Under Washington common law, voluntary relinquishment of a leased premises is implicated where (1) the tenant voluntarily quits with an intent to abandon the premises; and (2) the landlord resumes repossession. See Moore v. Northwest Fabricators, Inc., 51 Wn.2d 26, 314 P.2d 941 (1957); Yakima Valley Motors v. Webb Tractor & Equipment Co., 14 Wn.2d 468, 128 P.2d 507 (1942). Voluntary surrender of keys and departure from the premises is evidence of intent to terminate a tenancy.

It is unnecessary to consider here the holdings of some courts that a covenant to keep and surrender premises in a good state obligates the tenant not only to keep them thus but to place them in good repair if they are not so at the time of the letting. See Lehmaier v. Jones. 100 App. Div. 495, 91 N.Y.S. 687, together with the following authorities in which that case has been cited: Yakima Valley Motors, Inc., v. Webb Tractor Equipment Co., 14 Wn.2d 468, 128 P.2d 507; Wolfe v. White, 119 Utah 183, 225 P.2d 729; Annotation, 45 A.L.R. 12, 20, 84. The litigants cite no direct precedent to substantiate or justify their respective positions but instead rely on statements so general in nature that they are scarcely helpful.

It may be noted that in an analogous situation, where a lessee has breached his covenant to keep leased premises in a particular state of repair, the measure of damages is the reasonable cost of putting them in that condition, and not their market value. Yakima Valley Motors v. Webb Tractor Equipment Co., 14 Wn.2d 468, 128 P.2d 507; DeLano v. Tennent, 138 Wn. 39, 244 P. 273, 45 A.L.R. 766. The plaintiff produced evidence that it would have cost $103,633.66 to rebuild the grandstand shortly after the fire which occurred on December 31, 1950. It was then that defendants were bound by their covenant to rebuild.

Accordingly, where a comprehensive covenant of this kind is intended, there is usually a provision giving the tenant free occupancy for a specified period, or some indication that stipulated monthly payments have been lessened because of the other benefits the lessor is to receive. For example, the lease involved in Yakima Valley Motors v. Webb Tractor Equipment Co., 14 Wn.2d 468, 128 P.2d 507, recites that, in consideration of no monthly installments being required until a specified date, the tenant would spend not less than one thousand dollars in cleaning up the premises and making specified repairs and replacements. A year's rental of a six-year term was thus waived. In the instant case the lease does not waive rentals for any part of the term, or in any other way indicate that the monthly rentals were reduced in consideration of the lessee making substantial repairs for the primary benefit of the lessor.

Furthermore, in this instance, the harshness of the rule is not exemplified by a situation which would require the lessee to rebuild a building in its entirety, as would have been the result in the Anderson case, supra, if the rule had there been applied in all its rigor; here, the lessee is required only to repair certain equipment used by her in her operations under the lease. In the recent case of Yakima Valley Motors v. Webb Tractor Equipment Co., 14 Wn.2d 468, 128 P.2d 507, the Arnold-Evans Co. case, supra, is cited with approval. [5] In her endeavor to escape the force and effect of the rule with reference to a general covenant to repair, appellant argues that the phrase "including the plumbing" appearing in the covenant after the word "premises," and before the words "in good repair" limits her obligation and requires her to make repairs to the plumbing only, or at least does not cast upon her the duty to repair the boiler, since neither the furnace nor the boiler is specifically mentioned in the lease.

[2] The correct measure of damages is the reasonable cost of returning the premises to the condition they were in at the commencement of the lease, less reasonable wear and tear, and not their market value. McFerran v. Heroux, 44 Wn.2d 631, 643, 269 P.2d 815 (1954) (dictum); Yakima Valley Motors, Inc. v. Webb Tractor Equip. Co., 14 Wn.2d 468, 473, 128 P.2d 507 (1942); DeLano v. Tennent, 138 Wn. 39, 45-46, 244 P. 273, 45 A.L.R. 766 (1926). Testimony for Washington Hydroculture was that it would cost $31,403.

A lessor whose lease contains a covenant to repair may bring an action as soon as the premises become out of repair, but the lessor is not required to do so; he may wait until after the expiration of the term of the lease. 1 H. Tiffany, Landlord Tenant § 116 (f) and (h) (1910); cf. Yakima Valley Motors, Inc. v. Webb Tractor Equip. Co., 14 Wn.2d 468, 128 P.2d 507 (1942); Farrell Lines, Inc. v. New York, 30 N.Y.2d 76, 330 N.Y.S.2d 358, 281 N.E.2d 162 (1972); Annot., 45 A.L.R. 12 (1926). [6] Lessee next contends that the court erred in failing to give the following proposed instruction: