Pigeons and their filth in tenancy law

Pigeons and their filth in tenancy law

"I'm a tenant in a flat under the roof of a block of flats, and my balcony is infested with pigeons, which are causing a lot of dirt. I've asked the landlord to pay all or part of the cost of installing pigeon control equipment. He refused on the grounds that he was not responsible for their presence on my balcony. True, but I'm hardly responsible either. Am I entitled to ask him to contribute to the CHF 550 I had to spend on protection?

B, Lausanne

First of all, art. 256 of the Swiss Code of Obligations (CO) requires the lessor to maintain the object of the lease in a condition appropriate for the use for which it was leased. In practice, the question of the extent to which the property must be free from nuisance - in particular noise or dust - is very important, as the tenant must not be prevented from making the agreed or usual use of the property.

For his part, the tenant is obliged to use the rented property with care: minor cleaning and repair work, i.e. work to eliminate minor defects, is his responsibility (art. 259 CO). A minor defect is one that has practically no effect on the use of the property, or only an incidental effect. Case law thus emphasises that the tenant is obliged to carry out cleaning work at his own expense, i.e. to remove dirt using water, cleaning products or any other appliance. In principle, the tenant must be able to carry out the cleaning and repairs himself and/or without excessive expense. This is the case for replacing a ventilation hood filter, a tap seal or unblocking drains to the communal pipe. The rental rules and practices of the canton of Vaud also specify that the tenant is responsible for replacing broken or damaged windows, maintaining the floors, replacing worn blind straps, removing snow or ice from the balcony, and maintaining the garden and terrace to which he or she has exclusive use.

As a result, your landlord is not obliged to contribute to the cost of your pigeon control system, which is designed to save you from having to clean up your property, for which you are responsible. This cannot be compared to the control of pests such as cockroaches, rats or cockroaches, which generally require the intervention of a specialist disinfection company at the landlord's expense, unless their presence is the result of a lack of hygiene on the part of the tenant.