Michael Rossi's Landlording Blog

My morning started bright and early. Shortly after I woke up this morning, I sat down to watch the news and check my e-mail. My security camera views are always up in the background on my laptop and as I picked up my computer I noticed a convicted felon walk onto the property at one of my apartment buildings. This criminal is nothing but trouble and is barred from the property. I called the police and reported that the felon was trespassing (criminal trespassing) on my property and asked that an officer meet me at the building. I met the officer and gave a report. The criminal was about 2 buildings down and the officer gave him a citation for the criminal trespass charge. The officer also requested that I get a copy of the security camera video to him and I did so.

After this incident, since I was already in town, I decided to lay another room of carpet at one of my 3 bedroom houses. I got that done and then moved onto mowing grass. I mowed grass at 3 buildings and then called it quits for the day.

My day started with paperwork - specifically paying bills and paying my property taxes (YUK). Talk about something that gives you that sick feeling, that's exactly how I feel every six months when I write checks (in the 5 digits) for property taxes.

As I was finishing up my taxes, I got a call from The Sprint Store telling me that my Palm Pre had just arrived and I could come pick it up. So, as soon as I finished the taxes, I went to the Sprint Store and picked up my new phone.

I had a Moto Razor before, so moving up to the Palm Pre was quite a move up. The Pre is a very sophistocated machine - more like a small laptop than a phone. I'm still learning to use the phone/handheld computer, but I really like it so far. It uses an operating system that lets you view websites exactly like you would on a computer! Very cool.

After getting the Pre home and putting it on charge, I did the paperwork to take to the lawyer for the eviction I have going. As you may recall from my previous posts, I have a brand new lawyer doing my evictions. With the paperwork complete, I made a trip to the bank; the post office; and my lawyer's office to drop off the eviction paperwork. I intended to just hand the paperwork to my lawyer's secretary, but when I did the secretary said the lawyer wanted to talk to me. To my surprise, she informed me that she was moving to another city and wouldn't be able to do my eviction. RATS!

I need the evictions filed on Thursday, so I needed to find another lawyer fast! I went into town and stopped at another lawyer's office that I know. He's done some work for me in the past, so I knew he would be good. Fortunately, he was in the office and agreed to do my evictions.

Next stop was the police station. I needed to get the police reports for the last 2 months for the Pink Elephant. The reason that I needed the reports is that I've had 3 criminals barred from my property by the police and I needed copies of those reports. With copies of those reports, it's much easier to have a barred person arrested for criminal trespass.

I received a call from one of my friends who is involved in the government. She wanted to tell me that one of the local agencies had taken a BUNCH of stimulus money that they had used to hire summer workers (mostly students). They didn't have enough work to keep these workers busy and wanted to know if I had any work they could do - like painting low income houses or yard work at low income houses. My answer - YES!!! So, I made a list of rentals that I would like to have work done. We'll see what happens!

That was about it for today. I'm going to try again tomorrow to work on painting the Pink Elephant.

Today was the final day of rent collection.  However, because it was also a holiday, I had already collected most of the rents and therefore only had a few to pick up this morning. 

My real agenda for today was to attend a local tea party, protesting the socialist agenda; reckless spending; and impending radical increases in taxes that are occurring in the US.  I was a little disappointed in the turnout at today's tea party, but the weather here in Ohio was rainy and it was a holiday.  I'm sure that many people had family plans and therefore couldn't attend.  However, at a time when the government is intent on taxing the vast majority of the middle class out of existence and taking away our way of life, I would hope that people could be a little more focused.

It is becoming increasingly clear to me that the American Public is incapable of acting proactively.  Just as has happened throughout history in other countries, the vast majority of the public will allow all their freedoms to be taken away and will not utter so much as a whisper in opposition.  It's disappointing. 

With the fourth being a holiday and being on a Saturday, I've received an unusually large number of rents on the first three days of the month. I collected so much cash today that I was a little leery of carrying it all around.

Rental demand also remains very high. I had an eviction this month in one of my SFHs (single family houses) and the tenant will be setout next Thursday. That is the only SFH that I've had available in four months and I already have it rented, with the new tenant to move in as soon as the old tenant is gone. I also rented my last two one-bedroom apartments today.

My project for the day was to finish installing the carpet and doing a little plumbing work in one of the one-bedroom apartment that I rented today.

I also had took care of a little management issue, when I had a guy that I recently had barred from my apartment buildings, charged with criminal trespass.

That was it for today. I'm going to a tea party tomorrow to protest our out-of-control government.

I took another day off today. I didn't really have anything pressing to do in the rental property business, so I did some things around the house and then went to the city to pick up a part for my wife's car. While in town, I went to 3 Walmarts and then the largest gunshop in the city looking for handgun ammo. All 3 Walmarts were out. The gunshop didn't have any self-defense ammo, but they did have some target ammo. I bought 3 boxes, which is the limit due to the ammo shortage. I'm trying to buy ammo because I need at least 750 rounds for the two trainings I'm going to - one in June and one in July.

It seems like it rains every single day anymore and today was no exception. However, today's rain occurred this morning and we had a break in the weather this evening. So, I got my mountain bike ride in, without incident!

I finally got the court date for my eviction and it is July 1st. The delay in getting the court date was because the court is so far behind due to the shear number of evictions in the area. Fortunately, I only have one eviction going this month!

That's about it for today. Tomorrow, I'm planning to do a little work and then I'll be taking a 3-day weekend to go camping.

I wish that I could give you an interesting update regarding my rental business, but I just haven't done much the last week or so. Late last week, I did work a couple of hours building shelves in my storage unit. I was off all weekend and then mowed grass for a couple hours yesterday. I took the entire day off today.

The rental business isn't 24 hour excitement. In fact, there can be relatively long periods of time when there really isn't much to do at all. I currently don't have any current maintenance to do. There are a few projects I could do (such as trimming some trees or doing some painting), but I don't have any pressing projects. So, instead of inventing work, I've just been taking a lot of time off.

The big excitement of the weekend all revolved around birds. I bought an "upside down finch feeder" which is a really cool cylindrical bird feeder that finches hang on upside down while they feed. I put it up late one evening and by the early the next morning, there were 3 finches hanging upside down feeding. It was absolutely amazing to me that these birds found this feeder so quickly.

I also bought a bird feeder, which sits on top of the pole from which the upside down finch feeder hangs. I sealed the feeder with spar varnish over the weekend and then installed it today. In no time, there were a bunch of birds feeding. Most interesting to me was the number of doves that decided to sit on the ground right under the bird feeder. They didn't seem to have any interest in feeding, just sitting on the ground. That was quite interesting to me.

My wife and I finally got the swimming pool open over the weekend and we had some relatives come to swim almost as quickly as we finished. The temperature has been averaging about 12 degrees below normal this spring (despite global warming), so the water was quite cool. We haven't run the pool heater yet, so they must have wanted to swim pretty badly to brave that cool water!

My wife and I went to the shooting range on Saturday and I got the chance to run some ammo through my new handgun. You could really tell that a LOT of new people have been buying guns, because the people on both sides of me had bullets all over their targets (and I'm sure many missed the targets). I wanted to buy some more self-defense ammo while we were out, but neither the range nor the gunshop we went to had what I wanted. Ammo is still in very short supply, thanks to the increased number of people buying guns and people concerned that Obama wants to take their guns and ammo. I went to Walmart and Dunham Sports tonight and neither of them had any .40 Smith and Wesson ammo either. If that's not a sign of the times, I don't know what is!

That's it - we're up to date.

After eight months of not having an eviction, it looks like I'm not going to be so lucky this month. One of my tenants, who always pays a couple of days late (during the 3 day notice period), announced on the last day that she was moving. I explained to her that she still owed June rent and she wanted me to use her deposit as her last month's rent - which I absolutely will not do. I told her that if she didn't pay immediately, she would be evicted. She hasn't paid and she is being evicted.

Believe it or not, the attorney that I've used for my evictions these past 6 years was indicted by the grand jury on felony drug charges, so I now have a new attorney. My new attorney is a young lawyer who has very little court experience, but I think she'll be fine. I had a phone conversation with her this morning about the eviction and then took the paperwork to her this afternoon.

Once again, I didn't do any maintenance today. However, I did spend a couple of hours trying to make paperwork disappear (by paying bills, filing, etc).

This evening, the police were at the Pink Elephant for at least the 3rd time in the past few weeks. This is what happens when you have low income rentals and the weather gets hot. Tensions run high and trouble erupts. The same thing happens every year and in my experience, it takes a firm hand to get it stopped before problems set in for the entire summer. So, I drove down to the Pink Elephant to take care of business. I had the police legally bar 2 scumbag neighbors from the property (one is a convicted felon who is on parole) and the police are looking for another convicted felon (also on parole). These two guys were the same ones I wrote about a few months ago. The terms of their parole don't allow convicted felons to associate with each other, but their parole officer won't do anything about it. I will be talking to the police captain about the issue tomorrow and will try to exert some more political pressure to get the situation resolved. These criminals were on my property this evening visiting some of my tenants. I had a stern conversation with my tenants, letting them know that if they invited this scum onto my property again, their month-to-month leases would be terminated. They've seen me evict many other people and they know that I'm not bluffing!

I just couldn't get motivated to do much work today. I don't have any deferred maintenance to do and I don't have a lot of other tasks that need to be accomplished. So, I took the morning off. It was an absolutely beautiful day and I decided to do a little work around the yard, including cleaning the hummingbird feeder and making some new hummingbird nectar for it. It wasn't long until two hummingbirds were literally fighting over the feeder. For those of you that don't know about hummingbirds, they are not good at sharing!

I also worked on the swimming pool some this morning. It is nearly full of water and I did a little more work toward getting it clean.

By early afternoon, I was thinking about taking a bike ride - so I did. After the bike ride, I did accomplish some work, when I mowed the grass at one of my buildings. I also stopped by the Pink Elephant to see if anyone had any news about the convicted felon that has been stalking me. None of the tenants had seen him and one tenant heard that he was in jail. I'll try to follow up on that tomorrow.

That was it for today. I might try to get more done tomorrow, if I can remember what I was thinking about doing. I can't think of it right now (it's getting late).

NOT GUILTY! That's right, the convicted felon that has been stalking me was found not guilty at the conclusion of a trial by the court (judge without jury). Ironically, the facts were not in dispute and the prosecutor and defense stipulated that the felon did indeed come within 20 feet of me in direct violation of the restraining order. There were 3 witnesses for the prosecution and the entire incident was on our security camera system, so there simply could be no denying of the facts. The not guilty finding came as the result of a legal technicality. It seems that when the defendant was served by the sheriff's deputy, he was in jail. Testimony showed that the deputy knew that the felon had a difficult time reading (nearly illiterate) and that the deputy didn't read the contents of the restraining order to the felon. So, the defense attorney argued that the felon was not "recklessly negligent" in violating the order. There was a lot of legal mumbo-jumbo about the definition of "recklessly negligent" as opposed to simple "negligence". The judge even read the exact definitions of these terms out of a law book. The judge ruled that the felon was simply "negligent" and therefore he was not guilty of violating the restraining order. The gist of this is that the felon claimed that he didn't know what the restraining order said and the judge found that to be the case (even though everyone in the room knew that wasn't the truth).

After finding the felon not guilty, the judge read the entire restraining order word by word to the felon and after each sentence asked him if he understood. He did that so that it is on the record that the felon now knows exactly what the terms of the restraining order are and won't be able to use this defense next time.

The other twist on the situation is that while the felon was in jail, the grand jury handed down felony drug charges against him for a drug incident that occurred in December. He went before a judge in common pleas court (felony court) in the last few days and he may continue to be held in jail on that charge. I looked at the court records myself and my interpretation is that his bond was revoked, but I'm not sure which bond that is talking about and what the implications of today's verdict will be on that situation. I discussed that with the assistant prosecutor, but she wasn't able to definitively say whether he would be held or not.

If he's released, he will almost certainly be stalking me again tomorrow and I will need to exercise extra caution while working. I bought a magazine pouch so that I can carry an extra clip for my handgun, just to be on the safe side. Apparently, the courts simply can not keep this felon in jail even though they know that he is a serious threat to me; to the police; and to the public in general. You might have heard the old saying: "when seconds count, the police are only minutes away"!!! So true.

The good thing about this situation is that it is allowing me to assess my defensive situation. I've upgraded my carry handgun from a .32 caliber to my .40 caliber. I bought the magazine pouch so that I can carry an extra clip. Finally, I signed up for an advanced tactical shooting class later in the month. Hopefully, I won't need any of this to deal with this felon, but at least I'll be prepared.

The court hearing screwed up my day, because it was scheduled in the middle of the afternoon. I did collect a couple of late rents; did a minor floor repair at an apartment, and mowed the grass at one apartment building.

My wife and I also finally got our pool opened up.

That's it for today. I'm planning to do a little mowing tomorrow.

It's time for me to get caught up with my blog. There's not a lot of real estate stuff to talk about, because I just haven't been working very much. After taking 5 days off for Memorial Day, last week was an extremely short week. I basically worked 3 days, then took another 3 day weekend off. I have already posted through last Thursday, so I'll start today's post with Friday.

Friday morning started with a knock on the door. We rarely have people unexpectedly knock on the door, especially early in the morning. As I approached the door, I could see the Sheriff's car in the driveway. A deputy had come to serve me with a subpoena for the criminal trial of the convicted felon who has been stalking me. This convicted felon is currently in jail awaiting trial for violating the restraining order I have against him. That was about as exciting as the weekend got!

To be quite honest, I don't really remember what I did on Friday. I just basically took it easy (although I did mow the grass at my home). The one good thing for Friday was that the weather was finally good enough for a bicycle ride.

Saturday, my wife wanted to go shopping for new table and chairs for our deck. You might think that we could have found these at just about any store, but we wanted an all-metal table and all-metal chairs. That turned out to be a difficult task and we ended up going to stores in three different cities before we found what we were looking for! I'm not much for shopping, but the good thing for me is that I was finally able to find several boxes of .40 cal S & W (Smith and Wesson) Ammo. If you weren't aware of it, there is a severe shortage of ammo in this country because people believe that socialism will be very bad for gun rights and people are stockpiling guns and ammo. It is very difficult to find ammo. Even gun stores are low on guns and frequently completely out of ammo!

Sunday was my day to run projection at Church and that kept me busy til after noon. Then, my wife and I just took it easy - doing just about nothing. We watched a movie and then I did get in a good bike ride.

My main project for today was to take care of paperwork. I started by going to the post office to pickup my Section 8 rent checks. I then checked the money off the rent roll and made up deposit tickets for the bank. In addition, I attempted to make as much paperwork disappear as possible, by paying bills; filing receipts away; putting check stubs into the respective checkbooks; calling to straighten out a couple of bills that were incorrect, etc.

About 1pm, I was finished with the paperwork and went to the bank. Then, I collected several more rents from tenants and even spent a little time cutting up a small tree that had fallen during a storm.

Tomorrow, I'll be working on some rentals. I have the court trial on Wednesday and Thursday, but hopefully that won't last all day.

As usual, nothing goes as planned. I had planned on working on the carpet in the basement of a 3 bedroom house today. The new tenant had the water turned on at the property this morning, in anticipation of his move-in. So, upon my arrival at the house, I decided to check the water. As I checked under the kitchen sink, I discovered that the left side of the sink was leaking and that the cause was a leak around the sink strainer basket. After I saw this leak, I decided that I probably should check the rest of the water in the house, and I discovered that the chain was missing from the flapper valve in the toilet. So, to check the water to the toilet, I stuck my hand in the toilet tank and actuated the flapper with my hand. That was when I noticed that water was running out from the bottom of the toilet. Obviously, the toilet wax ring needed to be replaced. Next, I checked the tub/shower and discovered that the side of the fiberglass tub had been damaged by the previous tenants and that they had attempted to patch it (without success).

So, at this point, I realized that my plan for today needed to change. I made a list and headed for the plumbing store. A few minutes later, I was back at the house. The most pressing problem was the toilet leak, so I started there. I replaced the toilet flapper and checked it's operation. So far, so good. Next, I flushed and drained the toilet and removed it from the toilet flange. I installed the new wax ring and re-installed the toilet. To my amazement, there were no leaks!

The next priority was to repair the kitchen sink leak. That consisted of removing the old basket; tailpiece, and cross piece; and replacing them with new. Again, I was astonished when there were no leaks. That was two plumbing repairs in a row with no leaks - A NEW RECORD!

While I was on a roll, I decided to undertake the fiberglass repair in the tub. That went pretty well and I moved on to change the flourescent bulbs in the kitchen.

By this time, the grass was dry and the sun was out. I decided to mow some grass. It looked like it was going to be a great afternoon and evening - the weather was looking great for a change. So after mowing grass, I headed home for a bike ride. Right on cue, the skies darkened and the rain poured from the sky. No bike ride today. As I said earlier, nothing ever goes as planned!

After my 5 day weekend, I wasn't in a hurry to get back to work today. I did get a little done, but not much. I spent an hour or so this morning organizing the bills that came in while I was gone. Then, I made a trip to the post office and bank. Next, I went to the local Sprint Store to have a billing mistake corrected.

About that time, I received a call from the local police about a theft that occurred a couple blocks from one of my apartment buildings. The police had reason to believe that the thieves may have walked past my building, which has an elaborate surveillance camera system. The police asked me to check my surveillance tapes (really a DVR) to see if I could spot the thieves. The theives were not on camera and I called to police to give them the bad news.

Next, I showed an apartment to a potential tenant and then went to the hardware store to pick up a metric screw for my bicycle seat. That was it for today!

I'll try to be a little more productive tomorrow.

We returned this afternoon from a wonderful 5 day weekend, which was our first camping adventure of the season (largely because the weather has been so lousy in Ohio this spring). This weekend, we went camping at the Forked Run State Park, which is located on the Ohio River near Reedsville, Ohio. It was an absolutely fantastic 5 days, with perfect weather every day.

During our trip, we enjoyed mountain biking, frisbee golf, motorcycle riding; walking along the river; and a lot of good fellowship with friends. One of the main focuses on the trip was to ride the mountain biking course at Lake Hope State Park (about an hour away from Forked Run), which is rated number one in the state for single track mountain biking courses. Although we got a very good workout on the course, we were extremely disappointed in the course. In fact, my friend and I would rate the course the WORST in the state of Ohio!!! The course did not flow well and there were NUMEROUS trees that had fallen during the winter still obstructing the course. I would definitely not recommend this course and I won't be going back.

I would rate Forked Run as a very nice state park. It was scenic and had many nice camping sites. The frisbee golf course was excellent, and camp store was well stocked. In fact, the only real detractor I would list for this state park are the very hilly, winding roads surrounding the park (obviously not the park's fault).

I plan to get back to work tomorrow, but I haven't even thought about what I will do yet. I'll think about that tomorrow.

I'm finally installing a second security camera system. This one will cover 3 buildings on the same street. In preparation for the installation, today I ran wiring from the electrical box to the location for the power supply company. The cable company is scheduled to install the high speed DSL line with static IP port tomorrow morning and then I'll begin installing the cameras and DVR.

I'm REALLY sold on these security camera systems. They are a powerful deterrent to crime, as well as a deterrent the tenant's misbehaving. When there is an incident, I can copy the evidence to a DVD and take it to the police. I can also check on my rentals without ever leaving home, or even while on vacation. All I need to view my property is my laptop and an internet connection!

In addition to installing the electrical wiring for the surveillance system, I showed a 3 bedroom house to a potential tenant; mowed the grass at 3 apartment buildings; and installed a ceiling light in a 1 bedroom apartment.

Once home, I headed over to the mountain biking course for another workout! I've ridden a bunch of different mountain biking course and this one has the longest sustained vertical run of all of them. It's a killer!

Today I got to do my favorite job (OR NOT)! That job was pulling staples out of the living room floor of the 3 bedroom house where I removed the carpet pad yesterday. There were probably 200 staples and the floor was a horrible mess, with slimy stick pet urine attached to the floor along with mouse droppings. Of course, it's hard to sweep or mop with hundreds of staples in the floor and it's tough to remove staples with mouse droppings and pet urine slime goo all over the place. Fortunately, I don't have much of a sense of smell, but even so, the smell was terrible. I took those plug-in air fresheners with me and hopefully the house will smell better tomorrow.

Now that the staples are out, tomorrow I'll sweep and mop the floor and then install the new carpet. THAT ROOM WILL LOOK 100% better with the new carpet!

In addition to working on the room, I also got the security deposit for a new tenant in my one of my 1 bedroom apartments. Her rent is supposed to be paid by a government agency and I went over there to get the paperwork signed. What an experience! I was sitting in a waiting room with a bunch of low-income riff-raff who were looking for a government handout. It looked like the entire circus was sitting in that waiting room. I imagine that this is exactly what it will be like when universal healthcare comes to town - sitting in a crowded waiting room awaiting my turn to be seen by a benevolent government official. Fortunately, I am not too lazy to work and I don't have time to sit in a government office all afternoon. After waiting about 10 minutes, I gave the clerk the paperwork I had and told her to have the case worker call me when she had all the paperwork done. The tenants won't be able to move in until I have the signed paperwork!