A tenant leaves mid-month claiming the house is uninhabitable because the router sits in another room
That word moves operators fast, and it should. The standard response is to be on site the same day and walk every inch of it, photos and video of all five rooms and both bathrooms. Router placement falls under house rules. Habitability is a legal standard set by the state, and equipment sitting in another bedroom does not come near it, which an electrician can confirm in an hour. The cost of moving that fast is still real. In a case like this the operator eats nine days of vacancy on the room, call it $285, because nobody wants to press for rent while the word uninhabitable is sitting in a text thread. Refunding the prorated nine days to close it clean makes the total hit $570, half lost and half returned. The room rerents in four days, so the lasting damage is the distraction, two days that never show up on a line item. The open question is whether responding that fast helps or teaches the remaining four tenants that dramatic language produces a fast check. Most co-living leases define habitability no further than the state does, and that is where the fix belongs. A house rules section that names the state standard and sets a written process for complaints takes the word out of play before it gets used.
