Garden Service Between Tenants

Grass does not pause because a student wrote an exam. Between occupants, a Durban yard can go from “fine” to “cannot see the path to the meter” in one wet month. ManjeProp books garden work as a task with a date, a who and a photograph — the same seriousness as a lock, without pretending a mower is a plumber.

This is the turnover garden, not the weekly chore list during a tenancy.

Book it on the vacancy walk, not after the first viewing

When keys come in, walk the same line a parent will walk: verge if you cut it, driveway, bins, side passage, meter box, washing line, back yard, gate. If the grass hides a step or a tap, the garden service is part of making the room lettable.

Do not publish the listing with last winter’s lawn photo while the current path is seed-high. Either cut first or take a true photo and accept the delay.

What the service should actually do

Cut and edge so a person can walk without soaking their trousers
Remove cuttings. Heaps behind the meter box are how meters get missed
Keep the refuse area reachable
Report, do not “tidy,” a leaning palisade, a live wire in a tree, or a collapsed wall

The garden worker is not an electrician. If a branch is in a service line, stop, keep people away, and open an electrical or maintenance ticket for a registered contractor. Tenants and garden staff do not cut near cables.

An outside tap that will not close is a leak ticket, not a “while you’re here” with a shifting spanner if the person is only there to cut.

How the desk records it

Create a task or a repair: property, date, who attended, cost as an operations figure, photo of the finished yard. Materials — bags, a replacement hose, fuel — on Materials if they left your shelf.

Close with evidence. A thumbs-up in a chat is how you pay twice for the same long grass.

If you use a regular service, the gap between tenants is still a specific visit. “They come on Tuesdays” is not a record that Tuesday happened.

Tenants who are leaving

You are usually asked to leave the yard usable: no dumped couches, no bin bags against the gate, no indoor furniture rotting in the rain. You are not usually asked to prune a tree off a line. If you see a dangerous branch, send Report a fault before you go, so it is dated.

Do not set fire to a pile to “help.”

Tenants who are still in occupation

Weekly grass may be a house rule, a landlord service, or a mix — read the lease. A broken mower that belongs to the house is a ticket. A refusal to take bins out is house rules. A sewage-smelling gully is a drain ticket even if the grass is short.

Do not assume a garden service will report your leak. They often will not. Send the form.

Safety and neighbours

Blowers at 07:00 on a Sunday will make the street famous. Book reasonable hours. Do not leave fuel in a student kitchen. Do not run an extension across a wet yard from a socket that was never outdoor-rated — that becomes an electrician job, cover closed until they arrive.

Photograph the finished outside without the neighbour’s children in the frame, without keys in the gate, without a tenant’s posted name on a bin.

Meter boxes and the path you just cut

The whole point of a turnover cut is often the path to the water meter and the refuse area. If the service leaves those two approaches blocked with bags, the next reading will be skipped and a leak will hide. Put “path to meter clear” on the task. Photograph it.

Do not ask the garden worker to force a municipal lid. If the box is sealed or cracked, that becomes a fault, not a mower job.

Advertising

“Neat yard” is a claim. After the service, the listing photo should match. If the next student arrives to waist-high grass, the first ticket will be contempt, not grass.

A booking overlap warning does not cut a lawn. Confirming a new occupant into an impassable side passage is how a meter reading is skipped and a leak is missed.

Garden service between tenants is vacancy work with green waste. Schedule it, photograph it, then publish. If the room is ready and the yard is not, the room is not ready.

Outdoor leaks, failed gates and trees on lines: report-a-fault or +27 60 313 6961. Viewings: properties.