I have been a landlord since 2005, the year I rented out the very first property I bought in San Francisco after buying a single-family home. Since then I’ve been through all sorts of disputes. Neighbors texting me that my tenants were running across their roofs during Fleet Week. A heaping pile of trash left on the sidewalk. A shower leaking through to the lower unit.
Being a landlord will test your faith in humanity. For survival’s sake, you learn from every incident by bolstering your lease and screening prospective tenants like the CIA. It is not worth the extra money to get a tenant who doesn’t respect your property or the lease compared to taking your time finding ones who do.
Luckily, I have yet to have a tenant situation that called for an eviction due to non-payment or excessive damage. I attribute this largely to charging slightly below market rent, spending one-on-one time interviewing tenants, and doing a thorough background check before moving forward.
I’ve made some tough calls, like choosing a different applicant at the last minute over one who kept trying to renegotiate the rent after we had already agreed on it. For the most part, things have worked out.
But I know things will not always work out. I recently experienced something new that I want to open up to the community for your opinion.
A Text From My Tenant’s Neighbor
On a Saturday at 3:35pm, I got a cordial text from the neighbor across the street from my rental:
“There’s a loud beeping sound coming from your rental. It could be an alarm or smoke detector. I’m not sure, but you might want to check on it. It’s been beeping at least all day today. It seems like your tenants are not home.”
Oh great. What are the chances a fire alarm goes off while the tenants are away on a trip? High, I guess.
I had just gotten back from five hours with my kids and all I wanted to do was take a nap. But you can’t nap when there’s a chance your rental property is on fire.
One of the main reasons I sold my last rental property in 2025 was the Pacific Palisades fire that came out of nowhere and erased an entire neighborhood in a day. So no, I wasn’t about to take that glorious nap. Could you?
I hopped in the car, drove six minutes to the rental, parked, and got out. I could hear the alarm going off nonstop from the street. I emailed my tenant a heads up along with a video of the sound. I waited five minutes for a reply. Nothing. So I let myself in.
Three Smoke Alarms Stacked On The Garage Floor
I went to the garage first, next to the entrance where the sound was loudest. There I found a stack of three smoke alarms sitting on the ground, with the top one screaming away.
I fiddled with it and finally killed it with a switch.
Then I walked the entire house to make sure there was no fire and no electrical sparking anywhere. About 10 minutes later I was done inspecting. I emailed my tenant a second time with a video of the alarm, told him there was no fire, and said everything looked fine.
Then I drove home and took my much-needed nap.
Six Days Of Silence
I didn’t hear back until the following Friday, when I got this:
Hi,
The information is helpful. Definitely wanted to know that it was bothering the neighbor. We were in the process of throwing those away as they have all hit the end of their life and started beeping.
Also, in the future, when there is a situation where you need to come to the house for something, can you send a text to me before you head over?
Thanks
Six days had passed, so I had actually forgotten I’d even gone over. My immediate reaction was, where’s the thank you for driving over to make sure there was no fire, protect your belongings, and call the fire department if the place was burning?
Instead the response was almost robotic. Helpful information received. Sorry it bothered the neighbor. No relief that the house and their belongings were fine.
The delayed reply doesn’t bother me. It is what it is. What didn’t sit right was the combination of no thanks plus a request to text before I head over.
In An Emergency, Time Is Of The Essence
Asking me to text first is a reasonable ask on its own. I had already emailed before entering, so a text is perhaps a faster channel.
But run the scenario forward. I text him that the neighbor says the alarm has been blaring all day and I’m heading over to inspect. He doesn’t respond at all. Am I supposed to sit outside my own property listening to an alarm scream, knowing there’s a chance something is actually burning?
Of course not.
Now imagine he texts back and says he’s not comfortable with me entering, it’s probably just a false alarm. That’s a red flag. I’m not rolling the dice on a fire spreading through one of my most valuable assets.
This was my old primary residence and it’s now an important piece of my passive income portfolio. If it burns, my income drops, I pay a deductible, and I spend months on the phone with insurance adjusters.
So no. There is no version of this where I don’t go inspect when an alarm is blaring and nobody is home.
The tenants might be embarrassed by whatever’s lying around or worried something might get taken. I don’t care how messy the place is and I’m not touching their stuff. This is a business transaction that’s working, and I have zero interest in wrecking it.
Can A Landlord Enter Without Notice In California?
In California, a landlord can enter a rental without notice in an emergency, and a fire alarm blaring in an empty house qualifies.
California Civil Code Section 1954 lists the only situations where a landlord may enter a rental unit, and the very first one is “in case of emergency.” That exemption covers two separate rules. It waives the written notice requirement, and it waives the normal-business-hours restriction, which matters when your alarm starts screaming at 3:35pm on a Saturday and nobody is home.
My lease says I’ll email at least 24 hours in advance to access the property for maintenance. That covers the routine stuff. It does not override the emergency provision, and it couldn’t even if I wanted it to. A tenant can’t waive that right and neither can I.
The Part That Should Actually Worry Me
I just realized something new.
Three smoke alarms were on the garage floor. Not one. Three. And nobody told me.
Under California Health and Safety Code 13113.7, since January 1, 2014, the owner of a rented single-family home is responsible for testing and maintaining the smoke alarms. The tenant’s job is to notify the owner when an alarm is inoperable. Then my job is to fix or replace it, unless the tenant wants to on their own.
So for some unknown stretch of time, my house may have had no working smoke alarms in it. That can’t happen in the future. Both tenants and landlords have to be on the same page in the name of safety.
How I’m Improving My Rental Lease
Every tenant experience is a learning experience to make the next tenant situation even better. Here are three fixes going into my lease and my routine:
- Spell out the emergency entry right and cite Civil Code 1954 directly, so there’s no ambiguity about what happens when an alarm is going off and nobody answers.
- Add an explicit clause requiring written notification within 24 hours of any smoke or CO alarm becoming inoperable, and prohibiting removal of any alarm unless replaced.
- Record the dates of each newly installed release and add 10 years to set a reasonable end of life date for new installation.
The lesson is that a slightly cold email is worth far less of my attention than three dead alarms on the floor.
Red Flag, Or Am I Overreacting?
I’d love to hear how you’d think through this.
Could you have ignored the neighbor’s text? Could you have pulled up, heard the alarm, and driven away? Does six days of silence, no thanks, and a request to text first read as normal to you, or as something worth watching?
I’m always looking for blindspots in my thinking, so your perspective and your own war stories are always helpful. And whichever side of the lease you’re on, a little warmth costs nothing.
The Older And Wealthier I Get, The Less I Want To Be A Landlord
Every year my desire to be a landlord goes down, and every year my desire to earn income while doing absolutely nothing goes up. Even though I could have made more money holding my last rental, I am thrilled to have sold it and reinvested the proceeds for lifestyle reasons.
Nobody has ever texted me on a Saturday afternoon about a private real estate fund. A fund has never left three smoke alarms on the garage floor. It has never run across a neighbor’s roof during Fleet Week, leaked into the unit below, or made me interview a stranger like I work for the CIA.
That’s why a growing chunk of my real estate exposure now sits with Fundrise, which manages a diversified portfolio of private real estate for over 350,000 investors. I can invest a set amount, keep the exposure, and skip the 3:35pm phone calls entirely.
Physical real estate still has its place. I own plenty of it. But the tenant management portion of the job has a shelf life, and mine is expiring. Truly passive income is the whole point of building wealth in the first place.
Fundrise is a long-time sponsor of Financial Samurai and I have personally invested with them since 2016.
