Garden and Outdoor Care Between Tenants

A Durban student house is judged from the pavement before anyone sees the desk. Long grass, a blocked drain in the yard, and a gate that drags on the concrete tell a parent the inside will be the same. ManjeProp treats the outside as part of the turnover, not as a nice extra if someone has a Saturday.

This is about the gap between one occupant leaving and the next advert going live.

Walk the boundary with a list, not a mood

On the vacancy check, walk the same path a viewer will walk. Street verge if you cut it, driveway, bins, side passage, washing line, any back yard, any outside tap, the meter box, the gate and the pedestrian latch.

Write what is actually there: grass height, cuttings left in heaps, a leaning palisade, a cracked step, standing water after overnight rain, a tree rubbing a gutter. Do not write “garden fine” if you did not open the side gate.

Photograph the outside on the same day you photograph the room. Those pictures belong with the outgoing inspection, not on Instagram. No faces, no keys in the lock, no bin with a tenant’s posted name still on it.

What is turnover work versus a tenant chore

House rules usually ask occupants to keep the yard usable: bins out on the right day, no dumping of broken chairs, no indoor furniture left to rot in the rain. They do not usually ask a December outgoing student to prune a tree off a power line.

Between tenants, staff or a garden service should:

Cut grass and edges so a viewing is possible
Remove cuttings, not hide them behind the meter box
Clear the path to the meter and the refuse area
Report a leaning structure, a live wire in a tree, or a collapsed wall as a ticket, not as “garden”

Do not ask a tenant to climb a roof, touch an electrical line, or cut anything near a service cable. If a branch is on a line, keep people away and log an electrical or general maintenance ticket for a registered contractor.

Water outside is still water

An outside tap that will not close, a leaking isolation valve, a gutter dumping onto a path — those are leaks. They waste a municipal kilolitre and they grow mosquitoes. Send them through Report a fault with a photo and a note on whether the water is still running.

Do not “fix” an outside electrical point with tape because the garden worker needs a trimmer. Outdoor electrics are electrician work.

Bins, dumping and the next viewing

Refuse left from the last house is not a styling choice. Overflowing bins at the gate will end the viewing before the bedroom. Empty them, wash the area if it is foul, and put the house back on the municipal day. Common-area rules during a tenancy are a different article. Between tenants, the owner owns the first impression.

If a dumped mattress is not from your house, still move it off the entrance if you can do so safely, then decide whose problem the dump is. Do not set fire to it.

How the desk should record it

Garden service is a repair or a task with a date, a who, and a cost. Materials — bags, fuel, a replacement tap washer — go on Materials if they left the shelf. Close the task with a photo of the finished yard, not a thumbs-up emoji.

If the room will be advertised the same week, the outside photos you will publish must match this walk. Do not use last winter’s cut lawn while the current grass is seed-high.

A booking overlap warning does not mow the lawn. Confirming a new occupant into a yard full of last term’s furniture is how complaints start on day one.

Tenants still living there

If you are not in a turnover, you still report outdoor faults: a gate off its rail, a light at the entrance that is dead, a tap that will not close, standing sewage. Use the fault form. Category Access, Security, Water / leak or General maintenance, depending on what you see. Do not wait for the next student to inherit it.

Parents walking a property can mention the outside on the enquiry form. We would rather hear “side passage is dark” before a lease than after a fright.

The garden between tenants is a vacancy check with mud on the shoes. Cut it, clear it, log what you cannot cut, then advertise.

To report an outdoor leak, a failed gate or a dangerous tree near a line, use Report a fault or call +27 60 313 6961.