What steps should a landlord take if a tenant is tested positive for COVID-19?

I guess there could be two courses of action whether they are quarantined off-site or in their apartment. Should I tell residents in nearby units? Would I even be allowed to tell people (HIPAA)? Is there any way to sterilize the unit? Any thoughts would be hugely welcome.

I am assuming that all privacy laws remain in place for now. Unless instructed by corporate. You could hire a crew to sterilize but would this be your cost or theirs?!

Ruby Yvette In this case, I am 'corporate', LOL. Good question on the cost issue. They are already 2 months behind (before April is due), so not likely to get it from tenant (eviction hearing was to be tomorrow ☹️).

According to the TAA you cannot say anything to anyone

Judy Green What TAA said is it’s in your best interest to inform the residents. However don’t give out personal information.

Judy Green that’s not true I was on conference call this week and they suggested a generic letter stating someone has the virus

Felicia Cweren Lewin you are not allowed to disclose the residents name or address I was in the same calk

Judy Green no not their name or unit number but you can say a resident has tested positive . I did not get that we can’t put out a generic letter. Howard said a generic letter was fine

Chad Christian that is exactly what was stated! They strongly encouraged notifying residents of a confirmed case on site but not to disclose the actual resident info

Felicia Cweren Lewin you need to be very careful in sending out the letter.

Judy Green I will. We don’t have cases yet. What paragraph says we can’t send out a generic notice ?

I mean, if they’re quarantined to their unit then they’re inside and not around anyone. I had one do it as precaution by the CDC bc she just got back from Paris.
If they have it... they just need to clean and disinfect their unit when they feel up to it.

Crystal Buchanan I would agree with you. Not informing other residents.

Crystal Buchanan they weren’t quarantined the second they got it, just when they started to feel bad. If they came into contact with other residents, it likely spread

Amy well, it likely did but you may not know who all they came in contact with as symptoms can be anywhere from 2-14 days before.

Crystal Buchanan well yeah. Exactly. That’s why you notify other residents there’s a confirmed case on site

Amy Justus Katz that’s not what we’ve been told but ok.

Obviously you could not identify the person but you might be able to notify that someone in the building tested positive. And to take precautions.? I’m not really sure. If one of my own neighbors in my building tested positive, I would hope that they were taking precautions to keep their unit clean and be wearing ppe “if”‘they had to leave their unit. Can’t say I would wanna go into that unit either..we are in uncharted territory here.

We are working on a solution to disinfect units for the industry. We are checking with CDC guidelines. We do have all the necessary chemicals and equipment, just need to check on Certification and proper protocol.

I would just go to each apartment, wash and disinfect the exterior of the entry doors. That way it's equal treatment and no one is being singled out. My complex had 4 units in each building. All exterior doors opened to the yards. The tenants were responsible for cleaning their doors and porches.

YOU have no business telling anyone. It is just like any other disease as far as privacy. The Health Department makes that determination, at least here they do.

Wa. State health dept. Mandates you notify all resident.. Not who or what unit but that a resident, resident guest or staff member has tested positive.

We have an SFR that was just vacated (yesterday) by a family that all had COVID-19. They were VERY sick throughout the month of March. Every adult in the home had pneumonia and that kids had massive coughs, fevers, etc.

I can't get any of our maintenance team to go close to the house. Not sure how to clean this one up.

In order to protect the health and safety of our team members, regardless if we are aware of anyone being sick in the home, we have contracted cleaning vendor to clean the home prior to any on-site team members going in to turn the apartment home.