I cannot stress enough how important it is for tenants to thoughtfully, thoroughly, and completely fill out the five day inspection report. This document may seem daunting to complete, but it is a document that protects everyone. It protects the tenant, it protects the owner, it protects all of us.
As part of our normal operations, we have done an inspection prior to move in. In fact, we’ve done many inspections prior to move in, one of which is a specific pre-move-in inspection specifically for documenting the current status of the house. The reason this inspection is not in itself sufficient, is that there are a lot of things we did not do in the course of this inspection, so we need additional input for a complete picture; allow me to clarify.
Our walk-through is a visual inspection. I did not spend enough time in the house to cook a turkey, take a shower, or watch a movie. Besides being inappropriate, and slightly creepy, there is not enough time in the day to get all of that done at every house that needs to be checked. What this means is that I do not know if the oven bakes unevenly, if the lights flicker when you’re watching a movie, or if the hot water fluctuates in the shower. We give you five days of living in the house to find these quirks. Use all the burners on the stove, turn on and off all the lights, live in the house. Then document anything that is not working properly. Your five day move-in sheet will not only help me understand exactly what’s going on mechanically in the house, but will also confirm my visual inspection, which lets me know the things that I should not be charging you for when you move out. It will protect you during the move-out process.
When it comes time for you to move out of the house, we will go through and do another inspection, and the purpose of this inspection will be to figure out which items that are broken or dirty in the house are your responsibility to fix. We want to make 100% sure if at all possible that the items we note on that inspection are indeed charges that should be fairly charged to your account. We do not want to charge you for things that you are not actually responsible for. The best way for this to be accomplished is with a very thorough move-in sheet.
