Using AI to tidy up maintenance request messages

Tenants write vague messages. A tradie can't act on vague, and neither can you. A writing tool can reshape one into a clear job note, so long as you decide what it means.

Wikipedia's entry on the trade includes arranging repairs and overseeing contractors.¹ That's a lot of reading other people's half-descriptions of a fault.

What a tradie needs

Settle this before you open the tool. A good job note names:

• The property, and the room or area.
• The problem, in plain words.
• When it began, and whether it's getting worse.
• Any water, smell, noise or damage the tenant described.
• How and when a tradie can get in.
• Who's approving the work, and the spending limit.

You'll supply the last two yourself. Nothing in a tenant's message tells you what the owner signed off.

Let the tool sort, not decide

Strip the names, phone numbers and address from the message. Paste what's left and ask:

"Turn this tenant message into a brief job note. First, list the points the tenant stated outright. Second, list what's missing or vague. Offer no cause and add nothing the tenant left out."

The missing-points list is the part you'll use most. It hands you questions for the tenant: which tap, which bathroom, dripping or running?

Hold firm on the no-cause rule. If a tool writes "likely a worn washer", it has turned the tenant's words into a verdict nobody made. The tradie works out the cause.

Where the tool slips

Tool output can look credible even when it contains errors.² In job notes, watch for these:

• "Sometimes" turns into "constantly", or the reverse.
• A detail that sounded minor, like a smell, vanishes.
• A room or appliance appears that nobody mentioned.
• A worry comes out calmer than the tenant wrote it.

Set the finished note beside the original message and tick off each point.

Urgent or routine: your call

Don't ask the tool to label a job. Local rules decide what counts as an urgent repair and how fast it must be handled. A writing tool can't know your local list.

NSW Fair Trading, for one, has a repairs guide and a page of rules and guidance for tenants and landlords.³ Check your own state's official site for what counts as urgent and how quickly it must be handled.

If a message sounds dangerous, follow your own emergency process and the official guidance for your area.

Privacy when you paste

A tenant's message tends to carry a name, a number and an address. In Australia, the OAIC says that if your organisation is covered by the Privacy Act, its privacy obligations apply to personal information typed into an AI product. Check with the OAIC whether the Act applies to your business.²

So cut those details out first. Write "the tenant" and "Unit B", then add the real ones back in your own records. Our page on what to leave out of AI chats has the longer list, including some details people forget are private.

Once the note is ready

File it with the job. Pass it to the contractor along with access details and a spending limit; the tradie messages page covers that step.

Don't forget the tenant. They want to hear that you've got the request and what happens next. Give them a number for emergencies. And don't name a day or time until the tradie has agreed to one.