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Ask for Permission, Don't Ask for Forgiveness
9 Plays18 days ago
🎧 Welcome to Thoughts For Rent — the podcast where real estate gets real (and local)!
Hosted by Jenni McKenna, a Las Vegas born and raised seasoned broker, and Owner of McKenna Property Management, this show is your inside look at what’s really happening in the Vegas property management and real estate world. With over 20 years of experience herself - Jenni brings not just knowledge, but heart to the conversation.
Whether we’re talking market trends, property tips, community happenings, or just the everyday quirks of Vegas living, this podcast is all about keeping you in the know.
💬 Real talk. Local stories. Professional insight – provided from a company who has their boots on the ground and hearts in the community.
In this episode, we’re covering a couple interesting stories where people tried to get away with something... and got CAUGHT!
McKenna Property Management, proudly managing Las Vegas homes since 2005 (and loving every minute of it).
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Owner/Broker: Jenni McKenna B.29819
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Transcript
Introduction to Bernie, the Office Dog
00:00:20
Irelynn Zurflueh
Hi everyone, welcome back to Thoughts for Rent, Realtors Keeping It Real. I am Ireland Zerkflu and with me is Jenny McKenna, owner broker of McKenna Property Management and we have a special guest, Bernie.
00:00:35
Irelynn Zurflueh
Who's this Who's this fun guy? i want to be able to bring my dog into the office but I think he's a little too chaotic for the office. Yes, this is Bernie. He's our office dog. And today we're going to be talking a little bit about dogs. Bernie's our HR here at McKenna. So if anything bad happens, we report it to him. That is true. He's also our emotional support animal because when we get yelled at by anybody, a resident's mad at us, owner's mad at us, vendor hasn't fixed something. We just go to Bernie and we get a hug.
00:01:09
Irelynn Zurflueh
100%. And then he expects treats as his salary. This is true. That's why he's so chunky. we We have good salaries for Bernie. Too high a salary for Bernie. All right, so what are we going to be talking about today, Ireland?
Ask for Forgiveness or Permission?
00:01:23
Irelynn Zurflueh
Well, this whole week I've been using the saying, ask for forgiveness, not permission. And I've been mentioning how I'm not necessarily a big believer in that saying. I don't think that that is the way to go about it. I do think you should ask for permission first. Some people may disagree with me. And we're going to be talking about those people who did disagree with me, did not ask for permission, and then unfortunately suffered some consequences during forgiveness. I see a bunch of rule breakers up and around here. So we're going to give you some fun stories that.
00:02:00
Irelynn Zurflueh
We have experienced firsthand at McKenna Property Management. We will leave names out. We will leave addresses out. So everything will stay anonymous, but we can testify that it actually did happen.
00:02:14
Irelynn Zurflueh
So what's the first thing that we want to talk
HOA Managers vs. Property Managers
00:02:17
Irelynn Zurflueh
about? Well, we just were talking about this yesterday because a lot of people Don't realize, again, that the property manager and the HOA are almost always different people.
00:02:30
Irelynn Zurflueh
And so... Always different. No, not almost. Sometimes. Always different. Yes. Yes. So the homeowners association is managed by their own manager, and then the individual homes can be managed by the owner or by a property manager.
00:02:46
Irelynn Zurflueh
And as we've said on previous episodes about the HOA, you have to honor all the rules and regulations. People still don't understand that when the HOA catch you doing something not great, the first people that they're going to notify is the owner, the property manager, and you. And so just earlier this week, we got a photo from the HOA saying,
00:03:15
Irelynn Zurflueh
one of your residents has a dog at the property and here is an attached photo of them buying a snack from the vending machine in the HOA clubhouse and here is the dog in the HOA clubhouse.
Dealing with Pet Infractions in HOAs
00:03:31
Irelynn Zurflueh
That's not allowed. And so immediately the owner calls us and she's like, wait a second. dog not even a dog on the lease and i said you know what miss owner you're right correct and let's do some research on that and so this person on actually this owner was quite nice and they were willing to modify the lease and not have them pay any kind of fine just uh get the lease properly updated and corrected but in a normal case like that that photo is then sent to the resident and there is a fine attached On top of you have to pay the fine and then you still have to update the lease. yeah So you still have to pay the deposit and put the pet on your lease. and And it really sets a bad precedent with the owner because now the owner feels like they got lied to. Resident got caught doing something. And so they may not really be in a favorable position for renewal. So if you loved living there and you loved all the community amenities, you might be out of luck when your lease expires at the end of the year. Yeah.
00:04:37
Irelynn Zurflueh
Well, the funny thing about that too is um the HOA will catch more of the animal infractions than we ever really catch because it's about not picking up the poo in the common area. They'll nail you for that. They'll nail you for when you bring a dog into the community center, which is illegal anyways, but they got them for that. And so when these residents think that they're pulling one over on the management company,
00:05:06
Irelynn Zurflueh
Well, they got to look out for the HOA too. Because the resident, we we have an opportunity by finding out if they're breaking the rules by two things, really. The neighbor, whether it be back neighbor, side neighbor, if if their animal is loud or causing problems, that's when we'll be notified.
00:05:25
Irelynn Zurflueh
Or the other one would be if Well, I was going to say... if the HOA catches them. Yeah, but there's also like... Yeah, I guess that would be the only thing. Because I was going to say maybe there's one more that would... Oh, site evaluation. Yeah, because I was going say HOA for sure, but site evaluation could be one too. So at McKenna Property Management, a site evaluation is done minimum one time a year. Usually between like the ninth or tenth month of your...
00:05:51
Irelynn Zurflueh
your lease. Now, if you are savvy and you know that you didn't put a dog down on your lease or your application, then what you do is you hide the cage, you hide the dog's toys, you hide the dog food in the pantry, right? If you do all of that, we probably won't catch you.
00:06:13
Irelynn Zurflueh
if If there's no damage done to the property. But even on a site evaluation, they might hide everything but the big 20 pound bag of dog food in the pantry and it gets photographed. And that's enough evidence to say, whoa, whoa, whoa, you have an unauthorized pet in the property.
Unauthorized Residents and Pets
00:06:30
Irelynn Zurflueh
Yeah.
00:06:31
Irelynn Zurflueh
Dog food, dog cages, kennels, photos with you and your dog. Dog poop outside, not picked up. Yeah, dog poop outside, leashes behind a door.
00:06:45
Irelynn Zurflueh
um So, yeah, it's – there youre They're your furry family members. So it's hard to completely erase the evidence of a furry family member. And you know what my recommendation is? If you've got a furry family member, be upfront about it when you're putting in your application. Because I have owners that will say no to pets. But if a really good applicant comes in, they pass our our screening sheet and they come in with like documentation of their animal, their furry friend, you know, part of the family, i would say nine out of 10 times the owner says yes.
00:07:24
Irelynn Zurflueh
I mean, have you do you experience that? No, I absolutely do. And I think we are very unique at McKenna in that we do not encourage pet rents. We don't encourage that because we feel like that makes more people want to not be honest. Right. Because obviously, hey, how can I save X amount of money per month? I would just tell them I don't have a pet. Right. So we do always encourage the transparency because, yes, you will have to put the deposit down. So you will have to have that deposit held. for the length of your term. But it's not a crazy deposit. It's only $500. Yeah. And sometimes for larger breeds, the owner might go up a certain amount, but the standard is 500 with no pet rent. So I do understand why some people obviously want to save that extra X amount of dollars that somebody might be charging. i get it.
00:08:18
Irelynn Zurflueh
But at least here at McKenna, you don't have to worry about that. You just have to worry about having the lease be accurate and paying that deposit. And so because of that, I say honesty is absolutely best policy. You are saving more money by being honest and putting the deposit down than you are by trying to avoid the deposit because the fine that you get charged, at least for our lease, is a larger amount than the deposit. And then you pay the fine. And then if you want to keep the dog there, which you do, or the cat because they're your furry family, you're going to pay the fine and and the deposit. And security deposit. And you've really... created ah ah a crappy communication relationship with the owner.
00:08:59
Irelynn Zurflueh
Because remember the owner got all of the information about you breaking the rules. So it's not like you're going it's not like McKenna property management can hide it from the owner, yeah nor would we, but the owner is notified at the same time we're notified. So it's like, okay, guys, you got caught. You're breaking the rule. And now that owner is like, well, they weren't even honest. What other things are they doing? i mean, you could just imagine what path they're going to go down after that happens. yeah So we have another fun one to tell you. This is a good one. This one is crazy. So we use an example of kind of the HOA being the one to facilitate the...
00:09:37
Irelynn Zurflueh
narine And that was an easy one. They they've clearly walked into a community center that didn't even allow dogs. So they got nailed for just a dog, whether it was on the lease or not, they got nailed for the dog going in there. but Now we've got a good one. We had recently taken a call and it was a neighbor in the community. And the neighbor said, i have, I've always had a very large dog. I live next door to your unit that you manage.
00:10:02
Irelynn Zurflueh
I just recently rescued a second large dog. And for whatever reason, maybe that was the, you know, straw that broke the camel's back. But your unit's resident, like, hates me now. And she's been giving me a really hard time. And she has been letting her smaller, tinier dog It's like a Jack Russell Terrier, Chihuahua mix. So not a big dog, but very hyper, very hyper. She lets him off leash in the neighborhood. And then when I'm walking my dog on a leash, he will charge at my big dog. And I'm very concerned that something bad will eventually happen with the dogs or even something will happen with just us interacting because this dog is off leash. And I just am hoping that you can do something with that. And,
00:10:52
Irelynn Zurflueh
First off, there was no dog on the lease. So that was a big no, no. And then rule number one broken. Now here's another one. The woman that she was referencing was also not on the lease at all.
00:11:05
Irelynn Zurflueh
At all. We had a single guy living in that unit had been for at least six or seven years paid his rent on time, never caused any problems whatsoever. And for some unknown reason, thought that he could just bring on, it ended up being his wife, bring on a woman who then became his wife, who then brought on an animal or a pet without notifying us at all.
00:11:29
Irelynn Zurflueh
Crazy. And so- I did ask if this neighbor had any evidence to support her claim. And she said, yes, I actually have security footage. And she sent a super clear in color, like 4D almost. True. A genuine interaction where you saw her with her leash dog. And then you saw this really tiny dog run up.
00:11:54
Irelynn Zurflueh
The owner was not in frame. Went right after his neck. The owner was not in frame for like another solid minute. So the dog was completely on its own for a long time. You saw them, you saw her having to hold her big dog back from this unleashed, tinier dog. And then you saw both the owners kind of get into a little bit of a heated conversation. And so she had exactly what she had explained was exactly what was seen on camera. And when Ireland came to me and said, hey, I want to talk to you about this situation. I think we have a problem with this particular resident. When she explained it to me, just in words, I was like, ah, this neighbor might be over-exaggerating. Like in my mind, I'm like, yeah, this sounds like there could be a bit of an over-exaggeration. So then Ireland sent me the video. I pop up the video and I am like, oh my gosh, I can see everything so clearly. i swear I could have read the lips of what they were saying to each other. It was that clear. And that was because the HOA is a gated community and they set up very sophisticated security cameras for the gate in case anybody crashes the gate or people are coming in that shouldn't be coming in. So this is set up for the security of the HOA, but boy, it nailed this particular incident clearly. Yeah. And then that was, we were able to resolve it. Everyone was kind of able to figure it out amicably, which was really good, but... Yeah, no, it's Well, I made the call to the, to our resident and I called them up and I said, Hey, this is Jenny McKenna, McKenna property management. Who's all living in the property.
00:13:34
Irelynn Zurflueh
goes, wait, what just me. And I go, he goes, well, and my wife. And I go, well, when were I going to be told that somebody else was living on the property? I need to know who are occupants of all the, just for security reasons, for everything reasons. What if that building was to go on fire and the HOA is like, how many occupants are in that that building? I need to know.
00:13:57
Irelynn Zurflueh
Right there, it would have been one. And technically, there's two. So I said, well, okay, that's a bit of a problem. Rule number one, your lease, you broke that. And then I go, and then our second problem is, is your wife, who was unauthorized,
00:14:11
Irelynn Zurflueh
has a dog that she doesn't keep on the leash. And this dog is all over the place, harassing everybody else that is in the community. And he goes, oh, no, no, no. My wife always keeps the dog on the leash. She cleans up after the dog. No, this is not the case. And I said, I'll send you a video.
00:14:30
Irelynn Zurflueh
Watch it. That is not the case at all. She didn't even have a poop bag in her hand. I don't even think she had a leash anywhere on her. No, don't even think dog had a collar on. i think True. fully just Just going around there antagonizing any dog that they wanted to antagonize. So what we had to do, and this is really kind of the sad part, is...
00:14:50
Irelynn Zurflueh
that particular resident dug too big of a hole. I mean, he could not get out of the hole. The HOA was upset. Neighbor was upset. We were upset. When I reported it to the owner, owner was upset. So the only alternative for that was move out.
00:15:05
Irelynn Zurflueh
And he had to move. Absolutely. Yeah. He wasn't too keen on moving, but he understood what he had to do. So he had to move. Yeah. We always, I always try to do my due diligence when the HOA or neighbors complain about people. I never want to just automatically agree with The HOA or the neighbors. I do always ask for photo evidence or just documentation or just anything to kind of reflect the story that they're sharing. And this was the first time in a while where like she was fully ready with documentation. She was fully ready with that video. She knew that if she was going to put in this call.
00:15:37
Irelynn Zurflueh
to make the formal complaint that she was going to be prepared, which I appreciate because sometimes these HOAs can get a little crazy. Yeah. But then there are other times where they have the cameras or they have the documentation and it's really hard to talk yourself out of it. And just let's play black hat on that exact scenario.
00:15:56
Irelynn Zurflueh
That neighbor walking the bigger dog on a leash Let's just say that that big dog does what dogs do sometimes and bites into the neck of the smaller dog, not to necessarily hurt it, but to protect themselves and to protect their master, right? That small dog then, let's say dies. Ooh, I see huge lawsuit waiting to happen.
00:16:19
Irelynn Zurflueh
Like I can just imagine what that particular person would say about the big dog killing their little dog. And it doesn't matter that they were not on a leash and no collar, poop bag, not even on a, you know, on the lease in general.
00:16:36
Irelynn Zurflueh
You just want to avoid that kind of stuff.
Benefits of Pet Transparency
00:16:39
Irelynn Zurflueh
And that's why it's important as, as Ireland had said, honesty is your best policy. When you're going into a property, be honest about it, be upfront about it, and then back it up. If your dog is a great dog, it's been trained. It's got um verification or testimony or referral from the previous landlord. There's also a company that's called, what's a company that you can go on and you can submit all of your veterinarian and they can give you PAW score?
00:17:09
Irelynn Zurflueh
Pet screen. So you can actually go on to petscreening.com, open up your own account, put in all the information, and then they will give you a certificate and they rate you by paws. So one paw, not so good. Five paws, excellent. You can actually submit that.
00:17:25
Irelynn Zurflueh
on your application because it's a third party that is kind of justifying that your dog is, is got the shots. It's got, he's, he's has a vet assigned to him. You know, training has happened longevity of being with the family. So yeah, there's things you can do that can really help you stay or at least have your furry family member stay with you when you make a move into a rental.
00:17:49
Irelynn Zurflueh
Absolutely. And I will say I've obviously Jenny's a big furry family member kind of person, so am i You won't know that, you know, when you're applying for a new property, but at least our leasing team here and almost everyone in our office does want to see animals thrive. And so there have even been moments where Alisa and I, both of us in leasing, even just looking at a photo of someone's dog, we're like, oh my God, so cute. And so it is obviously don't always play with people's emotions or don't always, you know, deal with the eth the ethos of everything. But for us, um sometimes even just a photo of the dog really helps. You can see how big it is. You can see how cute it is. But we, it's always a lot easier to convince an owner, convince a community or convince a neighborhood that this dog is well taken care of and that when the honesty is there to begin with. yeah And the thing about it is I've had owners a lot of times when I first take on a property and they're like, no pets, no pets. And asked the question why? And, you know, they're worried about destruction and damage and all of that.
00:19:01
Irelynn Zurflueh
But Ireland, you know where I've seen more damage done on a property? Kids. Kids, kids are much taller than a dog. So when they do damage, they're not just doing it like three feet, baseboards, carpet, and whatever. They're going all the way up and they're taking hinges off of cabinets and doing all kinds of stuff that that actually costs more money as far as damage. And you know what? Under fair housing, you don't get to discriminate ah against kids. Yeah. So in reality, the truth of the matter is,
00:19:36
Irelynn Zurflueh
Dogs, cats, as long as they are being taken care of by a responsible owner, and a responsible owner usually tells the tale in their FICA score and how long they live in a property and what their rental history is with their previous landlord. So if all of that aligns up, then you've got a probably a pretty responsible dog owner. And if they're going to, if the dog does damage, they're usually doing damage to the owner's sofa or the owner's leather belt. And it doesn't really affect the house in general.
00:20:06
Irelynn Zurflueh
Absolutely. yeah No, i agree. I think that it seems like people are willing to go to extremes to help out their furry friends. I completely get it. But I will say, especially if you're not dealing with a really high pet run, especially if you're dealing with, you know,
00:20:21
Irelynn Zurflueh
a home that has, you know, good tiling or good, good backyard, good backyard, like things of that nature there. I'm sure there will always be an owner, a property management company who want to make that dog work for you. I see owners that will turn down dogs and then I'll take a look, a look at their backyard and it's just like the perfect,
00:20:40
Irelynn Zurflueh
backyard for an animal, like no grass or like no big nothing, like just normal rocks and stuff. And I always immediately will go to our onboarding team and I'll be like, why don't we allow pets at that property? The backyard is perfect for the pets.
00:20:55
Irelynn Zurflueh
and And sometimes it just has to be, you know, a a lesson that the owner has to experience because 73% of residents or tenants ah are coming with a ah pet of some kind. So if you want quality residents, you want it quickly and you want the highest rent, which those are your three hot ticket items, right?
00:21:18
Irelynn Zurflueh
Why are you going to eliminate 73% of the rental field? Absolutely. You know, so there's another one that we want to share before we're done.
Unexpected Challenges in Property Management
00:21:26
Irelynn Zurflueh
This one's not about an animal. This one's not about an animal. This was just funny. It was just funny because was Amanda who told me this story, but a woman had gone through breakup And she wanted support from her friends. And so herself and her friends all decided to host a seance in the community pool area. And she actually did end up...
00:21:54
Irelynn Zurflueh
lighting on fire. Yes. A bush. Yes. In the community pool area. And it was all caught on footage. Yep. And she had to pay the fine for starting a fire in an HOA area. And then she also had to pay to replace the bush. And thank goodness, thank goodness it was only a bush. It could have gone bad. Yes. That could have gone Really, really done. She owned up to it.
00:22:23
Irelynn Zurflueh
We had obviously a lot of empathy for her. It sucks to go through a breakup, but she did. She did say, no, that was me and I'm sorry and I'll fix it. And so if it guys, I promise you, HOAs are like such helicopter parents. They really are. You're not going to get away with a lot of stuff. No, yeah not not with HOAs. So maybe maybe the West Coast is different. Maybe places on the East Coast don't suffer from HOA-itis as much as we do. But if you're coming to Las Vegas or you're coming to the Southern Nevada area, just know that it's always going to be easier to keep the HOA.
00:23:05
Irelynn Zurflueh
and your property manager on your team by being honest from yeah the get go. Be honest. And even on that situation where the resident went to the community pool, started a fire, had to pay all the fines and replace the landscaping by telling the truth to us and admitting to it, it was really just kind of a laughing offense. yeah Even the owner laughed about it and we're all just grateful it didn't get worse. But if she had decided to deny it,
00:23:33
Irelynn Zurflueh
And act like it wasn't her. And why is everybody picking on me and taking that attitude? Promise you the owner would have been like, get her
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00:23:42
Irelynn Zurflueh
out. Do not renew. and And that's what you, you just, honesty is the best policy, truthfully. And and back up the good stuff with documents. I mean, we're not going to just take your word for it. But if you actually have documentation that proves your word, then hey, that helps us plead your case to the to the homeowner. 100%. Yeah. And then you can get into your rental the way that you want. And that's what you ultimately want is that home. Absolutely.
00:24:09
Irelynn Zurflueh
Yeah. Well, if you guys like hearing some of these really crazy, really out of the pocket stories, then obviously subscribe, leave a like, follow. we drop episodes weekly about just the crazy things that property managers experience. So we keep it all real here. And if you guys have any other crazy stories that you've gone through. Bring them on. Bring them on. We'd love to read them. We'd love to hear about them, but we are always here to Talk to you about the people who maybe tried to break the rules, ask for some forgiveness, but unfortunately had to kind of suffer some consequences. There were some consequences. But yeah, you're listening to Thoughts for Rent, Realtors Keeping It Real, and we would absolutely love you to subscribe or share this episode. That is such a compliment for us. Well, I think we're out of here, right, Ireland? ah All right, I'm going lean over and turn this thing off.
00:25:00
Irelynn Zurflueh
See you guys next week. Bye.