I have a question about a renter that I have?

Question

I have a renter who is late all the time and finally I am evicting them because they are over thirty days late. Now my whole question is when they moved in they plugged their vacuum cleaner in the wall where the plug was for the air conditioner and it burnt up the vacuum cleaner. The vacuum cleaner was over a year old are we responsible for the replacement of the vacuum cleaner. The vacuum cleaner was a dyson and year old.

Answer 1

You are not responsible for their vac cleaner. If they insist tell them to sue you.

Answer 2

No you are not responsible.  But make sure that as this situation winds down you do take care of maintenance that you are supposed to handle.  At the end when you are fighting over money and the security deposit (I hope you have one) slow or late paying tenants will attempt to say you did not maintain the home.  

Answer 3

nope not at all you are not responsible for there vacuum being burned up it is not ever the managers fault when some body's vacuum breaks are burns up ever i dont care if it was 30 days old they are going to get on down the road in stop being stupid with you over there burnt vacuum they pluged it up in the outlet in you did now who's fault is it there's you do not have to replace any thing ever  

Answer 4

I wouldn't think that you're responsible, unless they can show that the outlet was faulty.  If it is, you should definitely get it fixed, and paying for the vacuum cleaner would be the right thing to do.  But if not, I don't see why you'd have to pay for it.  The vacuum cleaner could have failed for any number of reasons.  

Answer 5

you should not be responsible! If they are that stupid to plug it into the wrong outlet then that is there fault! if they tell you that you are responsible chances are they are just trying to get money because obviously they don't have any money since they can not pay rent.  

Answer 6

If they can prove that the reason the vacuum cleaner burned up was because of a faulty electrical outlet, then you can be held liable. The fact that it was for the Air conditioner is irrelevant. The outlet should be wired so that any standard appliance can be plugged in.

Answer 7

what's the question?  Can you take the cost of the vacuum out of their deposit?... I would say so.  

Good luck with the eviction

Answer 8

I like how these people can't pay their rent on time but they have a $500 vacuum.

I would think that the outlet should be able to handle a vacuum if it can handle an AC unit, but I am no electrician.

I would wait till they are well clear of your property before you even thought about giving them anything for the vacuum. It could provide leverage to get them to clean the place out properly.

Good luck.

Answer 9

You are not responsible for their vacuum cleaner.  Your 'outlet' didn't destroy their Dyson cleaner.  Of course, if the AC outlet was a 220 volt, and they plugged in a 120 Volt product, of course it will burn up.

However, if you had the correct outlet plug (220 is definitely different from 120 to prevent such situations), they are on their own.  If someone 'cobbled' the electrical outlet such that it appeared to be a conventional 120V outlet, you have a mess, and need to fix same.  As well, they might win against you in court.

Answer 10

If the plug for the A/C is a standard 110 outlet and the power coming out of it is 110 Volts then you are not responsible. If they modified the outlet or plug to get the vacuum to fit and  then you are not responsible no matter what the voltage.

If the outlet is improperly wired i.e. a standard 110 outlet wired for 220 V  or if the polarity of the wiring is incorrect, then you may be responsible. This is the only scenario where I can see that you would be responsible for the vacuum.