic wire nuts that came with the new ignitor instead.

[Bob W]

Who the hell ever cleans an oven?

[kathrynd]

I do- 99% of the time after the tenant has moved out...then I take money off their security deposit

[Bob W]

We bought our brand new oven about 3 years ago.  Installed myself.  We use it maybe 2 times per week.   Cookies,  brownies,  bacon, casseroles, roles,  standard stuff.   

I swear the oven interior looks like new still.   What am I doing wrong?   I don't over fill pans to the point they overflow.   I think if there was a problem with overfilling I would simply line the bottom with foil and call it good. 

So I'm guessing all this oven cleaning is primarily due to over filled vessels?   Or is there something I'm missing?

[Moonwaves]

My sister lived in NZ for a couple of years a while back. I remember thinking she was pulling my leg when she started complaining about the inspections. It sounded terrible and was another case of the management company seeming to use the opportunities to be as obnoxious as possible (sister or her hubby having to take time off work for inspections, never being able to reschedule and so on) while at the same time, never, ever fixing anything that was broken. My sister's husband changed the oil in his car and some spilled onto the concrete floor of the garage. -He did clean it up but it left a stain and they were made to get in specialist cleaners to remove that at a fairly hefty expense.

[JLR]

It depends on who you get for inspections. In Australia (NSW) they are allowed to do 3-monthly inspections. I've never had someone look in my oven as one of these (that I can remember), but I do remember that the agent for our first rental just loved to have something to tell you to do. I don't like spiders, so keep the webs in the house to a minimum, but I can remember when we were 18 she came to do an inspection and the only thing she could get us on was that she found one cobweb in the house. She made sure to tell us to clean that up!

At our last rental it wasn't until we'd been living there for nearly 9 months and the landlord decided to sell the house that the real estate realised we weren't on their periodic inspection list. So they tried to squeeze a few in close together to get up their quota, along with showing the house to prospective buyers, in the 3 months before we tired of it and moved out!! They never complained about anything when they came through, but it was a disruption to our daily routine (homeschooling) and made the house feel less like our home.

We are currently renting privately. Have only been here 3 months, but I don't think our landlord is worried about inspections. They have been over a few times, to pick up their mail and that sort of thing, but haven't searched every room. They commented yesterday that they are really happy with the job we are doing onthe gardens. I know that it is important to them that we keep the lawns and gardens nice, as this is their retirement home. Luckily, a nice lawn is important to us as we want somewhere nice for our kids to run around.

On the topic of ovens, I did have a fire in an oven, once. We moved in to a house we had purchased and there was a very old oven there. Perhaps 30 years old. I was counting down the days until is stopped working, so I could get my dream oven, and it didn't make me wait long! The bachelor who lived in the house before us (in his 60s) wasn't terribly in to scrubbing the oven, it seems!

I don't find it difficult to keep an oven clean, so long as you start with something reasonable. Just a wipe out when you get a spill, and a deeper clean every now and then is enough. But having seen the oven at our last rental, I can understand why some agents are picky about it. The oven was only 6 years old and it was absolutely disgusting. It had been cleaned before we moved in, but there was only so much you could do once it was such a baked-on mess. I scrubbed it hard a number of times while we lived there, and did my first-ever "toxic, spray-on" oven cleaning when we left and nothing would budge that mess. I also wonder if the tenant had taken off with the racks from the oven, as the racks in the oven definitely didn't come with that oven. Any time you would put something on the rack to cook the racks (and your food) would crash to the bottom of the oven unless it was carefully placed just so, and you didn't dare to breathe while doing it! All that splashing didn't help with trying to keep it clean.

[kathrynd]

We bought our brand new oven about 3 years ago.  Installed myself.  We use it maybe 2 times per week.   Cookies,  brownies,  bacon, casseroles, roles,  standard stuff.   

I swear the oven interior looks like new still.   What am I doing wrong?   I don't over fill pans to the point they overflow.   I think if there was a problem with overfilling I would simply line the bottom with foil and call it good. 

So I'm guessing all this oven cleaning is primarily due to over filled vessels?   Or is there something I'm missing?

In our experience, it has been because of the greasy foods cooked in the oven.

[Less is More]

We bought our brand new oven about 3 years ago.  Installed myself.  We use it maybe 2 times per week.   Cookies,  brownies,  bacon, casseroles, roles,  standard stuff.   

I swear the oven interior looks like new still.   What am I doing wrong?   I don't over fill pans to the point they overflow.   I think if there was a problem with overfilling I would simply line the bottom with foil and call it good. 

So I'm guessing all this oven cleaning is primarily due to over filled vessels?   Or is there something I'm missing?

In our experience, it has been because of the greasy foods cooked in the oven.

Our ovens usually have a grill on the  the inside roof of the oven.Careless cooks often grill or bake greasy foods that spit up on the grill or overflow on  to the oven bottom.They then don't clean up the mess straight away.Next time the grill goes on you have a small fire or a least quite a bit of smoke. Its happened to me and I'm a careful cook too but my teenage daughter who used it prior to me is not, and doesnt clean up after her messes.
We also generally  do a lot more home cooking than maybe some other Nationalities  , for example I use the oven or stove top nearly every night I am home.

[Sibley]

When I was a kid (12+ years old), my mom made a duck. Duck, if you're not aware, is extremely fatty and duck fat is loved by chefs. Anyway, mom made the duck, and sometime afterwards I decided to help my mom out by cleaning the oven. The oven had a self-cleaning function, so it's pretty easy.

Of course, not so great when the duck fat in the oven ignited. Since it's a self cleaning oven, you can't open the door. I had the fire extinguisher in one hand and the phone in the other, ready to call the fire department. The grease burned off and the fire went out, so all was well. Mom came home later and told her what happened. That oven worked for another 10 years, and it was already 15 years old at that point probably.

[paddedhat]

Many years ago my lovely blond wife decided to do a self-cleaning cycle on the oven without looking inside. She had stored two large bags of pretzels in there. It became an issue when large amounts of smoke started rolling out of the thing. The bigger issue was the fact that the door was locked shut, as designed, by a solenoid controlled lock. I had to shut it off at the electric panel to drop the solenoid out. At that point I carried a tray of black, smoldering pretzel out to the driveway. After they cooled a bit, our Golden Retriever strolled by, and was nearly smiling, thinking she hit pay dirt, with a pile of pretzels in the driveway. She walked over with her tail wagging, and grabbed one. It only took a second to spit it out. Up to that point, we were pretty sure that the dog would eat anything, but even she had standards.

[Spork]

A friend of mine was hosting Thanksgiving.  He put the turkey in, turned it on without paying much attention... only to realize when he smelled smoke that he'd turned on the clean function. 

Like paddedhat... the oven held it closed.  He either didn't know enough to trip the breaker -- or it was thermostatically locked otherwise.

He ended up with a very very burned (and very raw inside) turkey.

[Mr. Money Minnesota]

The college I went to was very picky about the dorms, we had weekly cleanliness inspections and major final inspections examining every little detail at the end of the year. 
After college I moved into an apartment with a couple friends, and when we moved out we literally stayed up all night cleaning to make sure we got every cent of our deposit back.  Little did we know that the inspection would last less than 30 seconds, we were so upset at the time we wasted getting the place immaculately clean...  The oven was one thing we "knew" we had to spend alot of time cleaning, we used a flashlight to check that every nook and cranny inside was completely clean and shining.

[alsoknownasDean]

From my experience inspections have usually been annually, and they haven't been too bad (depending on the agent).

I have to say I've never seen an oven with a self-cleaning function.