When your single-family rental home has a hardwood floor, it’s beauty and durability is immediately brought to the next level. However, if your rental property has hardwood floors, then you’ll need to take some extra steps to preserve its condition. Regular maintenance is one of the additional tasks. Sometimes, tenants aren’t careful around hardwood floors, scratching and gouging them either by accident or through negligence. This is a reason why both you and your tenant must know how to properly care for and maintain your property’s hardwood floors.
Proper hardwood floor maintenance is very effective in keeping your Gardena rental property functional and aesthetically pleasing. And this is the reason why it is necessary to know the right way to care for a hardwood floor. For example, surface finishes have been applied to most hardwood floors to protect the wood from liquid spills, scratches, and other types of damage. This makes keeping this finish intact the best way to ensure the long life of your floor.
Hardwood can also be damaged by using harsh cleaning products or the wrong cleaning technique. This is something to keep in mind. That’s why experts recommend using a soft microfiber mop or cloth to sweep dirt and dust off the floor. Even vacuum cleaners can scratch up a hardwood floor, and regular mops aren’t that useful since they use too much water— which is bad for hardwood floors. Now, when there are liquid spills, you need to make sure they are immediately cleaned up and that steps are taken to make sure the floor is thoroughly dry.
While there are many things that a property owner can do, by far the best way to ensure that your rental property’s hardwood flooring is well-maintained is to work together with your tenants in caring for it. One of the first things you can start with is educating your tenants about proper hardwood floor maintenance and cleaning. When you help them learn the right way to take care of the floor, you extend the life and beauty of the hardwood and prevent damage simultaneously.
Another way to make sure your property’s hardwood floor is well-kept is to encourage tenants to place rugs in high-traffic areas. The dirt will accumulate on it and it would lessen the amount of cleaning required. Finally, it would be a great help if you let your tenant use the right cleaning products by telling them the name of the one recommended for use on your floor, or even go as far as requiring that they only use the approved cleaning products listed in your lease. This can help bolster the importance of proper hardwood floor maintenance.
Even when given the best care, hardwood floors still need some additional attention every few years or between tenants. In time, wear and tear can fade a floor’s finish and accumulate scratches or other blemishes. But if that’s all that happened to it, then you really have no need to completely refinish the floor. Usually, all a faded hardwood floor needs is a screening (which roughens up the surface of the existing finish) and a new application of a finish.
That said, if your hardwood has become seriously damaged, warped, or has deep scratches or other problems, repairing and refinishing the floor may be your only option. Refinishing a floor is a long, labor-intensive task that requires specialized equipment. You can choose to do all these tasks yourself, but there are many Gardena property owners that feel that hiring a professional is well worth the cost. A flooring contractor can tell you the specific type of flooring you have and how to best restore it. Different kinds of wood require different techniques and engineered or wood laminate simply won’t tolerate heavy refinishing as solid hardwood does. In such instances, any restoration work is best left to a professional.
Taking care of hardwood floors doesn’t have to be difficult; if you sit down and plan it out and enlist the help of your tenant, it would be so much easier. The essential part of this solution is maintaining good tenant relations. The better your relationship with your tenant is, the more likely they are to keep your valuable hardwood floor in the best possible condition.
Take the headache and hassle out of managing your rental properties. At Real Property Management California Coast, we handle the lease paperwork, renter relations, professional vendors and everything else! Don’t hesitate to contact us online or give us a ring at 310-535-2150 to talk to a professional Gardena property manager today.
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