[jeffbee]

It does help. It raise the opportunity to discuss it, which is helpful because not everyone is aware that this is a problem, and like many other lease clauses it is there to assign blame in case an exceptionally bad event comes to pass.

[trebligdivad]

It's got to be tricky for people to know what cells they have inside their {phone, toothbrush, bike etc}.

[CamperBob2]

like many other lease clauses it is there to assign blame in case an exceptionally bad event comes to pass

That sounds like a job for the insurance company. You do have insurance, right? Did they have any input on this clause?

[jeffbee]

They dictated it.

[CamperBob2]

Interesting, and ominous. If the place burns down and they find the remains of a "TrustFire" battery in the debris, they might try to refuse coverage, leaving you with the task of recovering damages from the tenant. And good luck with that...

[dylan604]

Nah, tenants will sign just to move in, and forget about this clause. Just like any tenant that smokes weed disregards no drug clauses. Tenants are going to do what tenants do. Unless you're doing routine walk throughs looking at every single thing in the place that could use a battery, then you'll never know. It's a useless "regulation", and we have plenty of those in the world already.

[jeffbee]

It's wrong to have an unjustified low opinions of tenants as a class. They are normal, well-meaning, intelligent people like any other.

[quesera]

  s/tenants/humans/g

The large majority of tenants do not read their lease paperwork carefully enough for this clause to make a difference.

A large majority of humans don't read EULAs.

A lease clause is useless for liability, because your landlord's insurance won't be able to shake down the tenant anyway.

Someday soon enough, your insurance might require a clause like that. It will still be ignored by tenants though.

[tgsovlerkhgsel]

And the "intelligent" part makes them realize that you get absolutely nowhere if you try to strictly follow all rules (there's a reason why "work to rule" is an effective sabotage strategy), and that the path of least resistance is to sign and ignore it.

[dylan604]

It’s not unjustified. I’m a tenant. I don’t read all of the clauses. I’m a normal well meaning intelligent person. Does not change anything about what I said.