Autumn brings brightly colored trees and piles of fallen leaves. These fallen leaves raise the question of what to do with them after they have been raked up. A certain popular disposal method is to burn the unwanted leaves. But as a Castro Valley rental property owner, should you grant permission for your tenants to burn their leaves? While burning the leaves will help dispose of them quickly and very easily, it can equally be a dangerous task to permit your tenants to work on. By helping your tenant to find out and learn safe and proper leaf disposal, you can better guard them and your property against devastation.
Each and every variation of open flame carries a certain amount of risk. However, quite a lot of property owners deem that they can minimize the risks by following certain safety precautions. As an instance, property owners who are plotting to burn fallen leaves might usually choose to do it on a clear patch of dirt with no overhanging branches or power lines. They will as well choose a day that falls within a permitted burn timeline set by local governmental agencies, when winds are calm, and keep a garden hose on hand in case the flames get out of control.
But, even these preventive actions can lead to property damage if the fire gets out of control. In dry conditions, even a very small force of the wind can carry sparks into dry foliage, sparking dry grasses and other materials that are often abundant during the fall. Open flames might furthermore injure your tenant, pets, or others who just happen to be in the area, mainly if the fire emerges past your property boundaries. If, in any case, casualty or property damage does come about, as the property owner, you could most definitely be held liable for medical costs, legal fees, and other related expenses. When you add together the cost of the restoration you’ll like to make on your own rental house, the potentially higher costs create a big risk that should strongly discourage you from permitting leaf burning as a disposal method.
Conceding that the risks alone provide a compelling reason, there are added concerns to ban leaf burning on your rental property. As an instance, the smoke from burning leaves might produce toxic gases that can irritate the eyes, nose, and throat, and even trigger respiratory distress in individuals with asthma or other conditions. Burning leaves is also bad for the environment, freeing those same toxic gases into the atmosphere that have been acknowledged to potentially impact both local and global ecosystems. Identifying the drawbacks of burning leaves, some local governments have banned leaf burning outright. Others grant it but do limit it to certain months, designated locations, or to a certain size. Violating these municipal restrictions can result in fines and other legal consequences.
When burning leaves is a bad idea, you’d like to find other safer ways to get rid of those fallen leaves. Several other property owners can possibly reduce the number of fallen leaves they need to rake by shredding them with a mulching lawnmower. This operation probably helps to manage the number of leaves that ought to be removed by turning it into fertilizer for your lawn instead. If your property is significantly large enough, you could likewise compost your fallen leaves in an unused corner outside that is far from the home. You may indeed also hire a clean-up crew to come and haul your fallen leaves away, which is a competent measure but will include plenty of extra costs.
It doesn’t matter how it gets conducted, it is necessary to guarantee that the fallen leaves on your Castro Valley rental property are being raked up and properly disposed of. Abandoning them all over the ground probably could lead to safety issues while attracting pests and killing your landscape. Notwithstanding, leaf disposal must indeed be fulfilled somehow in a manner that does not create additional liability.
At Real Property Management Masters, we can work on a lot of the more prolonged and time-consuming undertakings – including leaf disposal – freeing you up to pay more attention to the other attributes of your real estate investing business. To understand more of what we can do for you, contact us online or call 510-398-8704 today.
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