Xref: utzoo comp.dcom.modems:3031 misc.consumers:7501
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!mtuxo!sama
From: sama@mtuxo.att.com (XMRH6-S.ANZELOWITZ)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems,misc.consumers
Subject: Re: Inside Telco wiring
Summary: Not Always the Landlord's Responsibility! An Anecdote.
Message-ID: <3557@mtuxo.att.com>
Date: 1 Dec 88 14:50:17 GMT
References: <1032@naucse.UUCP> <24447@sri-unix.SRI.COM> <8678@mhuxu.UUCP> <1509@lznv.ATT.COM>
Organization: AT&T, Middletown NJ
Lines: 108

In article <1509@lznv.ATT.COM>, jlw@lznv.ATT.COM (J.L.WOOD) writes:
> 
> I think that there can be no question that in a rental property that the
> responsibility for inside telephone wiring is with the landlord.
> Pretty much universally (your state may, but probably doesn't, differ)
> all permanent changes, alterations, improvements, and repairs to the
> leasehold become the property of the property owner.  
> 
> ...Given the above then the inside wiring
> must be either the landlord's responsibility or under contract to the telco
> by the landlord.  I cannot see a landlord doing the latter.
> 
> 

In response to some of the statements currently on the net involving
inside wiring and tenants and landlords, I thought I'd share the following.

We own and manage a rental property which we purchased new, and without
benefit of telephone wiring. That's what happens nowadays when
builders decide not to pay the extra money (to the phone company) to
have phone wires installed while the building is being built. Realizing
this, and prior to the first tenant taking occupancy, I decided to
install the wires (and jacks) myself. Trying to make sure that
sufficient jacks were available to the tenants, I installed them in the
kitchen, livingroom, bedrooms, and even one in the garage. Since the
walls were already up, it was tough going. Fortunately, I was able to 
utilize an otherwise unused 4" pvc conduit for one of the two main
entrance wire.

Several tenants later, we got a call from our tenant who advised us that
only one of his phones was working, and that the phone company told
him that the entrance wire was shorted-out and grounded.
Rather than pay the phone company to fix it, I decided to do it myself.
After some tracing, I found that the "problem" was inside the pvc conduit.
It ran from the garage to a utility room - a distance of about
25 feet. After originally placing the telephone wire into it, which
by the way was the ONLY thing in it, I had cemented the garage end of it closed.
This, to prevent drafts, etc., as well as to protect the phone wires.
It took me about a half hour of pounding with a hammer and chisels to break-up
the concrete and free up that end of the wire. The plan was to then attach
a new wire to it, and use the old wire to pull the new wire through the
conduit. No big deal. I attached the new wire to the garage-end of the
old wire, and with the assistance of my tenant's son, fed the new wire
into the conduit while he pulled the old, and new wires in from the inside. 
We then found the "problem". Approximately two feet into the conduit from the
utility room end, and still attached to the telephone wires, was my
tenant's son's "missing" gerbel. YUK! Being on the inside (the pulling end
of the wire), his son was the first to come across it. Lucky me! 
And he was the first to recognize this brown fur ball with its teeth
still clutching the phone wires as his missing gerbel. YUK! Phugh! 
By the way, our Lease specified: NO PETS.
Evidently, it had tried to eat its way through the insullation and,
my guess is, electrocuted himself. Double YUK!
After my tenant's son removed his former pet, we found that this industrious
gerbel had moved about five pounds of dog food (from the dog's dish) into
the conduit. He was evidently going to set up housekeeping in there.
Again, you'll remember, the lease specified NO PETS.
It then took me another hour to clean the dog food out of the
conduit and about ten minutes to splice in the new phone wire.
All of his phones then worked again.

Landlords have almost always gotten a bad name. And while I'm not going to
try to defend them all, I will say that we, at least, have always treated
our tenants with respect, have always afforded them with the benefit of
the doubt, and have always tried to provide them with the best possible
accomodations we could afford. And to "stick" landlords with the responsibility
for everything that goes "wrong" inside a property, and as it seems on the net
now, for all inside wiring problems, is unfair. The phone companies don't charge
much for maintaining this wiring for a reason: It doesn't require much.
In fact, it generally costs the phone company about $75 to send a
repairman out to your home. So at the approximately $1.25  per month
they charge for this, you can calculate that they expect to have to do this
only once in about six years on average. 

Consider this: 1) If this tenant had elected to pay the phone company
for this inside wiring maintenance, it would have cost him all of about
$15 for the year. Big deal. 2) At one time or another in our lifetimes,
EVERYONE needs to rent a place to live in. Yet, few if any tenants
are willing to cut a landlord an even break.  Think about it. Without
the landlords, where would we all live? Me too. Although we own our own home,
we often find ouselves as tenants; for example when we rent a ski condo for
a week of vacation at our favorite ski area. 3) Would you expect the landlord
to pay for the installation of your cable TV as well?
And NO, this doesn't make the property more "valuable" in terms of future rent.

I believe we have to apply at least some degree of logic and consideration
before assigning all such "responsibility" to the landlord.

In the case of our tenant, I charged him about $35 to fix the phone wires.
Cooley wages!

Anyone care to comment? After some of our past tenants, I've become somewhat
flame-proof.(:-(

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