Michael Rossi's Landlording Blog

I just got back from a very relaxing vacation on Topsail Island in North Carolina. For those of you that have never been to Topsail Island, it is a very quiet island with beautiful beaches. It is just about as far from being a tourist destination as a beach can be. There is no amusement park; no tourist type shows; and very few tourist shops. It was very relaxing, and except for a trip to visit the Battleship North Carolina, we didn't do any tourist activities.

However, little did I realize just how relaxing it was. Today as I returned to work on my rental business, I discovered that not only did I get a lot of relaxation on vacation, I actually got younger - A LOT YOUNGER! In fact, one rental applicant that I talked to today apparently thought I was born YESTERDAY! Talk about finding the fountain of youth! LOL!

Here's what happened. A woman called today wanting to see one of my two bedroom apartments. As always, I asked her who would be living there. She said it would be her mother; her mother's boyfriend; and she would occassionally stay there too, when she was in town. I was thinking "B.S."!!! Obviously, if the mother was actually going to live there, then she would have come to look at the apartment. So, I asked the woman why her mother wasn't here to look at it and she replied that her mother had C.O.P.D., which is a lung disease that makes breathing difficult. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out that a woman with severe breathing problems would not be able to climb a LONG flight of stairs to a second story apartment. Even though my vacation had been relaxing, I clearly wasn't born YESTERDAY!

Just for fun, I played along with the charade. I told the woman that I would need her to take an application to her mother and have her mother fill it out. And by the way, I would need a copy of all their driver's licenses in order to do their screening. We walked out to my truck and I gave the woman an application. She left.

Within 5 minutes, she was back. She asked if SHE could fill out the application and now claimed that she would be paying the rent for her mother. The crap was getting pretty deep and I didn't have my hip waders! Even so, I managed to keep a straight face. I told the woman that she could indeed fill out the application, but that I would still need the info for her mother and her mother's boyfriend, including their driver's licenses. With that she left again.

I quit work today about 1 pm and headed home. As I pulled into the driveway, the woman called me. She said that she had the application complete and wanted to meet me to give me the application. I asked her if she had copies of the driver's licenses for her mother and her mother's driver's licenses. She said that her mother and the boyfriend wouldn't be living there now - they had changed their mind! At this point even hip waders couldn't stay above the b.s. and I ended the game. I told the woman that I would not rent to her, her mother, or her mother's boyfriend and then I said goodbye!

As Paul Harvey used to say - 'and now the rest of the story'. When the woman came to look at the apartment, she brought 2 men with her. She looked iffy. Her boyfriend had tattooes all over his body and I judged him to be a druggie. The other man looked even worse - like a FREAK! From experience, I immediately knew that these were the scumbags that wanted to rent the apartment, probably with the mother and the mother's boyfriend. The woman claimed to have all the money with her to rent the apartment on the spot. That was additional confirmation that I did NOT want to rent to them. My theory is that these scumbags were being setout after being evicted. I'd bet good money that their current apartment is in the mother's name and if I had screened her, she would have an eviction on her record. I would also bet that the boyfriend had an extensive criminal record. Therefore, the only one left with a relatively clean record was the woman who came to look at the apartment. NO THANKS! I don't need any scumbags renting my apartment!

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.

I had a very busy day today. It started with a trip to drop off my final 2008 tax information to my accountant (it's on extension). Next was a trip to the bank and post office. I moved in a new tenant yesterday, so I had to take the money to the bank.

After these preliminary tasks, I got started on applicance day, which consisted of putting appliances in two rentals. I know this sounds like a minor task that should have only taken a few minutes - but that wasn't the case.

The story all started a couple of weeks ago with the annual Section 8 inspection of a two bedroom apartment. As usual, the apartment passed the Section 8 inspection with flying colors. The problem started when the apartment was picked for a "quality control inspection", which is when Section 8 re-inspects the apartment to basically inspect the inspector. I've been picked for a lot of these quality control inspections and have always passed them. However, this time things took a turn for the worse. The unit failed the second inspection for two reasons: 1. the inspector said the oven didn't work and 2) the kitchen had a non-working refrigerator (which ended up being true). As it turned out, there was nothing wrong with the oven, except that the tenant had unplugged it. However, the stove was very old and ugly. I decided to just replace it, with a used stove from the used-appliance store ($65). This tenant had 2 refrigerators and a freezer in her apartment and has had this arrangement for several years. It is not my business how many appliances she has and I never questioned it (and don't honestly care). As it turns out, the refrigerator in the kitchen stopped working at some time in the past, leaving the tenant with a refrigerator in the bedroom and a deep freezer in the living room. The Section 8 inspector apparently questioned the tenant about the 2 refrigerators and freezer and found that one was inop.

The tenant is not in good shape and isn't capable of much physical activity. I had to move a bunch of furniture to get the old stove and refrigerator out and then move the new in. Of course, after doing that, I had to move all the furniture back. All in all, a 5 minute job ended up taking over an hour.

Next on the agenda was to put a (used) stove and refrigerator in the 3 bedroom house I'm finishing. Unlike the previous job, this literally took 5 minutes.

There was an armed bank robbery a couple of days ago in the area. The police released a description of the suspect and the get-away car today and I think I know who did it, so I called and talked to the police captain about my suspicions. To make a long story short, there is a convicted felon in the neighborhood near the pink elephant. The felon is on parole for robbery and he is associated with another scumbag that drives a car that matches the description of the get-away car. I offered to look at the bank's security camera system and the captain said that he would pass the info to the detective in charge of the case.

Enough for one day. More tomorrow.

With dozens of rentals, there is always something to fix. Today's project was a clogged drain line that occurred because the low income tenants weren't smart enough to scrape off their plates before trying to wash them. The drain line was BADLY plugged and it took a significant amount of effort and a significant mess to fix it. I ended up cutting the drain line and installing a new cleanout in the line so that I could run a snake through the line.

After finishing the repair, I gave the tenants a lecture about scraping the food from their plates BEFORE washing their dishes. I also promised them that I wouldn't repair another tenant-caused clog without charging them!

While we're talking about tenants that aren't too bright, one of my tenants reported to me today that a fellow tenant stole cigarettes from her. The tenant that stole the cigarettes is already being evicted for non-payment and has had several police contacts in the 6 weeks she has lived in the apartment. All the tenants, including the victim KNEW that this person was a scumbag and a thief. Even so, my tenant allowed the tenant into her apartment to use the phone and therefore became the victim of the theft. Not too bright.

BTW, the thief (my tenant) had a clean criminal background check when I accepted her. She is young and was probably a criminal all along, but obviously previous juvenile records are sealed making it impossible to discover the truth about young applicants! UGH!

I took the day off today, at least as far as the rental property business is concerned. However, I did still have a personal real estate project to do. To make a long story short, my wife's family is selling a house they inherited and somehow I got picked to do a few maintenance items at the house. To accomplish that job, I needed to pick up a few things from my storage room at the Pink Elephant. I got the things out I needed and started to cut a 2 X 6 right there on the sidewalk. I'm always aware of my surroundings when I work in low income areas (and everywhere else for that matter) and therefore I certainly took notice when a very rough looking man approached me. He had a cast on his left arm and his right forearm had MANY noticable cuts. I stopped working and asked him what I could do for him. His answer was unique to say the least. He said he wanted me to call someone to pick him up. That's not too uncommon in low income areas. Many times in the past, homeless people have asked me to call someone for them because they don't have a phone. I'm normally willing to make a quick call for them, provided I have the time. I thought that was what he wanted and I asked who he wanted me to call. His answer was that he was "thinking of committing homicide and suicide" and he wanted me to call the police. Well, that definitely got my attention! I didn't see a gun or knife and he hadn't threatened me directly, but I felt like I needed to have a few feet of separation from this guy and I definitely needed to keep him in front of me for tactical reasons. I directed him to sit down on the porch and told him that I would call the police. As soon as he sat down, I dialed the police and explained the situation to them. The said they would send an officer.

As we waited, I talked to the guy. As it turns out he was a mental health patient who is homeless and hasn't taken his medication for about 2 months. He apparently got into a fight with someone who accused him of stealing drugs and that person broke his arm. That occurred recently, although he told me different stories about when. He claimed that his wife cut his other arm, but from the shear number of cuts and the look of them, I'd bet that these were self-inflicted razor blade wounds.

About 10 minutes later, the police arrived. They talked to the man for a few minutes and it seemed like they were just going to leave. The man told them that he thought he might kill someone and burn down the guy's house that broke his arm. I wasn't too keen on him being released without getting some help. I pushed the idea of taking the guy to the hospital for a mental health evaluation and after radioing the station for permission, the police decided to do that. They searched the guy for drugs and weapons and put him in the cruiser to take him to the hospital.

Very strange encounter for a day off and just one more reason to always be armed!

I finally got back to painting the Pink Elephant today. It was a beautiful day, although blazing hot, and I spent about 3 1/2 hours doing some painting. In addition to the painting, I had to stop by the insurance agency to sign paperwork for a renewal of one of my rental policies. I also fixed a leaking sink trap.

That was about it - all in all a pretty routine day.

This weekend was another 3 day weekend! I did work about 2 hours Friday morning in order to completely catch up with the last maintenance tasks on my list. Those projects included fixing a leaking toilet (replacing the flapper valve and tightening the hold-down bolts), spraying weeds, and taking mouse traps to a tenant (and giving her a lecture about cleanliness).

After my two hours of work, I took the rest of the day off. My wife and I spent some time having fun and doing some things around the house.

On Saturday, we went to the gun show at Vets Memorial in Columbus. I didn't buy any more guns, but I did get some ammo. As most people know, thanks to our President, ammo is in very short supply. I have a compact .32 cal auto handgun that I carry when I need a small gun - like riding my bike. Ammo for it is nearly impossible to find. I've searched all the gun shops and no-one has had any for months. I found some (that was manufactured in the former communist block) at the gun show and bought several hundred rounds. I also found some 7.62 X 39 mm ammo that was made in Russia and bought half a case. Finally, I found some JHP (Jacketed Hollow Point) self-defense ammo for my Beretta carry gun and bought some of that! A very successful journey.

With the way the country is rapidly deteriorating, I consider ammo to be as vital as an emergency food and water supply. Our economy is on the brink of disaster with debt that is crushing the country and ANY spark could easily throw us into chaos. It's happened many times throughout history and it's smart to be prepared. By the way, this isn't just crazy talk, the United States government has spent millions of dollars to tell YOU to be prepared. Here's a link to the government website: http://www.ready.gov/america/npm09/getakit.html Guns and ammo are not politically correct and are therefore not on the list.

After the gun show, we went to the shooting range for a little practice and fun. My wife got a chance to shoot my .40 Beretta, which was fun. She's a very good shot, but the kick almost lifted her off the ground, which was entertaining.

Of course, I took today off also and we had some family over to swim in the pool! It was a beautiful day - perfect for swimming. We followed that up with a cookout. All in all - a very good weekend.

I started out the day with 17 rents to collect. With the exception of one iffy tenant and a couple of chronic late payers (bless them for the late fees every month), I got all the rents I was expecting today.

My project today was to rebuild the rail for the deck that I rebuilt yesterday. That turned out to be a bigger job than I anticipated as the untreated wood that was used for the rail was in bad shape. So, I rebuilt the entire rail with treated lumber.

I also inspected one of the apartments that will be inspected by Section 8 tomorrow. It was generally in good shape. I had to plug in the exhaust fan in the bathroom, as a working exhaust fan (or a window) is required for the Section 8 inspection. However, this tenant doesn't like the noise that the exhaust fan makes, so she has me unplug it right after the inspector leaves every year.

To my dismay, I also had to put a battery in the smoke detector. You'll notice that I didn't say "replace" the battery, I said put a battery in the smoke detector BECAUSE THE TENANT TOOK THE BATTERY OUT OF IT!!! I am continually shocked at the number of tenants that remove their smoke detector batteries to use them in some other gizmo, like toys and various electrical appliances. I wasn't able to coordinate with the tenant of the other house that will be inspected tomorrow, but she said the only thing she could think of that needed to be done for her inspection was to find her smoke detector!!! She apparently hasn't only taken the battery out of her detector - SHE'S LOST IT!!!

It's a good thing that fires are relatively rare, because otherwise every tenant on the planet would burn to death! I just can't believe that people are so dumb as to remove the smoke detector batteries or remove the entire detector!

Before the inspections tomorrow, I will be in court for the conclusion of my lawsuit against the tenant I evicted last month. We have a default judgment against the tenant who didn't respond and tomorrow's hearing will be to get the amount of the judgment finalized. This idiot tenant is the manager at the local Dollar General and it should be easy to garnish her wages!

I spent today getting ready for a pair of Section 8 inspections on Wednesday. My primary focus was to rehab a second floor deck for one of my apartments. Some previous landlord had overlayed the original deck floor with particle board - UGH! Obviously, particle board is NOT intended to be an exterior material and certainly isn't meant to be an exterior floor decking. Over the years, moisture has caused the particle board to get VERY soft and it was becoming unsafe. So, I removed it and the original decking underneath and replaced it with pressure treated 5/4 inch deck boards. It was a big job, but I got it done. Tomorrow, I will replace the top rail which is also rotted.

Mixed in with working on the deck was day three of rent collection. With August 1st and 2nd being on Saturday and Sunday, I collected a BUNCH of rents today. I would normally have made a mid-day trip to the bank if I collected that much money, but I was just too busy working today. So, by the time the end of the day came, I had a BIG pocket full of cash. I'll take that to the bank in the morning before I do anything else.

The other thing I did today was inspect a 3 bedroom house that I just got back. I received a call from the long term tenant (6 years with me, 9 years in this house) last night, informing me that they had moved. No notice! The good news is that they took almost all their stuff and they cleaned up the house. It will need new carpet, but not much else. This is the first house I've had available in 3 or 4 months, so it should rent quickly. With this kind of demand, I'll be raising the rent also!

You've probably never heard of a Cluster Headache. I've had them on and off since I was a kid and they are brutal. According to the doctors, they are the worst headache (pain wise) that you can have. They're called Cluster Headaches because they occur in clusters, often every day for months. Cluster headaches come on VERY fast. From the first feel of tightening in the head or neck to excruciating pain can take as little as 5 or 10 minutes. I never go anywhere without having medication close by (in my truck, backtop bag, snowboarding bag, bike bag, etc). At the first sign of a cluster headache, I take 4 Ibuprofen and 3 extra strength Excederin. Then, if the pain doesn't ease up within 30 minutes, I take a Flexeril . Flexeril is a nasty drug. It's supposed to be a muscle relaxor and they do a good job of stopping Cluster Headaches, but they make me drowsy and mean. The medicine in combination with the cluster headaches makes me very sensitive to light and especially sound. It's very hard to listen to anyone talk when you have one of these headaches.

I had a VERY bad headache yesterday that didn't want to go away, and I took almost the entire day off (except for a quick trip to sign some papers for "free" government weatherization of one of my apartment buildings). Today, I had one of the worst headaches I've had in years and the first round of drugs Ibuprofen, Excederin, and Flexeril didn't stop it. I had to wait til noon to take the second round. Finally, by 2pm, my headache started to improve and I was able to go into town to do a little work.

What does this story of my headache have to do with the rental property business? EVERYTHING! One of the best things about owning a rental property business is that I can set my own schedule. When I felt bad yesterday, I didn't have to go to work. When I felt bad again today, I didn't have to go to work. I could take off without calling a boss or asking for permission. As they say in those credit card commercials: The freedom to set your own schedule - PRICELESS!

When I did recover this afternoon, I went into town to work on a 1 bedroom apartment that I rented for August 1st. The previous tenant broke the commode and I needed to repair the floor and replace the toilet with a new one. In addition, I had to replace the smoke detector, which the tenant stole and replace the bathroom mirror. I did the smoke detector and mirror first, since they were minor jobs. Then, I removed the old commode and cut out the water damaged section of floor. I used the cardboard from the box for the new commode to make a pattern for the new subfloor, which I will make out of 3/4 inch treated plywood. Due to the late start, that is all I did for today!

They say that when it rains, it pours. If that's true, then today must have been a real storm. I started my work today with a trip to the bank and post office. When I picked up the mail, I had EIGHT letters via certified mail. As a rule, certified mail is generally not a good thing. That was especially true today as they were all lawsuits! UGH!

I posted the story of the first lawsuit about two weeks ago (7/16/09). As you may recall, the city has decided to attempt to collect past due water bills from the landlord, even though the tenant subscribed to the water service. They don't even try to collect from the tenant - they just go after the "RICH" landlord!!! Needless to say, that is COMPLETELY IMMORAL. Although we're headed straight into socialism and the government wants to 'share the wealth' through taxation, it is RIDICULOUS to think that I should pay the tenant's bill for them. What's next? Should I buy their clothes? Should I buy them a car? GIVE ME A BREAK!

If you've read much of my story, then you know that I'm a real jackass when I think I've been wronged. I will NOT give in and pay these bastards! Instead, I will do whatever it takes to fight these frivilous lawsuits. Along with a few other local investors and our REIA, I am trying to organize a lawsuit against the city. We have a big-time, out-of-town attorney coming to the next REIA meeting and we will be organizing as many landlords as possible to be party to the lawsuit. I will be writing a scathing Letter to the Editor and will meet with the news department of the newspaper to have a news article done on this story. As far as I'm concerned, it's going to be war against the morons running the city! They're up for election in November and our REIA already has two members running for city council!

Beyond that bit of cheery news to start my day, I did actually get some work done. I trashed out a vacant 2 bedroom apartment; collected 2 rents; and started working on rehabbing a deck in preparation for a Section 8 inspection next week. I also repaired a broken screen door lock.

After not working much last week, I did get a little work done today. To start, I had a tenant that reported that her kitchen light had gone out. I always suspect that the bulb(s) are burned out when a tenant reports that a light is out, but in this case the tenant swore that the switch didn't feel the same as it felt yesterday (she thought it felt much weaker than yesterday). I have seen switches break on occassion and that is often how they feel. This particular light fixture had four flourescent tubes and the tenant reported that they all were on yesterday. It seemed highly unlikely that all four bulbs burned out at once. So, I removed the switch cover and tested the switch with a meter. The switch was fine. I should have gone with my next inclination. So, I changed the bulbs and the light worked fine. I suspect that three of the bulbs had burned out over time and the last bulb finally burned out yesterday. Obviously, the tenant hadn't realized that only one bulb was working until yesterday and the tenant just imagined that the feel of the switch had changed. No big deal!

My next project was to mow the grass at 2 apartment buildings and then spray weeds. Both of these buildings have small yards and that only took about an hour.

Finally, I was scheduled to meet a woman who was interested in one of my apartments. She is significantly disabled and this is a downstairs apartment. Moreover, her son lived right across the street and he would be able to come over and help her with her daily activities. She liked the apartment and put down a non-refundable deposit so that I would hold the apartment for her. One more apartment rented!

We've all heard that some of the 911 masterminds were subjected to waterboarding in an effort to get critical information from them. By all accounts this water torture was quite successful, yielding critical intelligence. I too have experienced water torture and the bad thing is that I'm not even a terrorist!

Here's what happened. I had some tenants move into a 2-bedroom apartment on Saturday. The downstairs apartment just below this apartment has had an intermittent leak in the ceiling below the bathroom in that upstairs apartment. The downstairs tenant reported that the leak only occurred when the previous upstairs tenant took a shower. So, before the new tenant moved in, I wanted to ensure that the water leak was fixed. To that end, on Friday, I took at look at the bathroom in the upstairs apartment in search of possible sources of leaks.

This bathroom has an old claw foot tub that has a shower enclosure around it. Two curtains enclose the tub. On my inspection, I noticed that the shower curtains didn't quite close on the end of the tub opposite the shower head. If the tenant was taking a shower without the curtains completely closed, that could certainly explain the leak. So, to fix the problem, I added a third curtain to that end of the shower so that it was securely covered. I then ran the shower for a solid 20 minutes and checked the downstairs apartment for leaks. The result was that there was no leak and I believed that I had solved the problem. By running the shower for 20 minutes, I had not only eliminated the possibility that water was getting through the curtain, but I had also eliminated a leak in the drain line. Furthermore, a leak in the water lines was also eliminated because the water lines had been continuously pressurized, even while the apartment was vacant.

On Saturday, the tenant began moving in. Shortly after the tenant began moving, I received a call from the downstairs tenant that her ceiling was leaking. This was particularly puzzling because the tenants weren't even in the apartment yet and certainly hadn't taken a shower. I decided to go take a look at the situation even though it was a weekend, even though the leak was only slowly dripping and the repair could certainly have waited until Monday.

Sure enough, the ceiling in the ground floor apartment was leaking with a slow drip. I checked the bathroom in the upstairs apartment again and didn't find any evidence of a leak. Somewhat frustrated, I decided to cut open the ceiling in the downstairs apartment to see where the leak was coming from. To my absolute amazement, there was a pin-hole leak in one of the hot side waterlines. That certainly was illogical, but that was definitely causing the leak. Why it leaked only intermittently I can not explain. The water line was continuously pressurized and one would think that it would leak continuously!

At any rate, since it was Saturday, I decided to do a temporary repair by installing a stainless steel band clamp designed to repair just such a leak. The water line was very close to the bottom of the floor of the upstairs apartment. To get the clamp to seal correctly, I needed to rotate it slightly by tapping it with a hammer. I didn't tap it very hard, but at that point the water torture began anyway. As I tapped it with a hammer, there was a sudden gush of water. No, the clamp hadn't failed, the torrent of water was coming from several inches above and to the right of the clamp. I ran outside and shut off the water to the entire building. I then went back to the upstairs apartment and the tenant reported that he heard a sound coming from the wall. I touched the wall and it was HOT! The old galvanized water line had broken inside the kitchen wall.

As I began exploring the extent of the issue, it became apparent that all the old galvanized water lines in the apartment were in bad shape. I found several spots that were badly corroded. Worse yet, the pipes all ran under the floor and in the walls. This would be a major project!!! UGH!

So, I started ripping open the walls and floor. Water lines ran behind the built-in kitchen cabinets and I had to demolish them also. It was a huge project!

To make a long story short, I ended up replacing all the water lines, from the basement to and through the second floor apartment. By the time I quit on Saturday afternoon, I had all the water lines (PEX) installed and the water back on to the building.

On Monday, I installed new kitchen cabinets; a new countertop; and new sink. I also did a lot of patching of the walls (where I had ripped out the old water lines). What started out as a minor slow drip rapidly turned into full blown water torture! The good news is that I survived the incident and the new tenants are thrilled to have a brand new kitchen!

Today, I only worked about 2 1/2 hours. I mowed grass at two apartment buildings; sprayed weeds at 3 buildings; and removed several small trees that were a nuisance.

I know it's hard to imagine that a landlord would be sued. Well...yes, I am being sued again. This time, I'm being sued by the city for a tenant's water bill. Yes, I said a TENANT'S WATER BILL! It seems that in this socialist world we live in, tenants are not responsible for their own debts. If the deadbeats don't pay their water bill, the city thinks that the landlord should pay it for them. This is happening all over Ohio and is an outrage. All I can say to that is HELL NO! I am not paying someone else's bills! To that end, I spent about an hour this morning putting together information for the attorney that my lawyer (our REIA's water bill lawyer) will need for my case and sending it off to him.

My other project for the day was to do some painting at the Pink Elephant. So, I got out the scaffolding and did some painting. I'm making progress!

Tomorrow, I have another move-in and am planning to do some work (although I don't know what). I'll think of something.

I planned on just doing a little work today. To that end, I didn't leave the house until about noon. My plan was to coat a small section of roof that was leaking; repair one window; and put a few weeds out of their misery. One of my tenants had different ideas. She called as I was on the way to town and reported that her commode and bathtub was plugged up. I asked her about the bathroom sink drain and the kitchen sink drain and she said that they were fine.

Upon arrival at the house, I did a little troubleshooting. The commode was indeed plugged as was the bathtub. The kitchen sink appeared to be open as did the bathroom sink. My initial diagnosis was that the sewer line was plugged somewhere just below the commode (and obviously below where the tub line "Y's" into the main sewer line. I tried plunging the toilet to no avail. I tried a toilet snake - again to no avail. At that point, I tried running the bathroom sink again and discovered that water was coming up into the tub as the sink was running. That signaled a more serious blockage and I called the plumber. The plumber arrived about 30 minutes later and had to cut out a BUNCH of tree roots from the main sewer line.

My next project was to coat the leaking roof, which only took about 20 minutes. I then fixed the window, which again only took a few minutes. Finally, I had to work on one of my security camera systems. Everything was working except the "remote view" feature, which allows me to view the security cameras from home. I thought I had it fixed, but it's still not working. I'll have to call tech support tomorrow and get a little help.

I had a very good day today - at least from the standpoint of getting a lot done. My objective for today was to finish making the 2 bedroom house, that was involved in my recent nasty eviction, ready for the new tenants. That involved doing several things: laying carpet; replacing a window pane; installing light bulbs and globes; some cleaning; mowing the overgrown yard; fixing the plugged toilet; etc. Things went VERY SMOOTHLY and I got it all done and the new tenants moved in.

I also received a letter today from the Nuisance Board regarding one of my properties. It seems the tenant put a couch out by the street and hasn't mowed her grass. I called the tenant and explained that she MUST take care of this stuff pronto. This is a long time tenant and I'm confident that she'll take care of it.

To end the afternoon, I got a call from one of my tenants who reported that her grand-daughter, who is a convicted felon, was harrassing her. I met her at the apartment building; called the police; and had her grand-daughter officially barred from the property.

To top off the day, I even got my lawn mowed at home and took a nice walk with my wife!

I finally got back my final two units today - the ones that were potential evictions. It's been a roller coaster ride as I started the month thinking I would have 3 evictions this month. Two said that they were voluntarily leaving and actually started moving. I wrote about the 3rd one in Wednesday's blog. The first of the 3 moved out immediately and left the apartment clean, although there were still a couple of pieces of furniture in the apartment. The second started moving out immediately, but were slow in getting everything out. I could have filed the eviction in court yesterday, but gave them until this morning to be completely out. When I arrived at the building this morning, they had indeed completely moved out and the apartment was relatively clean.

I had a water heater to fix this morning and as I was working on that, I got a call from the grandmother of the 3rd tenant's pregnant shack-up girlfriend. She said that they were completely out and wanted me to come pick-up the keys. I suggested that she leave the keys on the counter and lock the door. She wasn't having any part of that and wanted me to come inspect the apartment and pick up the keys. I told her that I was busy but that I would come over in a little while, when I was done with the job I was working on.

When I arrived, the deadbeat tenant and his deadbeat girlfriend were sitting on the front step. The grandmother was nowhere to be found. The tenant said his uncle had gone to the hardware store and had the keys to the apartment. He would be back shortly. The "uncle", who wasn't his uncle at all, had repaired about 20 holes that the tenant put in the walls during fits of rage. The grandmother of the girlfriend and the "uncle" had cleaned the apartment and done a pretty good job. The uncle also left a new bathroom mirror for me to install - the tenant destroyed the mirror.

The reason that they did all this - repaired all the holes; cleaned the apartment; and removed their junk - is that they expected to get their deposit back. WRONG! I've lost rent for this month; I'll still have to paint the patched walls; and they broke the commode (actually broke it during one of their violent rages). So, they won't get a penny. When I told the tenant that, he wanted to fight. Obviously, I can't be in a fist fight while I'm carrying a handgun, so I simply didn't participate in his childish nonsense. Fortunately, within a few minutes, the "uncle" returned; gave me the keys; and hauled the deadbeats away. Before he left, I briefly talked with the uncle and discovered that the deadbeats had been living with the grandmother and had destroyed her house. He wasn't very happy with them! I don't recall the grandmother mentioning that when she brought the little angels to rent my apartment!

The good news is that I got all my property back without an eviction this month and without any significant damage.

In addition to this nonsense, I replaced four glass panes in an apartment and did a little work on my security camera systems.

Note:  this is actually yesterday's blog post.  I was unable to upload it to BP because the site was temporarily down,

It was a great run while it lasted. I had 9 months without a single eviction. It was quite a streak! That all ended in June when I evicted a tenant, who told the magistrate that the eviction was just a misunderstanding. The setout for this tenant is tomorrow at 10 am!

I was hoping to start a new eviction free streak beginning with July, but that dream appeared to be shot down before it even started when it looked like I might have THREE evictions this month. I got lucky and two of the tenants decided to move out voluntarily instead of being evicted. That left me with one set of idiot tenants that looked like a certain eviction. One of my first projects this morning was to take the paperwork for this eviction to my new lawyer. I decided to drive by the apartment involved in this eviction on the way to the lawyer's office and to my total surprise, the tenants were loading their stuff into a pickup truck. I stopped and told the tenant that I was on my way to the attorney's office to file the eviction. They said that they would be out today and have everything cleaned up by tomorrow. As a result, I decided to wait one more day before taking the paperwork to the lawyer. I don't want to spend money on the lawyer and the court filing fee if I don't have to.

It was a beautiful, sunny day here in Ohio and I was looking forward to finally getting back to painting the Pink Elephant. I got out my scaffolding and got to work. Everything went well and I was happy with the work I got done.

I quit about 3pm because I wanted to take the paperwork to Community Action, which is the agency in charge of the weatherization program.

After dinner, I went for a nice bike ride and then my wife and I went for a walk. All in all, a very good 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.

It's been quite an unusual year in my rental business - at least as far as my evictions go. I went an entire 9 months without a single eviction, which was absolutely astounding. It got to be kind of a game for me - seeing how long this would go before I finally had an eviction. I was secretly hoping for an entire year, but I knew that was highly unlikely.

As each month went by without an eviction, I felt like a guy riding one of those mechanical bulls. The longer the ride lasted, the more it was going to hurt when it ended. That wild ride finally ended in June with one eviction. This month started with three imminent evictions, but it looks like two of those tenants will move out before the 3 day eviction notice expires. If so, I'll only have one eviction again this month.

My rental property work today included fixing a leaking shower stall; showing an apartment to a potential tenant; getting the lease signed for a new tenant; and paying some bills.

Tomorrow, I'm planning to take the eviction paperwork to the lawyer; replace a couple of cracked windows; and start painting at 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.

Yesterday, I spent the day at an advanced pistol training course near Dayton. With all that has been going on lately (with the felon that has threatened me), I thought an advanced pistol training course would be a good idea. I was not disappointed. The course included a lot of close quarters gunfighting techniques; shooting from behind baracades; and shooting while moving. It was a very good advanced course taught by a couple of very experienced self-defense instructors. One of the instructors just got back from IRAQ where he was working as a security contractor.

While at the training yesterday, I got a call from one of my tenants who reported that someone had damaged the door frame when they tried to break-in to the house. I also got a call from the police who wanted to discuss the incident. This is a SFH house that is located in a blue-collar neighborhood. There typically isn't a lot of crime in this area, but there have been several home invasions recently throughout the city. The really troubling thing about the incident was that it occurred between 11am and 1pm on Sunday, right in the middle of the day. These home invasions have been quite serious, with the perpetrators brandishing guns and in some cases injuring the inhabitants of the homes. Fortunately, in this case, no one was home and no one was injured. As a result of the attempted break-in, I spent a few minutes today repairing the door jam. Fortunately, the door itself wasn't badly damaged, so the repair wasn't a big deal. I also had a discussion with the tenant about safety and security issues, so hopefully they can prevent a repeat of this incident.

In addition to repairing the door, I also bought and installed a new blade for the push-mower that I use to mow the lawns at the apartment buildings. I'm planning to do some mowing tomorrow.

After feeling guilty all week (or not) about not working, I did work about 2 hours yesterday. My project for the day was to repair a soft spot in a floor where the previous owner of the building had covered an old stairwell with some particle board that was too thin. Fortunately, there was access to the underneath side of the floor from the basement, so the repair was quite easy. While in town, I also showed an apartment to a couple who were....well.... LIARS! As it turned out, he was a violent criminal and she was a deadbeat who doesn't pay her bills. Application DENIED!

While I was home yesterday, I glanced at the computer, which had my security cameras up at the Pink Elephant and noticed that there were many people on the sidewalk all looking across the street. I knew that something was going on, so I called one of the tenants and asked what was happening. There was a fight occurring across the street and one person pulled a knife. Five or six people were involved in the fight (all young punks) and another person broke it up before anyone was stabbed. There was some blood from the fight, but no one was seriously injured. Fortunately, none of this occurred on my property (probably due to the criminals knowing about my security cameras). I'm seeing a major increase in violence this summer and am not sure what the cause is. It could be the lack of summer jobs for kids or it could just be a general deterioration of our society. Low income people are breeding at an alarming rate and it's inevitable that society will fall apart as all these lazy kids grow up feeling entitled. Most of these kids are growing up to be worse than their parents. They are lazy. They are criminals. They are on drugs. They have absolutely no intention of ever getting a job. It's a mess!

Since there is nothing I can do to correct the world's problems, I'm taking a 3 day weekend to go camping!!! Have a good weekend.

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.

I keep thinking I've seen it all in the rental property business. Then, I realized again today that I had not.

In yesterday's blog, I described how many low income tenants act crazy during the summer. When June arrives, so does STUPID! After an incident last evening, I decided to go to the police station today to pick up the recent police reports for two of my low income apartment buildings. I was pleased to find out that there have been VERY few incidents - only 5 in the past 2 months and most of those incidents didn't even involve my tenants. However, one of the reports illustrates what a freak show low income tenants can become when the weather warms up!

CAUTION: If you are easily offended, don't read the rest of this blog.

The following is the EXACT text from the police report: (these are two of my tenants) "Steven and Jessica were arguing with each other because Steven wanted Jessica to "perform oral sex on him" and she would not do it. Steven told Jessica he "would find someone that would do it", and Jessica got mad at him for saying that and they argued. Nothing physical, all verbal. Steven is legally blind so he called a friend to pick him up to leave for the night. All calm on Ofc departure".

comment: I didn't even know that having a girfriend (or wife) refuse sex was a criminal offense. I guess that men can now call 911 if their wife/girfriend says no!!! lol!

I don't know what else to say - UNBELIEVABLE!!! It's a freak show out there!!!

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.

In my experience, there is very little justice in this country. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that our criminal justice system is completely broken! Today was my latest contact with the criminal justice system and I'll have to wait until Friday to judge the outcome. My mission today was to attend the pre-trial hearing for a violent convicted felon whose latest crime was to violate the restraining order I have against him (I received a subpeona for both the pre-trial and trial). To make a long story short, he was staying in the Pink Elephant when I took it over and I promptly kicked him out. He's been homeless every since and certainly blames me for that situation. In addition, I have had him arrested several times for criminal tresspass and I'm the main witness in a felony arson/attempted murder case that is pending. He has been stalking me every time he gets out of jail and has made numerous threats.

The last time this criminal got out of jail was about 60 days ago. At that time, he had spent the previous 48 days in jail for attempting to break into several apartments in two of my buildings. I had the entire thing on our security cameras and that got him convicted of the crime. On the same day that he got out of jail, he came looking for me. My restraining order prohibits him from being within 300 feet of me or my two apartment buildings that were involved with the attempted breaking and entering conviction. He certainly violated that when he came onto my property and got within a few feet of me. There were several witnesses and the entire thing is on the security camera footage. I called the police and he was arrested. He's been in jail on that charge since that incident 2 months ago. Today was the pre-trial hearing. I spoke with the assistant prosecutor before the case and reminded her how dangerous this felon is. I reminded her that he had been arrested more than 200 times. I reminded her that he had a conviction for assaulting a police officer (breaking his leg). I reminded her that he attempted to kill several people in January by setting their apartment on fire while they were sleeping. I also reminded her that it is very dangerous when he is out of jail. He stalks me and threatens me and I carry a handgun and am fully prepared to defend myself if I feel an immediate threat of serious bodily harm or death. I told her that she needed to do her job to prevent a serious situation from developing. I reminded her that I am doing everything I can possibly do to prevent a tragedy from occurring and I need the court system to do their part!

With my very low opinion of our criminal justice system, I was expecting him to be released for time served, but was pleasantly surprised when the prosecutor did not plea bargain the case (although every other case in court this morning was plead out). The trial is scheduled for Friday at 3pm! So, we'll see what happens. In a perfect world, he'll get 6 months and before he is released from that sentence, he'll be tried on the arson/attempted murder charge. At this point, I'm cautiously optimistic. I'll let you know what happens.

In more cheery news, today was day three of rent collection. I collected a bunch of rents today during the time that I wasn't in court. I also managed to change the electrical receptical (for a stove) that was burned after a lightning strike last evening, and also installed a new gas stove in another apartment.

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!

After getting off to a slow (lazy) start this week, I got a lot of things done today. This morning, I paid rental bills and took care of some personal stuff. Then, I went to the bank and post office. My first work project of the day was to show my 3 bedroom house to a possible tenant and then to remove all the carpet pads from the house (I removed the carpet the other day). I found that one of the bedrooms had a good wood floor under the carpet and pad. I'll paint the floor in that room. The living room and other bedrooms did not have floors suitable for painting, so I'll replace the carpet in those rooms (without carpet pad).

The rain decided to hold off, so I decided to mow some grass this afternoon. I managed to mow the grass at 2 apartment buildings and 1 house.

The next task was to have a stern talk with one of my tenants who was involved in a big brawl last night. I don't know what it is with low income tenants, but a bunch of young adults decided that they were going to have a brawl last night. The police were on the street for 2 1/2 hours trying to break this up and they cited several people for various infractions. One of my tenants was involved and I told him today that any further problems from him would result in eviction!

I received a call from a woman that was looking for a one-bedroom apartment. I showed her my only vacant one-bedroom apartment and she said that she'll take it. I gave her an application and she's supposed to return the application tomorrow along with the paperwork from the government agency that is paying her first month's rent.

About the time I got home, it started to rain - so there will be no bike ride today!

It FINALLY dried up enough to actually ride a local mountain biking course today! So, I spent about 10 minutes changing a broken lock on a rental and the rest of the day doing personal tasks. My number one priority today was mountain biking. Number two was to get some work done on my pickup truck. I went to Walmart to get the work done on the pickup. That consisted of getting an oil change; getting new windshield wipers; and having a tire repaired (or should I say replaced). The tire had been slowly leaking due to a screw that was imbedded in the tire. However, when they took the tire off to repair it, they discovered that there was also a nail in the sidewall of the tire. The sidewall could not be patched, so I had to get a new tire. I know what you're thinking - that an irate tenant sabotaged the tire. However, I don't believe that's the case. I think this is just one of those road hazards that strike once in a while.

As all these things were being repaired, I walked over to a local sporting goods store and bought an AirSoft Handgun. This CO2 powered handgun is very similar to my concealed carry gun and I will be using it to practice in the house. As with many things in life, training is a critical issue when you're dealing with handguns. I wanted an airsoft gun to practice drawing and firing my handgun and I can do that a LOT cheaper and more often with the airsoft gun than with my .40 Caliber Baretta. Although slightly lighter than my Baretta, it is otherwise nearly identical to my Baretta in size and function. Of course, in addition to the practice aspect of the gun, it's fun!

My decision to buy the AirSoft gun for training purposes was partially due to an incident that occurred on Sunday. Here's my account of that incident:

I carry my handgun almost all the time. I work with a lot of riff-raff in my business and have evicted literally dozens of criminals and deadbeats over the years. I never know when I am going to meet one of these losers who wants to blame me for their situation (being homeless, put in prison, etc). In addition, some of my low income rentals are in relatively bad areas and there is occassional violence (usually among the riff-raff).

Sunday was Mother's Day. I wasn't working and wasn't planning to be in any public areas as my wife and I were going to a relative's house for a family gathering. After we left the house, my wife reminded me that we needed to stop by a convenience store to pickup one of their delicious salads. We were already running a little late and I wasn't very happy about it. We stopped at the convenience store/gas station and my wife went inside to get the salad. After an extended period of time, I went into the store to see what the delay was. I was thinking about the time and I was also perturbed that some moron had parked parallel to the convenience store door, blocking several parking spots. So, in the store I went and I asked my wife what was going on. Instead of answering my question, she asked "do you have your gun"? WHAT??? I asked, "what are you talking about"? She told me to look at the checkout counter and sure enough a loud and angry conversation was going on between some very iffy looking people and the clerk. These were the people from the oddly parked car just outside the door. MY HANDGUN WAS IN THE TRUCK! As it turned out, the people must have had their credit card declined and were yelling at the clerk about it (as if that would help). They ended up getting in their car and leaving without paying for the gas and the clerk called the sheriff.

Everything ended up being ok and obviously no-one was hurt. However, this was certainly a good opportunity for self-critique. I did just about EVERYTHING wrong in this situation. First, I wasn't wearing my gun, because I didn't think I would be exposed to the public. The lesson here is that you just never know when a dangerous situation will occur. I was so distracted by being late and the delay in getting the salad, that I lost situational awareness. The car parked parallel to the store, blocking several spots should have been a red flag that something wasn't right (think getaway car). In addition, the oddly parked car combined with my wife not returning in a timely manner should have been even more evidence that something might be amiss (maybe a robbery was in progress). Wost of all, I walked in the store (still unarmed even though my gun was in my truck), RIGHT PAST THE PEOPLE WHO WERE YELLING without even noticing because I was so pre-occupied with being late! I've gotta tell you that I'm a little embarrassed that I didn't do better. When I'm working in relatively dangerous areas, I'm always armed and always on guard; trying to maintain good situational awareness. However, yesterday, I let a sense of complacency and a minor distraction completely destroy my situational awareness. I definitely learned a lesson and will strive to do better in the future.

That incident from Sunday reminded me once again that I must take responsibility for my safety. Whether I'm working on my rentals in a low income neighborhood or stopping at the gas station, it is my responsibility to be aware of my surroundings and be prepared to act accordingly should an safety issue arise.

I received a call from the city prosecutor's office today. She wanted to inform me that the pre-trial for the felon that has been stalking me has officially been moved to June 3rd and the trial is scheduled for June 4th. I also found out that he is charged with a 1st degree misdemeanor of violating a protection order and the maximum sentence is 6 months in jail.

My project of the day was to mow my grass at home; mow the grass at two of my rentals; and haul away some old carpet from a 3 bedroom house that I'm making ready to be re-rented. I also bought some solar powered sidewalk lighting; planted a tomato plant; and did a few other things at home.

I forgot to mention that I once again won't have any evictions this month. I did collect all the rents (along with several late fees), so this month makes the 8th straight month with no evictions. I currently have two rentals that are vacant and ready to be rented.

I haven't had time to post the past few days.  My wife and I took another 3 day weekend and we've been quite busy.  We spent most of the day on Friday working on landscaping at our home.  Then Saturday, we had a big family gathering during the day and a party for our small group (from Church) in the evening.  Today we had another family gathering for Mother's day!  It was a busy 3 days.

Before my three day weekend started, I had one last work related issue to take care of.  Friday morning was the pre-trial hearing for the Felon that has been stalking me.  If you haven't been following my blog, it's a long story.  However, the short version is that this loser has a "wrap sheet" of more than 200 criminal offenses, including several felonies.  He is now awaiting charges on a felony for an arson and possibly attempted murder in a building next to one of my buildings.  I'm the primary witness in that case.  

Anyway, this criminal somehow got out of jail a little while back and the same day approached me on the sidewalk in front of one of my buildings, violating the restraining order I have against him.  I called the police and he was arrested.  He's still in jail awaiting trail on that charge and his pretrial was Friday morning. 

I have VERY LITTLE confidence in our criminal justice system, so I called the court to be sure the case was still being held.  It was.  I arrived at the courthouse about 10 minutes before the case was scheduled to be heard.  This is the same courthouse where evictions are heard, so I know all the officers that provide security.  Before they screened me, I asked if the case was still on.  This criminal is frequently violent and they always have extra security when he is brought to court from the jail.  They said that the hearing was still on, but that I needed to check with the main bailiff to determine which courtroom was holding the hearing.  So, I went to talk to the bailiff and sure enough - THE PRETRIAL HAS BEEN POSTPONED UNTIL JUNE!   I can't tell you how many times I've been subpoened to testify in a criminal trial, only to have it either dropped or postponed!  It is VERY FRUSTRATING!  The only good thing is that the criminal will be in jail at least until the hearing in June (or at least that's what they said).

I took on another water project today and as usual managed to get wet. Maybe I should start wearing my wetsuit to work! Anyway, today's project was to replace the old metal water lines with Pex. The old lines were in bad shape. The previous owner had installed several clamp-type patches to stop leaks in the lines and there were several rusted spots on the lines that were seeping. I started where the water line entered the basement and replaced nearly all the old metal lines in the basement. The most difficult aspect of the project was removing the old lines. Many of the connections were rusted and difficult to get apart. The entire project cost less than $100 as I used mostly crimp connections.

This project was in half of one of my duplexes. I replaced the water lines in the other half of this duplex last year.

I almost never talk about religion on my blog or in any of my posts. However, it's no secret that I am a Christian - albeit a very imperfect one (aren't we all). The point of this blog post is to discuss my frequent difficulty in maintaining a Christian attitude and appropriate Christian behavior when I'm dealing with - yes, you guessed it - TENANTS!

The latest tenant to move out was a perfect example of this issue. This particular tenant moved in only a few months ago. She is disabled and essentially confined to a wheelchair. During her tenancy, I bent over backwards to help her out. That included making her apartment handicapped accessable at my expense. In addition, when a relative took advantage of her and stole some of her property, I took care of the problem for her. I went above and beyond the call of duty with this tenant.

My problem arose when she suddenly decided to move out, without giving me notice. Even with this extreme lack of courtesy and violation of her lease, I still would have been ok with her if she had just left before the 1st. Unfortunately, she decided not to do that and was still occupying the property on May 1st. To make a long story short, she stayed after the 1st without paying the rent. I knocked on her door and told her that she needed to leave ASAP or I would file an eviction. She did leave, but left a BUNCH of her junk in the apartment. Furthermore, with all that stuff being in the apartment, I couldn't be sure that she was out and I had no way to contact her. I did have a phone number for her son and I called him to explain that I had bent over backwards to help her and that I didn't appreciate the way she was acting. He agreed and said that he would attempt to get someone to remove her belongings.

Sunday, I spent all morning at church running the projection, for both services. Then, later in the evening, I was back at church for our small group meeting. As I was heading home, I received a call from one of her relatives that said that he was at this apartment to move the rest of her stuff but couldn't get in. Since I really wanted her out of there, I agreed to drive down to the apartment on Sunday night to let him in. When I arrived, I found that they had driven their pickup truck right up onto the concrete front deck - I was not happy. Then, when I let them into the apartment and they saw what a disaster the apartment was, they said that they were only there to pick up her couch and a few other things. I asked them what they intended to do about the rest of her stuff and they said that was my problem. THAT WAS IT! I went ballistic and told them what a bunch of scum I thought they were! There was a lot of cursing and nasty discourse (all coming from me) and I let them know that I was VERY angry with them and the tenant! Once again, I had learned the lesson that NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED!

There you have it - that is the point of this post. I certainly didn't act much like a Christian. In fact, I find that it is VERY difficult to turn the other cheek when some scumbag steals from me - especially when tenants do this with shocking regularity. I'm sure that there are Christians that could accept this stupidity from the tenants and really shine as a Christian. Unfortunately, that is NOT me! I guess I have a lot of room for improvement!

Wow - did today end up being a busy day!

They say that no war plan survives the first shot. In many ways, the rental business is the same. My plan for today was to work on the 1 bedroom rehab I started yesterday. That plan didn't even make it past last night. The plan began to fall apart when I received a call from the police department at about 10 pm. The officer on the phone informed me that they had caught the convicted felon that has been stalking me and that he was in jail (where he belongs). The officer wanted me to bring the security camera video of the felon violating my restraining order to the police station so that it could be used as evidence in his pretrial hearing next week.

By itself, this task would barely have interrupted my day, however that was just the beginning. As I was headed into town, I received several calls from tenants wanting me to pick up their rents. In addition, I got another call from a tenant who had an electrical problem. All of these things took a little more of my day. I had to drop off some paperwork at the Section 8 office. I picked up the mail at the post office and received all my Section 8 checks plus some private pay checks. After collecting several rents in town and fixing the electrical problem, I went to the plumbing store to get parts for the sinks; faucets; and water lines that I wanted to work on today. Then I picked up a couple more rents. After all the interruptions, I finally made it to the apartment and began working on the water issues. I installed the new faucet; hooked up the water lines; and hooked up the drain lines. The only part of this entire sink installation that was not brand new was the double stainless steel sink. As was probably predictable, the drain basket on one side was leaking and I had to take everything back apart to replace the drain basket.

About that time, I got a call from a another tenant wanting me to pickup the rent and two tenants that are moving in this month. That was the end of my plan. I collected the rent and did the paperwork for the two tenants that are moving in. Then I gave up and went home!

The weather was very iffy with rain showers all around the area. It didn't look like I could ride my bike any distance without running a high risk of getting very wet. So, I decided to ride just around my little subdivision. Around and around I went until I'd racked up 8 miles.

I'll try again tomorrow to work on the rehab. I would really like to get it finished.

In other news, I'm now on Twitter at MikeTheLandlord.  I'll try to update my activities during the day if you want to follow along! 

It was back to work today after a nice 4 day weekend! I strapped on my new Baretta handgun and headed to town. After making a quick trip to the bank (leaving the handgun in the truck), I made my first stop at one of my two bedroom duplexes to look at the tenant's dryer. Although I don't provide washers or dryers and am not responsible for her dryer, this is a good tenant and I told her that I would check the dryer plug and wiring before she called a repair man. Fortunately for both the tenant and me, the problem was that the dryer plug was a little loose and wasn't making good contact. I bent the prongs a little and that fixed the problem.

My next stop was at another two bedroom apartment. The tenant's home health nurse told the tenant that she smelled gas and obviously the tenant called me. I was immediately suspicious of the gas leak because the gas company had the gas off to the entire building while I was away for the purpose of doing a safety upgrade on the main riser. Sure enough, the gas company turned the gas back on but didn't light the oven pilot light. I checked everything out and lit the pilot light and the problem was solved.

Next, I decided to mow the grass at the Pink Elephant and my newly vacant 3 bedroom house. While I was at the 3 bedroom house, I removed all the carpet, which was destroyed by the tenant's dogs.

After that, I stopped back at the Pink Elephant to return my mower to the storage room. Shortly after my arrival at the Pink Elephant, the convicted felon (that I have a restraining order against) walked down the sidewalk and began to threaten me. I'm the witness to a pending felony for this scumbag and he is basically stalking me. I called the police and then had to wait for them to arrive. Fortunately, the felon didn't do anything to make me feel concerned for my life, or we would have had an unfortunate incident. To my surprise, it only took about 5 minutes for the police to arrive and they were searching for the felon by the time I left. Violating a restraining order should be good enough to put him in jail for the next couple of months. Hopefully, his felony arson trial will begin before he gets out of jail again and he'll go straight to prison.

That was the end of my work day and I met my wife for an early supper before we came home. Upon my arrival home, I went for my daily bike ride. Today's ride was 8.5 miles with a lot of good hills thrown in for fun.

The 4 day weekend that my wife and I were enjoying has finally come to an end. We had a good time. We stayed at the Hilton and did a lot of walking and shopping; we ate at some good restaurants; and generally just relaxed.

After all that strenuous relaxing (I'm not good at sitting still), today was my day to get a couple of things done. The first item on the agenda was to go to The Good Feet Store to determine if I could cure my heel pain without going to the doctor. My heel has been sore for almost a year and I suspect that my arches are taking a lot of abuse. I found the staff at the store to be well informed and after taking impressions of my feet, they brought out the appropriate size arch supports. They were a whopping $350, but will be well worth it if my foot feels better for mountain biking and other summer fun.

Once my feet were fixed, it was off to the gun store to look for a handgun that would offer a little more stopping power in a small package. My preference was a .40 caliber pistol that could be easily carried in a concealed manner. It needed to be as lightweight as possible and as small as possible. The most important criteria is that it needed to be RELIABLE! Many low priced handguns are notoriously unreliable and the last thing I need is a gun that jams in an emergency. I have had expensive experience with Baretta guns including trapguns (shotguns and handguns) and therefore I knew that I would prefer a Baretta if it met the other criteria.

After looking at all the handguns, I decided on a used Baretta 9000S for only $349. It met my criteria of being small; lightweight; .40 caliber; and since it's a Baretta, I have confidence that it will be reliable.

After buying the gun, I wanted to shoot it! After all, I'm certainly not going to carry a gun for self defense that I haven't shot. So, my wife and I went to the range for a little shooting. As I expected, the gun performed flawlessly. All the shots went into the 12" targets at 25 feet and 50 feet, although I didn't get as tight a grouping as I get with my Baretta .32 caliber pistol. That may be because it's the first time I've fired it. At any rate, even with my first 50 rounds, I was certainly accurate enough for self-defense purposes.

When I got home, I downloaded the manual for the gun from the web and stripped the gun for cleaning. Even though the gun was used, everything on the gun was very tight, indicating that it hasn't been used much (if any). I'm going to start carrying it tomorrow and will use my .32 caliber Baretta for my home defense gun.

I'm back to work tomorrow, so I'm sure I'll have something to say about rentals!

I spent about 3 hours today "turning" a rental (getting it ready for the next tenant). That consisted of steam cleaning the carpet; painting the wood floors; touching up the paint on the walls; cleaning the kitchen and bathroom; and just general cleaning. When I attempted to light the gas water heater, it wouldn't light properly. The water heater is 10 years old and the bottom is rusted, so I'm going to change it tomorrow instead of fixing it.

After nearly a week of miserable weather, the sun finally decided to shine again today! That meant that I was back to riding my mountain bike. Today's ride was a little over 9 miles! I'm hoping that the weather will be consistently a little better so that I can really get serious about getting in shape for mountain biking season.

"Feels Like the First Time" - wasn't that a song by Foreigner? Anyway, that's how I felt today as I signed the lease on my newly rehabbed 1-bedroom apartment. Obviously, this wasn't the first time that I've rented an apartment, but it was the first time that I've rented THIS apartment. This particular apartment is one of a few rental units that I skipped over as my business was expanding. It needed a lot of work and I decided to use it for storage. So, for the past few years, it's been filled with supplies and tools and hasn't earned a single penny of rent. I felt as if I'd just bought a new rental as I signed the lease today, but the feeling was even better as I didn't have a new debt payment to go along with the added rent.

My project today was to put the finishing touches on this unit. That included a lot of little details, including installing new shower valves and handles; installing the shower curtain; wiring the water heater; installing a new flushmaster valve in the brand new toilet after repairing a microscopic hole in the tank bowl (it was easier to fix it than to take the toilet back to the store); installing 3 new miniblinds; cleaning the cabinets, etc. I am glad to finally be done with this unit and looking forward to starting another project.

My day started out with a call from a local government agency. They had a homeless man that they were trying to place in an apartment and wanted to know if I had anything available and if would take this tenant. I told them that I do a thorough background check and gave them my basic screening criteria. They said that the man hadn't ever been evicted and didn't have any criminal record. They also said that he had a job. I told them that I would take an application from him and accept him if he passed the screening.

The applicant arrived on time and did fill out an application. He also brought a form from the government agency stating that they would pay his deposit and first month's rent. I have dealt with this agency before and they will certainly do so.

When I returned home this afternoon, I screened the tenant and he was fine. I told him that he could move in Thursday or Friday, after I finish cleaning the apartment.

My maintenance project for the day was to finish the electrical work in the one-bedroom apartment that I am just about finished rehabbing. I installed the Stove wiring and plug; installed several junction boxes; traced out the wiring for the water heater; and did some other electrical work. In addition, I finished up the work that needed to be done with the water. That included fixing a leak in the brand new toilet; installing new water lines for the sink; removing the line to the outside spigot; and other miscellaneous work.

It was another good day in the rental business. Today, I rented my one bedroom apartment that I have been rehabbing. This was one of the units that slipped through the cracks as I was building my business. The rehab has been 95% done for a couple of weeks and I just need to put the finishing touches on it. I had a guy look at it today and he immediately gave me the security deposit to hold the property for him.

The tenant for the 3 bedroom section 8 house I rented, finally got all the utilities changed over into her name today. So, I met her at the house to give her the keys (I already had her deposit). I also installed some termite spikes at one of our apartment buildings where a few termites appeared today (it's termite swarm season here in Ohio).

I also had a talk with the relatively new tenants in a one-bedroom apartment at the Pink Elephant. These tenants apparently like to stay up all night and make a LOT of noise. The other tenants are NOT amused, nor am I.

While I was in the mood to talk, I had a discussion with the landlord of the building next to the Pink Elephant. There has been a lot of drug activity there and I asked him to do something about it. He's pretty much an absentee landlord and I have my doubts that he will cooperate, in which case I'll complain to the local nuisance board and he'll get fined.

Today was a fun and interesting day. As you may recall, I had a tenant that decided to start taking crack instead of paying the rent. To make a long story short, she ended up being admitted to a mental health facility. Instead of being evicted, she decided to voluntarily leave. Her mother only took one car load of her belongings and then gave the key back to me. I confirmed with the mother, the administrator, and finally the tenant that she had gotten everything she wanted (although once I got the keys back, she was legally out). Today, I decided to trash out the apartment.

The place was a mess. Furthermore, there was a TON of stuff left in the apartment. I started in the living room and began bagging up the stuff. When I finished bagging up the first 45 gallon industrial strength trash bag, I took it to the trash area for the building. Before I could get back to the apartment, I saw one of the neighbors going through the bag, digging out some of the clothes. So, I walked back over and asked her if she wanted to go through the apartment to pick out anything else. Not only did she want to do that, but she got several more of her friends to come over as well. It was like a treasure hunt for them as they picked out clothes, the stereo, furniture, toys, CDs, DVDs, a microwave, tables, and a LOT of other things. By the time they were done, they had taken half of the stuff in the apartment and done half my job for me!

As it turned out, I got a lot done. I got the place trashed out; new mini-blinds put up; all the wood floors swept; the carpet vacuumed. Maybe the next time I trash out a place, I'll put up a sign!

Easter is always a busy time of year for me. I am actively involved in my church, which is a fairly large church that has two services every Sunday. My area of ministry at church is to be part of the tech team and more specifically to operate the projection at least once a month and for almost all of the productions. Obviously, the Easter production at our church is one of the biggest of the year. After a lot of practice, the drama production team was ready for the biggest weekend of the year for our church. We had one performance on Saturday night and two on Sunday and the church was absolutely full for each one.

Obviously, as part of the tech team, I sit in a control booth at the rear of the church. I keep my cell phone on vibrate and sometimes the choir director will text me with an issue or change (like feedback in a speaker or a change to the invitation song). So, as usual, I had my cell phone on vibrate as we started the second production Sunday morning. A few minutes into the production, my cellphone began to vibrate for a call, as opposed to a text, so I simply touched the button that sends the call to voicemail (without even checking to see who the call was from). Immediately, I received a second call, and then a voicemail. In my experience, when I receive a rapid series of calls relatively early in the morning, that is a cause for concern. Many tenants and potential tenants are sleeping in the morning, especially on a weekend morning, meaning a sudden flurry of calls may indicate trouble. So, when the team started into a song, I quickly listened to the voicemail. Here is the essence of the message I received: 'This is Officer Smith with the Police Department and we have reason to believe that one of your tenants may have committed suicide in one of your apartments. The tenant's son called us from Nevada and hasn't been able to get in touch with his father for 5 days and the other tenants also haven't seen the tenant for several days. The lights and tv are on in the apartment and we understand that this tenant has had previous problems. I understand that you have a key for the apartment and we need to get in. Please call the police department to arrange to meet me at the apartment as soon as possible.'

Well, obviously, I couldn't simply walk out in the middle of the Easter production with hundreds of people in the audience. The projection is a key part of the production and the lack of the projection would severely disrupt the production. If the police believed that there was an immediate situation, they would simple break the door to get in.

So, I began reviewing the script to see where there would be a long enough section of the production, without projection changes, to allow for a phone call. About 15 minute later, we were at that spot and I quickly called the police department. I explained who I was and that I was involved in an Easter production and that I wouldn't be able to get away for another hour. After all, if the guy had killed himself 5 days ago, another hour wouldn't matter one little bit. At about that point in our conversation, the officer on the phone interrupted me and said that they had already found the tenant - alive and well and admitted to the veteran's hospital. Good news!

The other big thing that happened to me over the weekend was that my laptop finally bit the dust. It was 3 years old, which was pretty good considering the amount of use my laptop gets. Since I use my laptop every day, I bought another a new one on Saturday. This one is a 17 inch, HP. I'm still trying to get accustomed to Windows Vista and my initial impression is YUK!

If you're wondering what happened to my Section 8 inspection on Friday morning - I PASSED! That was a nice end to the week, especially after working hard to get the house ready for the inspection.

It is now official, there will be no evictions this month. As I reported yesterday, my final iffy tenant has been admitted to a mental health facility and her mother was moving her out of the apartment yesterday. Today, I got the keys back which makes it official that I have possession of the property. I'll get in there the first of next week and get this unit cleaned out so that we can get it re-rented.

I had a long day today. It started with an insurance inspection at 9am. This was an inspection of the Pink Elephant (one of my apartment buildings). The inspector seemed impressed with the work we had done and I think that he will give the insurance company a good report.

After that, I went to work on the 3 bedroom house that I discussed in yesterday's blog. This house will be inspected on Friday (tomorrow) morning and I needed to get it finished today. When I left the house yesterday, I had the kitchen floor ripped up. Today, I layed a new subfloor and then layed commercial carpet (with no pad). Although carpet is not my preference for the kitchen, this kitchen floor was too rough to be painted or to lay vinyl.

By early afternoon, I had the kitchen floor finished and decided to go for a bike ride. It was an absolutely beautiful day in Ohio and I enjoyed a quick 6 1/2 mile ride.

After the ride, I got back to work on the house. This Section 8 tenant has kids under 6 years old, so I had some paint to touch up. I painted much of the exterior wood trim including the facia and the wood posts for both the front porch and the carport. It was a long day, but I think I'm ready for the inspection tomorrow morning. We'll see how it goes.

My normal rent collection period lasts from the 1st to the 4th of each month. On the morning of the 5th, I post 3-day eviction notices for everyone who hasn't paid and they owe a $50 late fee if they pay during the 3-day notice period (before I file the eviction in court). That's my procedure and I follow it strictly.

This month, I had (have) a couple of interesting situations going on. The first case was a tenant who called me on the 4th to say that they were moving out. No notice, no rent for the month - nothing - just a call. They said that they would be gone in the next 3 days. I told them that I would be posting an eviction notice on the 5th, and that if they weren't completely out during the 3 day period, I would file the eviction in court and it would be on their record. I do this to motivate the tenant to actually get out and to actually allow me to evict them if they don't leave. It's a common ploy among professional tenants to keep promising to leave, all the while living rent free (without any intention of leaving) for whatever period of time the landlord will allow.

Now, here's the twist on this particular tenant. He called me yesterday to say that he got the eviction notice I put on his door. He said that he was already in the process of moving, but wasn't absolutely sure that he could be out by the 8th. He asked if he could pay a third of the rent to allow him to stay until the 10th. Since I was in town, I told him that I would stop by. A few minutes later, I arrived at the house to find the tenant and his father carrying stuff out of the house. Since they were evidently moving, I did accept a third of the rent to allow him to stay until the 10th. Needless to say, I'll still keep his security deposit to cover the lost rent from his failure to give proper notice and for any damages. The risk in doing this is that if he doesn't move, I won't be able to evict him until next month because I accepted partial rent. I believe that this tenant is actually leaving and therefore I accepted the money knowing the risk involved.

The second situation this month is a low-income, Section 8 tenant who didn't pay her $95 portion of the rent. I originally believed that she was avoiding me, but found out today that she has been admitted to a local mental facility. This is the same tenant that a neighbor told me was taking illegal drugs. I placed an eviction notice on her door on the 5th and I placed an inspection notice on her door yesterday, so that I could inspect the apartment today (to make sure someone still lived there). When I entered her apartment today, I discovered that her dog was still there and that the apartment was a MESS! I took pictures of the apartment and the mess while I was there. Since the tenant wasn't there, I decided to go to the local mental health facility to see if I could determine what was happening. Since I have several mental health patients in a couple of my apartment buildings, I work with these agencies on a frequent basis. I asked to talk to the administrator of the facility and told her that I would be evicting the tenant if I didn't get the $145 rent and late fee by tomorrow. The administrator said that she will talk to the tenant/patient and call me back. I'm sure that the mental health facility doesn't want her evicted, so hopefully they will arrange for the rent to be paid. If not, then I WILL evict the tenant. It's sad that this will probably happen, but my business is renting apartments, not providing free housing to the mentally ill.

I'll let you know how this all works out!

They say that all good things must come to an end. I suppose that's true, but it can certainly be sad to see the good times end. Unfortunately, as I sit here tonight, I'm in that spot.

For the past 6 months, I haven't had a single eviction. Moreover, this past month I have been at 100% occupancy. In the space of one day, that luck has completely fallen apart. It started with a phone call this morning, when one of my tenants called to say that they were moving. No notice. No rent for this month. They can't afford the rent and they'll be out in the next 3 days.

Then, later in the day, I started getting that uneasy feeling that another tenant was avoiding me, indicating to me that she wasn't going to pay the rent. This is a Section 8 tenant who in my opinion is somewhat mentally ill. While I was in town collecting the final few rents, I stopped by her apartment and knocked on the door. It sure sounded like someone was at home, yet no one answered the door. As I was leaving the house, the next door neighbor (who looks iffy to me) asked me if I was looking for the woman that lives in that apartment. I responded that I was. He proceeded to call her a "slutty crackhead" along with just about every nasty name he could think of. He said that she had sold all her belongings to buy crack and that she was broke. That explains why she was avoiding me.

To tell the truth, I feel a little bit sorry for her. I think the truth of the situation is that she's being taken advantage of by the druggies, which often happens to people who are retarded (mentally ill). This type of crime is a real shame and my opinion is that the scumbags that prey on the mentally ill should be thrown in jail and the key thrown away. However, the reality of the situation remains and I won't allow her problems to become my problems. If she's doing illegal drugs and/or not paying the rent - SHE'S GOTTA GO! I'll take a 3-day notice to her tomorrow and will contact Section 8 on Monday.

As if all that wasn't bad enough, I have one other tenant that I'm concerned about. He is living in one of the apartments at the pink elephant and also has not paid rent. His rent is paid by a payee, so I'm a little concerned that it hasn't arrived yet. I'll also take him a 3-day notice tomorrow.

So, after 6 months of no evictions and one month of 100% occupancy, the fun has come to the inevitable end. I is impossible to have several dozen rentals and not have evictions, sudden move-outs, and tenant problems. Back to reality!

For the second month in a row, the 3rd has been a very big day. Usually, I collect a lot of rents on the first, collect only a few rents on the 2nd and 3rd, and then collect a bunch of rents on the 4th, which is the last day to pay rent without a $50 late fee. However, something seems to have changed lately and I collected a bunch of rents today! How many rents did I collect? So many that I made two trips home to unload cash so that I wouldn't have to carry it all!

In addition to being another day of collecting rents, I also spent some time today showing toys to prospective buyers. I recently made a decision to sell all my toys that haven't been used in the last year. I sold the first one last week for $14K, which I used to pay off debt. I have several other toys that I'm going to sell. Looking back, I think that it's been ridiculous having so many expensive toys that I don't even use! So, I'm going on a toy sale and debt paydown binge. Anyone need a beautiful SL 500 Convertible that's only been driven by a real estate investor to church on Sunday? LOL!

Have a good weekend!

I spent about 3 hours today cutting out and replacing the split sewer line that I discussed in last night's blog. That cast iron pipe was really a chore to cut with my reciprocating saw, but I finally got it cut out. Then, I installed a new 4 inch PVC sewer line, with a cleanout assembly, in its place. After all the work was done, I checked everything for leaks and it was dry as a bone.

In addition to the sewer pipe repair, I also did a repair to the concrete front steps. The steps were cracked and deteriorating, and I patched then with a vinyl concrete patching material.

Today was day 2 of rent collections, and I collected several more rents.

I was done at about 3pm and went for my daily bike ride. If you're following my weight loss saga, I've currently lost 5 pounds and have 20 more to go! Now that the weather is better, I'm hoping that I can get in my bike ride every day. Mountain biking season is right around the corner and I need to get in proper condition.

Today's project was to look at a water leak coming from one of the outside walls in one of my 3 bedroom duplexes. This wall is located in the basement stairwell and is located below the upstairs bathroom. The wall was an old plaster wall, with the plaster beginning to deteriorate. There was clear evidence that water had been leaking both inside the house and through the wall to the outside of the house. The big question was where the water was coming from. I questioned the tenant about when it was leaking. She said that the leak seemed to occur every day and it didn't need to be raining for the wall to leak. That led me to believe that the leak was coming from the bathroom above the stairway. I could also deduce that the leak was not a broken water line because the leak wasn't happening all the time.

My next step was to try to determine what was leaking in the bathroom. At this point, it was obviously coming from the commode, shower, or sink. So, I decided to start by flushing the commode. That was all it took! After flushing the commode, water ran steadily out of the wall.

With the commode apparently leaking, that meant that I would need to remove the wall so that I could see what was occurring. I got my claw hammer and pry bar from the truck and started to demolish the wall. It didn't take long before the cause of the leak was crystal clear - the 4 inch cast iron sewage line inside the wall was split wide open vertically along almost the entire length of the pipe. By the time I got the wall demolished and all the mess cleaned up, it was about 2pm (I didn't start today until about 12:30 pm). I had a personal engagement at 3pm, which didn't leave me enough time to cut out the cast iron pipe and replace it with PVC. So, I used some furnace putty to fill the 1/4 " wide split in the pipe and I will replace the pipe tomorrow.

After my 3pm appointment, I went for a nice 7 mile bike ride on a new course. This course had one hill that was really a killer, which made for a very good workout. The weather is supposed to be good again tomorrow and I'm looking forward to another bike ride then.

BTW, today was the first official day of rent collection. I received all my Section 8 rents in the mail and I also collected a few private pay rents.

That's right. All of my available rentals are now 100% occupied! The demand is simply unbelievable and needless to say - I'm very happy.

I still have a few units that fell through the cracks as I was rapidly expanding my business over the past 6 years. One of those units is a one bedroom apartment that I've been working on. I'm very close to finishing that unit. I still have the floors to paint, one room of carpet to lay, and a little electrical work to do. I'm planning to have that done Monday or Tuesday.

Next on the agenda is a two bedroom apartment that contained a Section 8 tenant when I bought the building. SHE WAS A PIG! Now that she's finally gone, that unit needs a significant cleaning, paint, carpet, a couple of windows, and a few other things. I should have that done next week also and I've already got a renter for that unit.

That about catches me up on the blogging. I'll talk to you tomorrow.

I've mentioned before that I often spend the day doing a common task at more than one unit. For example, I might have water leak day, where I fix any little nagging faucets that drip. Another day, I might like to fix any roofs that need repair. Yet another day, I will mow grass, etc.

Today, it was rehab day and I worked on the one-bedroom apartment that is about to be completed and I also started the rehab on the last unrehabbed unit at the pink elephant. The weather here in Ohio was dismal with a steady, and sometimes heavy, rain. That made it a good day to do inside rehab work. In addition, the rain made it a very good day to start the rehab on the remaining unit of the pink elephant. Several sections of the ceiling had fallen in at that upstairs apartment, obviously caused by prior roof leaks. The rain made it an ideal day to see if the roof was still leaking or if it had been repaired by the previous owner. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the apartment was dry as a bone, even with today's heavy rain. I was also pleasantly surprised to find the wood floors in EXCELLENT condition. This will be a very nice apartment once it's rehabbed and despite all the debris on the floors and the holes in the ceiling, it doesn't appear to me that the rehab will be too extensive. The walls are in excellent condition, most of the windows look very good, and the floors are excellent. There are a lot of electrical wires exposed without the accompanying outlets and light fixtures, but that should be easy to fix. There is also no commode or sink in the bathroom, but again that shouldn't be a big deal.

In addition to the rehab work, I took my bicycle to the bike shop to have a new disc brake installed and to get a tune-up. The bike was done by the end of the day and hopefully the weather will be good enought for a ride tomorrow.

Mr. Fix It was on the job today as I spent the day doing miscellaneous maintenance jobs. To start the day, I removed some of the building materials from the 1 bedroom apartment that I'm rehabbing. This is the initial rehab for this unit, as I have been using it for storage.

My next project was to coat a metal roof that had a small leak. This was the Section 8 duplex that failed inspection a couple of weeks ago when the tenant suprised me by saying that the roof had a leak. Of course, you never really know if the roof is fixed until it rains - that's scheduled for tomorrow.

After that, I went to replace a window pane at another Section 8 apartment. This was the other Section 8 apartment that recently failed an inspection. At the inspection, we discovered that the tenant's kid had decided to break the window shortly before the inspection.

In addition to these projects, I did some more organizing in my new store room and also showed my only remaining vacant rental to a young couple.

That was it for today. By the time I got home, it looked like rain (both outside and on the radar), so I decided to cancel the bike ride for the day. Nevertheless, I have now lost 5 pounds and have 20 to go.

I'm hoping to work on the Pink Elephant tomorrow.

I rented the only one bedroom apartment that I had available today. That leaves me with only one available rental - a 3 bedroom house (that isn't yet ready to rent). I continue to be amazed at the demand for rentals in the area!

My project for the day was to work on the one-bedroom apartment that I rented today. It wasn't quite done, but the applicants wanted it anyway. So, I replaced the kitchen faucet and some of the associated waterlines; installed numerous light bulbs; did some cleaning, and a few other minor chores. Of course, I also had to sign the lease and other paperwork with the new tenant AND COLLECT THE MONEY (my favorite part).

Six of the seven units at the Pink Elephant are now rented and the remaining unit needs major rehab. I have already started on that and will be doing more of that work as the week progresses.

That was about it for today - nothing too exciting.

Who spends more time in court than the judge? In the past, I would frequently joke that I did! That's because, in the past, I was in court an average of at least once a month - usually evicting an inherited deadbeat tenant. Now that I'm making good progress getting my buildings stabilized and most of the tenants are mine, my eviction rate has really dropped. As I was building my business, my monthly eviction rate was 1% per month. Now that things are more stabilized, my monthly eviction rate is about 1/4 of one percent, which means that I only evict .25% of my tenants each month. I believe that March has been the 6th straight month in a row that I haven't had a single eviction, which is a record for me. The lack of evictions for 6 months is not because I have suddenly become a rental property genius, but rather it's just a statistical anomaly. I'll probably pay for that with 2 or 3 evictions in a single month sometime in the future.

Even though I haven't been to court for evictions lately, I have still been in court for other things. You may recall that I recently posted about going to court to testify against a criminal who attempted to break into 6 of our apartments and then set an arson fire at a neighboring building. Subsequent to that hearing, I got a temporary restraining order for that criminal who continually comes back to that property and has in-fact basically stalked me, possibly because I have kicked him off the property and have had him arrested several times. This guy has a wrap sheet of more than 200 criminal offenses, including a couple of felonies.

Anyway, today was the court proceeding for a permanent restraining order, based on him stalking me. Needless to say, the judge already knew who this criminal is. I testified about the contacts that I have had with the criminal and the threats he has made toward me. I also explained that I am a concealed carry holder (I carry a handgun) and that I thought the situation was very dangerous. The judge did grant a permant restraining order against this criminal for a full five years. I was surprised that a restraining order would last that long. In addition, the judge not only ordered the criminal to stay 300 feet away from me, but also 300 feet from my apartment buildings. That will be a very valuable tool for me as I can have the criminal arrested if he even comes within 300 feet of my buildings. I'm hoping that once the criminal understands that he's going to be arrested everytime that he gets within 300 feet of my building that he may finally give up and stay away.

Furthermore, a felony arson charge and possibly attempted murder charge is still pending and awaiting evidence from the state crime lab. I'm a witness in that case as my surveillance system caught all the action! So, if I can keep him in jail for the next few months, he should eventually be tried on the felony arson and attempted murder charges and should do a long stretch in prison.

After court, I did some work at the Pink Elephant (one of my apartment buildings). I'm getting ready to rehab the final unit in that building and as part of that preparation, I replaced 3 windows and a door today.

The weather in Ohio was cold today, so I didn't go for a bike ride.

My normal workdays during warmer months usually go something like this. I like to get up early and watch the news; watch CNBC; put in any stock or option trades I might be doing (just a hobby); answer e-mails and do a little posting on internet forums; and then go to work sometime between 10 am and 11 am. I typically work for 3-4 hours and arrive home before the last hour of stock market trading. After the market closes, I like to do something like ride my bicycle; ride my motorcycle; or even go scuba diving. Believe it or not, Ohio has excellent scuba diving in a lot of quarries.

The weather today was forecast to be excellent early in the day and then there was a slight chance of rain later in the day. So, I decided to change the order of events for the day. About 11am, I headed for the bike path and rode 14.3 miles. It was a grueling ride as there was a strong wind in my face for the last 7 miles. I'm trying to get into shape for mountain biking season, but that 14 mile ride just about killed me! I think I'll take a shorter ride, maybe 7 miles, tomorrow to give myself a day to rest.

After riding, I took my bike to the bike shop. My bike has disc brakes and the back brake is badly bent. That happens on these mountain biking courses as we jump obstacles and occassionally wreck our bikes trying to get over or around obstacles. At any rate, the brake was dragging every time the wheel made a rotation and was producing an annoying squeak. The technician at the bike shop attempted to straighten it, but it still wasn't right. So, he ordered a new disc brake, which should be in Friday. I took the bike with me and will ride it until he gets the part in.

About 2pm, I finally got to my 3 bedroom house to continue working on the rehab. The project for today was to remove the carpet in one of the upstairs bedrooms. While I was working on the carpet, I had two people stop by to look at the apartment. One was a Section 8 tenant that says she'll take the apartment and will put down a deposit tomorrow. That just shows how incredibly strong the rental demand is in the area. This house still looks TERRIBLE and under more normal circumstances, no-one would have committed to take it in this state of ugliness. Of course, I will be working on this house for the next week or so and it will be very nice before the tenant will be allowed to move in.

I had an ealy dinner engagement, so I had to quit early today (about 4pm). Although I only worked a couple of hours, I was happy with the work I got done and happy about finding a potential tenant for the house.

If you're following my weight loss saga, as of today I've lost 4 pounds with 21 more to go. I probably won't be able to lose a whole pound tomorrow as today's 14 mile excursion really tired me out and I won't be riding that far tomorrow.

My primary project today was to work on the only 3 bedroom house that I have vacant. The tenants left suddenly because they couldn't afford the rent and they left the house a mess. A lot of the carpet needs to be removed or changed and that's where I started today. I started in the living room and removed all the carpet and the pad. As you've heard me say, I NEVER put pads in rentals, but this particular house was my very first house from 5 1/2 years ago and I wasn't very smart about rehabbing rentals at that time. Fortunately, I installed that pad and there weren't a million staples in the pad like there often is when a "professional" installer goes crazy with their staple gun. I spent about 3 hours removing the carpet, pad, and staples. My plan is to sand the floor and then paint it with oil based floor paint.

After finishing the living room, I spent another half hour cleaning the carpet in the downstairs bedroom. Fortunately, the carpet in this room will be salvageable.

By this time, I was tired of working inside and wanted to go for my daily bike ride. The weather was absolutely perfect - sunny and about 70 degrees! I brought my bike with me to work today because there is a bike path near the house I'm working on. I ended up riding 12 1/2 miles and got a very good workout. My weigh-in when I got home showed that I have lost 3 pounds and have 22 to go. No carbs today. I'm hoping that I can lose another pound tomorrow, but I'm sure that my weight loss is going to slow down. The last time I lost 25 pounds, I averaged about 1/2 pound per day.

Tomorrow, I'm planning on working on the carpet in the upstairs bedrooms. I'm also planning to take another long bike ride - hopefully 14 miles!

I had a very nice 3 day weekend. The weather is starting to really improve here in Ohio and I have started training for the upcoming mountain biking season. Unfortunately, I've got a lot of work to do. I have gotten too fat over the past couple of years and need to lose about 25 pounds to be in top shape for the aggressive mountain biking that I plan to do this year. My friends and I are even planning on entering a couple of mountain bike races this year.

Losing weight and getting in shape is just like running a rental property business. First, you need to understand the basics and then you need to work your butt off to succeed. For me, the basics of losing weight is simply to stop eating carbs. I have done that. To get in shape for mountain biking, obviously I need to do a lot of bike riding (today I rode 7 miles with many hills). To help keep me accountable, I'm going to report on my progress on this blog. So far, I've only lost 1.5 pounds with 23.5 to go! My goal is to ride my bike everyday that the weather is suitable. If that doesn't help me pick up the pace, I'm going to start riding twice a day. WHATEVER IT TAKES!

Since this blog is about my rental property business, I guess I better say something about that! Since my last report, I did get a restraining order against the convicted felon that I've been having trouble with. The day after getting the restraining order, I saw the felon on my surveillance cameras at the Pink Elephant (one of my apartment buildings). I reported it to the police and he was arrested again for criminal trespassing. He has more than TWO HUNDRED criminal charges on his record and will be facing trial for felony arson (and maybe attempted murder).

Tomorrow, I will be working on one of my 3 bedroom houses. It needs quite a bit of work to get it ready to be re-rented, including a lot of work on the carpet. I've got to get moving so that I can rent it for April.

Forty eight days - that's the penalty for the attempted breaking and entering of 6 apartments and criminal trespassing. As I reported yesterday, I went to court today to testify against this scumbag criminal that went on a crime spree in January. Upon my arrival at court, I was told by a court officer that the criminal pled guilty on February 27th and was sentenced to 48 days in jail which he had already served. He was released on February 27th, but then arrested again for committing another crime and is currently in jail. Today's court proceedings were on the breaking and entering and criminal trespass charges only. He has not yet been charged with the felony arson charge. I'm not sure what the delay is - maybe they're waiting for a grand jury.

After the court hearing, I talked to a court officer about filing a restraining order against this criminal. The paperwork to accomplish this was ridiculous, but I got it done. Hopefully the judge will sign it today and I'll get it from the Sheriff tomorrow. The point in filing a restraining order against this criminal is to give me one more tool for having this scumbag arrested if he shows up at my property. He is a convicted felon and had been convicted of felony assault as well as assaulting a police officer. He also tried to kill the family in the building next door to my apartment building by arson. My hope is that the restraining order will keep him away from me and my property. It will be a great thing if I can have him arrested every time he comes within 1,000 feet of me! After he's arrested a few times for violating this order, he may catch on and learn to avoid me and my property.

Once the paperwork for the restraining order was complete, I went to the police station to talk to one of the Police Captains. There has been a resurgence of scumbags (convicted felons) congregating down the street from the Pink Elephant and I want the police to help me put an end to it.

On a lighter note, I did get the floor painted in the one bedroom apartment. It looked GREAT! I'm hoping to get that apartment finished this week and then rented!

This week, I'm trying to get a one-bedroom apartment finished. It's one that I painted recently and needed to finish the floor. I rented a floor sander and spent Monday afternoon sanding the floor. The floor needed sanded because the previous owner saw fit to GLUE the carpet down (or maybe a tenant did it). I was surprised at how well the sander did removing the rock hard glue.

Today, I had two Section 8 inspections (annual recertification inspections). I pride myself on passing the inspections on the first attempt, but that certainly wasn't the case today. Everything that I had control of passed. However, at the first rental, the tenant suddenly remembered that the roof was leaking in one small spot. In the second rental, the tenant's kid had just broken one of the window panes. So, I have those two things to repair before the reinspection on the 27th.

After the Section 8 inspections, I intended to paint the floor that I sanded on Monday. However, when I went to Lowes to pick up the floor paint, I discovered that it was no longer available. The woman at the paint counter said that they weren't allowed to sell the paint any longer because the VOC's (volatile organic compounds) in this oil based paint were too high. That was extremely disappointing to me as this was very good paint.

So, I spent a good bit of time after that driving all over town trying to find an oil based floor paint at a reasonable price. I finally found an oil based floor paint that appears to be suitable at Menards, but it was about 3pm by then, so I just gave up and came home. It was a beautiful day here in Ohio, so I got a nice bike ride in before dinner. I'm trying to get started with my training for the upcoming mountain biking season!

Tomorrow morning, I will try again to paint the floor in the apartment that I sanded on Monday. After that, I will be in court. I'm the main witness for the prosecution in the criminal trial of a local criminal. This was the case that I discussed a couple of months ago in which a criminal attempted to break into several of my apartments and then attempted to kill a family in an apartment building that is next to one of my apartment buildings. He piled trash on their doorstep at 4am and lit it on fire so that they couldn't escape. My surveillance system caught it all on tape and the picture is EXCELLENT! The pretrial is tomorrow and then the trial is on Thursday. I was subpoenaed for both days. Hopefully, they'll put this moron away for a long time - we'll see. I don't have much faith in our justice system.

Today was the 2nd, which means rent collection is moving full speed ahead. I've received all my Section 8 rents and many of the private pay tenants' rent. Two more days to go and the rents should be in for another month.

The druggies that were taking advantage of my disabled tenant are now OUT! As it turned out, the guy (who was a relative of the disabled woman) that moved in with my tenant also moved in his shack-up girlfriend. both the guy and the shack-up girlfriend were convicted felons and both were on parole. When I found out, I went over to the apartment and forced them to leave. I told them that if they weren't gone in 5 minutes, I would call their parole officer and have their parole violated. Criminals on parole are not allowed to hang out with other convicted felons. They left a lot of their junk in the property and the tenant threw it all out! Good riddance to bad rubbish!

This afternoon, I received a call from one of my tenants who reported that they moved out yesterday. They didn't give me any notice, but at least they called to say that they left and I didn't have to evict them. I stopped by to pick up the key, which they left on the kitchen counter. The house is a mess and they left a lot of junk (as the riff-raff often does). So, I'll have to start cleaning up the house tomorrow so that I can get it rented.

More rent collecting tomorrow!

Before I post all the crap I've dealt with this week, let's start with the good news. I reported in a previous post that the roof on my personal residence was damaged by the 75 mph winds from a recent storm and the 80 mph winds of Hurricane Ike earlier in the year. The grit appeared to have been sandblasted from the shingles and they were paper thin. I called my insurance company about ten days ago. A few days later, an insurance adjuster came out to look at the roof. Then, last Saturday night I received a call from the insurance company. They agreed that the roof was destroyed and they estimated the repairs would be $6,500, which was almost exactly the estimate that my roofer gave me. I told them that I agreed with their estimate and they wired the money directly into my bank account on Tuesday. I was very satisfied with their service!

Now for the CRAP!!!

This week has had a steady stream of maintenance problems. Monday, I received a call from a tenant at the Pink Elephant (one of my apartment buildings) who said that her furnace wasn't working. Her furnace is in the basement and access to that basement is through the storefront, which is now the storage facility for my tools and supplies. As I approached the door to my storage room, I could hear water running (not a good sign). I opened the door to find that a water line from the upstairs apartment had become disconnected and it was spraying water into the storage room. This particular water line is some of that gray, flexible water line that is connected with compression fittings. Unfortunately, the water line that broke was at the rear of the storage area and didn't damage my tools or supplies. The water has soaked the back 10 feet of the floor in the room and was running down the stairs into the basement. The water break apparently hadn't happened too long ago because there was only about an inch of water in the basement. Obviously, I repaired the leak by replacing the line with PEX and then went to look at the furnace. The problem with the furnace was that some water had run down one of the distribution ducts for the furnace and went into the furnace. I called my HVAC guy and he came over to inspect the unit and get it working. That was Monday.

Monday evening, I got a call from a neighbor of one of my apartment buildings. She said that several known druggies were hanging around one of my apartments and that a man, woman, and two children had moved in with one of my tenants. On Tuesday, I investigated the issue. What happened is that one of my tenants had a stroke about 6 weeks ago. She was hospitalized for about 2 weeks and then in a nursing home for a month. Her relatives paid her rent during that time and everything was fine. When she moved home, her relatives asked me if one of the family could stay with her for a week or two to help her get back on her feet. Obviously, I said that was fine. What ended up happening is that a relative that just got out of prison (a convicted felon) moved in with his wife/girlfrend and their 2 kids. All the druggie friends of this guy started hanging around and one of them even stole my tenants prescriptions. What a bunch of scumbags! So, I drove over there and told the felon to "GET THE HELL OUT OF MY PROPERTY" and not come back. I also talked to the relatives of the tenant and the tenant herself. I told them all that if this scumbag isn't gone by the end of the week, or if there are ANY additional probolems in the meantime, that I will evict the tenant. We'll see what happens!

Next, I got a call from one of my better tenants who reported that her shower handle had broken and that she had to use the shutoff to stop a leak. Sure enough, she had over-tightened the handle so often and to such an extent (despite my requests in the past to the contrary) that she broke the shower. That required replacing the entire shower valve, which is in the wall behind the shower. I'll once again ask her to not overtighten the knobs, but it probably won't do any good.

Finally, and this is the kicker, I received a letter that the insurance on the Pink Elephant was being cancelled March 22 due to the "condition of the building". This was clearly a mistake on their part, but I still have had to deal with it. I talked to my agent and he called the insurance company. The sent a copy of the inspection report from the insurance inspector (13 pages in length). The report basically said that the property was safe and clean. It didn't list a single safety issue, but it did list a bunch of cosmetic items that we're still working on. This list included soffits, window trim, etc - all of which meant that we hadn't completed painting the building.

Since I tool over the building a year ago, we've already addressed ALL safety related items; upgraded the electric in several apartments; completely rehabbed 3 units and partially rehabbed 3 others; repaired the stairs; installed a handrail; had all the furnaces inspected and serviced as necessary; installed fire extinguishers, smoke detectors, a very elaborate security camera system, and painted the lower 10 feet of the building. They insured the building last year before any of these items were done and now they are cancelling the insurance because the painting isn't completed? Idiots! So, I'm writing them a letter detailing all of this. Either they will continue the insurance or will get other insurance. This is completely ridiculous and I'll get it worked out, but it is typical of the everyday frustrations of being a landlord.

That gets me up to date with the posting. Hopefully, the rest of the week will be quiet!

I started the week thinking that I would be working several days this week. I did actually do some work on Monday and everything started out as planned.

The insurance company scheduled an appoint to meet me on Tuesday at my house to look at my storm-damaged roof. The appointment was scheduled from 1 pm to 3 pm. With the appointment being in the early afternoon, I simply wasn't motivated to go to town before the appointment. As chance would have it, the insurance inspector arrived close to 3 pm. After she left, it was too late to start something for the day. The insurance inspector agreed that the roof was damaged beyond repair, but said she wasn't convinced that wind caused the grit to be removed from the roof. I must admit that I don't quite understand that. We had a hurricane (Ike) come through a few months ago with 80 mph winds and then a tremendous storm last week with 75 mph gusts. I'm pretty sure that the grit on the shingles didn't simply walk away in protest! At any rate, she thought that the insurance company would replace the roof.

The weather then got very cold and dreary and I just couldn't get too motivated to do anything on Wednesday. Part of the problem is that there just isn't a lot to do. I'm caught up on all the maintenance and am making good progress on the 1 bedroom apartment rehab. I did manage to balance my checkbooks while I was watching CNBC, so I guess that was something.

On Thursday, I did finally get back to work. I did several small maintenance items, including: fixing a partially clogged shower drain; installing a hand-held shower wand for a disabled tenant; fixing a cabinet in a Section 8 apartment; patching a hole in drywall; and (most importantly) finishing the trim around the floor I recently installed!

Today and tomorrow, my wife and I have some things to do. Therefore, I'm calling it a week and will try again next week.

Have a great weekend!

Boring - that's the best word to decribe my day.

My day started with a trip to Office Max to pick up some ink for the printer (which cost $95 - ouch). Next stop was at Lowes to pick up materials for the one-bedroom apartment I'm working on. I bought drywall mud, some 2 X 4's, a trim piece, and a couple of other things. That was $55.

After shopping, I headed for the one-bedroom apartment, where I dropped off the materials I bought. About that time, I received a call from a tenant who reported that the water pressure in his sink was low and getting lower. So, I drove over there and cleaned the faucet screen which took all of 5 minutes. From there, I headed over to the Pink Elephant for the big project of the day, which was to make more shelves. The shelves I built today were for my electrical and lighting supplies. After finishing the shelves, I arranged my electrical and lighting supplies on the shelves.

My final stop for the day was at one of my 3 bedroom houses. I received a call last evening about the a broken shower knob in one of the bathrooms. The shower knob was indeed broken and I took it with me so that I can find a replacement. This is a 2 bathroom house, so there was no hurry to replace it today. After working about 4 hours, I had enough for one day and I returned home.

After being bored for 4 hours, I played a little 007 (Quantum of Solace) on the Wii and I'm happy to report that I finally killed all the bad guys and made it to the end of the game! I really like the game, but was disappointed in the ending. The game simply stops at the end of one level and the credits roll. Very strange ending. At any rate, now I've been through the entire game on the "trainee" level and I'll start it again on a more advanced level.

In the rental business, you quickly learn to be flexible and to multi-task. That's just a normal part of the business and it's what I expect. However, today seemed like an unusually busy day, since so many different things were going on.

My day started by meeting a contractor to look at the roof on my home. The roof had been damaged by the storm and I wanted to get his opinion of the severity of that damage. I actually spent a few minutes last night looking at the roof myself, and it appeared to me that it was ruined. The shingles on the entire south-facing front of the house are missing all the grit from the shingles, while the shingles on parts of the north side look new. The paper portion of the shingles are literally paper thin in many areas and many are ripped (in addition to the shingles that are completely missing). The contractor's opinion is that the roof is obviously ruined and MUST be replaced. He said that without replacement, any further storms would remove more and more of the roof. In retrospect, I think that the roof was seriously damaged when hurricane Ike came through, with 80 mph winds and that Wednesday's storm finished it off.

After the roofer left and I finished talking to my insurance company, I made a trip to the bank; the post office; and another bank (to make one of my apartment building payments). Next stop was the local treasurer's office, where I paid 5 figures worth of income tax (for only 1/2 a year). OUCH! I just hate seeing all that money going to the government to waste!

The next item on my list was to stop by one of my 1 bedroom apartments to inspect it before the annual Section 8 inspection. Outside of a new smoke alarm battery, the apartment was ready for the inspection. Checking my list, Section 8 was also the next order of business. This task was to drive to the Section 8 office to initial a change they had made to one of their contracts. My newest tenant is a veteran who is part of a brand new Section 8 program for veterans. It seems the paperwork for this new program was slightly different and I needed to initial a change, reflecting that I was not providing air conditioning to the tenant. While I was there, they also gave me the rent check for February for this unit. Getting money is always a good thing. With that check, I can officially report that all rents have been received for February and that another month will go by without an eviction.

While I was at the Section 8 office, I received a call from the service provider for the DSL Line that allows me to access my security cameras via the internet. My DSL Line went out during the big storm on Wednesday. The technician said that he would be at the apartment building in about 10 minutes, so I made a bee line for the Pink Elephant. Sure enough, the techician found that the line had been damaged in the storm. After some work, the line was fixed. Once the line was fixed, I needed to do some reprogramming of the computer and router to get the cameras back online.

Once the cameras were fixed, I walked next door to meet the Section 8 inspector for a complaint inspection. This Section 8 tenant is a pain in the butt. Every time she has a concern, she calls Section 8 instead of calling me. On two occassions she has plugged up the toilet or sewer line with tampons and baby wipes. I'm not very happy with her and will not renew her lease when her year is up. Her complaints today were roaches, spiders, termites, and the plugged sewer line (which I already fixed). Of course, the roaches and spiders are being caused by her filthy housekeeping habits and I have told her that repeatedly. In fact, I think that the reason she called Section 8 is that I accused her of living like a PIG (which she does and I told Section 8 exactly that). To make a long story short, this is a BRICK BUILDING, so there were no termites. Those were a figment of her imagination. The inspector took a flashlight and checked every nook and cranny of the apartment. After a very thorough inspection, he was only able to find two roaches and he told her that her poor housekeeping skills were attracting the roaches. There were numerous spider webs around the apartment and obviously she was too lazy to take a broom and remove them. That addressed her list of grievances and needless to say, the apartment passed the inspection with flying colors.

My final project was to install the quarter-round trim pieces around the laminate floor that I installed a few days ago. As it turned out, I was about two feet short of quarter-round stock and I'll finish that along with installing the transition pieces another day.

Have a great weekend!

We're having a banner year for storm damage here in Ohio.  So far this year, we've had 3 major events.  First was hurrican Ike which rolled through Ohio earlier in the year with hurricane force winds and did a lot of damage to the area, including minor damage to a few of my rentals.   Then, a couple of weeks ago, we had a major ice storm drop more than an inch of ice on the area.  This damaged a lot of trees and resulted in relatively minor damage to some of my property and some of the neighbor's property (when my trees fell on their property and downspouts were ripped from my buildings).  Then, last night we have very strong winds go through the area.  I don't know how strong they were, but they damaged the shingles on the roof at my home (which were probably weakened by ike) and they pulled the post that held our basketball backboard right out of the ground.  That was a 4 inch steel post set in 2 feet of concrete!  To my amazement, I didn't receive any reports of significant damage at any of the rentals.

The other issue that occurred as a result of the storm was that my security cameras went offline.  They are still working and recording, but I just can't watch the action from home via the internet.  So, I went to the storeroom at the Pink Elephant to see what the problem was.  After going through the diagnostic, I determined that the DSL service was down and I called the service provider.  They will be sending out a technician - hopefully tomorrow.

Finally, I had two small maintenance issues today.  The first issue was a leaking trap under the kitchen sink of one of my two bedroom apartments.  That was literally a 5 minute fix.  The next issue was a ceiling fan that the tenant reported was sparking.  I told the tenant to turn it off and not use it until I arrived.  To my surprise, the tenant was correct and sparks were flying when the fan blades would reach certain points in their rotation.  To be honest, I didn't look any further to see what was wrong as I'm taking out all ceiling fans anyway.  Ceiling fans are too complicated for rentals (tenants) as evidenced by a recent lawsuit I read about in which a tenant was bouncing on the furniture and lost an eye when struck by the ceiling fan blade.  Anyway, I removed the fan and replaced it with a builder's quality light (less than $6 at Lowes). 

That was it for work today and then I came home to look at my own damaged roof.  I have a contractor coming to look at it tomorrow and then I'll decide whether we'll turn it in to the insurance. 

As I write this post, the wind outside is blowing literally 60 mph. That's bad enough, but unfortunately this wind is following a very significant ice storm that occurred only 2 weeks ago. The ice storm was severe enough that numerous trees were destroyed and even more were damaged. In fact, city crews are still busy picking up downed tree limbs from the ice storm and crews have just recently finished getting all their electric customers re-connected.

This evening, I received a call from one of my low income tenants at the Pink Elephant (one of my apartment buildings). The tenant told me that the wind had knocked the electrical line down and that it was sparking. I called the electric company to report the incident and then drove down to the building to check things out and ensure that the tenants didn't electrocute themselves. When I arrived at the building, the first thing I noticed was that the lights were on. Upon further investigation, I discovered that the only thing that had happened was that a tree limb had fallen on a phone line and knocked it down. It certainly wasn't "sparking" and never had been. As often happens with low-income tenants, they were exaggerating! Therefore, I ensured that the phone company had been called and came home.

This afternoon, before all the excitement started with the storm, I went to Lowes for parts and then worked on my one bedroom apartment. No big deal. Tomorrow, I'm planning to finish the trim work on the laminate floor I installed yesterday.

After a few days of not doing much rental property stuff, I finally got back to work today. My project de jour was laying a laminate floor in one of my 1-bedroom apartments. This was the last of the cheap laminate flooring that I bought from Lowes a few weeks ago. I bought enough to do 3 rooms and today's project was the 3rd room. I won't be buying any more of this particular brand because I HATE the way it fits together (or should I say doesn't stay together).

While in town, I also looked at the 4-unit building where I will be installing the new surveillance system. This is a building with a LOT of angles and it will be a challenge to cover properly. I did some preliminary layout design for the system today including determining where the power supply and DVR will go and also made a preliminary decision on the location of the cameras.

I spent about 4 hours on these two things and that was it for today.

The market is still very good here. I continue to get a LOT of calls for houses and I don't have a single one available! That's a nice problem to have. I do have two 1-bedroom apartments available (actually 1 available and 1 almost available), so I can try to rent them for next month.

First - an update on my incident with the druggie that I talked about in my blog on Monday. The druggie moved out and was completely out by Monday night at 10 pm. My threats of calling the police; calling the drug task force; and eviction were apparently successful. The good news is that they cleaned the place up and it is ready to re-rent.

The mother of the druggie called me on Tuesday and wanted the security deposit back. I told her to forget it! She still didn't seem to understand what her daughter had done wrong. It's hard to imagine that a mother could be so clueless. I explained to the mother that her daughter had broken her lease with the illegal drug activity in the apartment. Furthermore, the daughter moved out on February 2nd, which means that she owed February rent. The security deposit is being used to cover those damages.

Today is the 5th and almost all of the rents have been collected. I always have a few late payers that pay the $50 late fee, and I'll still be collecting them over the next couple of days. I'm not expecting any evictions this month, as I've talked to the few people that haven't paid yet and all are planning to pay during the 3 Day Notice period. If anyone doesn't pay, I'll evict them.

Today, my main project was to move tools and supplies out of the one-bedroom apartment that I've been using for storage. I'm moving them to the storeroom at the pink elephant which will be my central storage area and is protected by an elaborate alarm system and security cameras. Part of that job was to build some shelves and try to really get things organized. So, I built some shelves today and spent some time arranging things on those shelves according to their purpose (plumbing on one set of shelves, electrical on another, etc). I will be doing the same thing again tomorrow.

I arrived home from my trip last evening. All in all, it was a nice trip. My wife had a good time at her conference and we had some fun time also. My wife and I ended up seeing Gran Torino on Wednesday night. It was a good movie, but I would have enjoyed it more if Clint Eastwood would have done more shooting!

One of readers of this blog, Robin, suggested that I see Defiance. I saw it yesterday afternoon while my wife was at the conference and it was an excellent movie. It is the true story of the Russian resistance during WWII. Lots of action and a great story! I highly recommend it.

I spent today catching up from the days I was gone. I spent the morning paying bills and this afternoon, I cut up one of the many trees that fell due to the ice storm. Today's project was cutting up and removing my tree limbs that fell in a neighbor's yard at one of my duplexes. Fortunately, the limbs didn't do too much damage, although they did knock down all her utility lines and damaged a couple of boards in her privacy fence. I spent about an hour and a half cutting up the limbs and removing them. I'll pick up a couple of fence boards tomorrow to fix her fence.

After I finished with the fence, I worked on the ice covered sidewalks at the Pink Elephant. Fortunately, the ice is very rough (and about 1 1/2 inches thick) and not very slippery. I've treated them three times with ice melt and was able to get part of the ice broken up and shoveled.

Tomorrow, I've got another tree to cut up and some more ice to work on. I also need to decide which unit I will rehab next. With only one rental available, I need to get moving on the last couple of un-rehabbed units I have left to do.

I am happy to report that all of our houses are now rented! In addition, all of our two and three bedroom apartments are rented and the only thing I have left is a single one-bedroom apartment! That doesn't happen very often, but just shows the growing demand for rentals, due in large part to the poor economy and high number of foreclosures.

I'm currently working on rehabbing the few remaining units that I bypassed during our rapid expansion of the past 5 years. I've just about finished the rehab on a one-bedroom apartment and will be working on another one-bedroom after that. The next one is an apartment that I was using for storage prior to setting up the storefront at the pink elephant as my centralized storage facility.

I will consider my business to be stabilized once these few remaining units are complete. At that point, I'll take a look at the numbers I'm achieving and the hours I'm working and decide if purchasing any further units are warranted. My goal is to reach a balance between generating the money that allows me to live the lifestyle I desire and work few enough hours each week to be semi-retired.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished! I know that, and yet I did a good deed for one of my tenants today anyway. I'm now awaiting the inevitable punishment.

This tenant has been quite ill and has been in the hospital and nursing home for nearly 2 months. She nearly died from a severe bout of pneumonia and the complications that occurred as a result of that. She is now so weak and has so much lung damage, that she is barely able to walk and can't even climb a single step safely. There is one step at her apartment and I built a ramp to allow her to be mobile with a walker. In addition, she needed her couch elevated to make it easier for her to get up from the couch, so I built some platforms to elevate each leg of the couch several inches.

I also received a call from one of my tenants today about a leaking sink. This should have been a 5 minute repair, but ended up being a 45 minute pain in the butt. The sink was leaking from the top of the tail piece just under the sink. I tried tightening up the washer that holds the rubber gasket against the bottom of the sink. That SHOULD have fixed it, but didn't. I took it completely apart; put new plumber's putty under the lip of the drain piece; and reinstalled the tailpiece - all to no avail. In fact, after I did all that, it was leaking worse than before.

So, I went to my storeroom and picked up an entirely new tailpiece. Back at the apartment, I had it installed in a few minutes and it was finally right - NO LEAKS!

Finally, I did a little painting at one of my one bedroom apartments. That was it for today!

I caught a druggie on my security cameras slinking around my property a couple of days ago. This guy is the same homeless druggie that stole a bicycle from one of my tenants several months ago. When I saw him, he was on the sidewalk by my apartment building with his grocery cart full of his belongings. He has been barred from my property and I will have him arrested for criminal tresspass if I seem him actually on the property. The problem was that he left his shopping cart full of clothes in front of my building, which was an eyesore and certainly not the image I'm trying to project.

I took his cart to the edge of my property and put it with the trash cans. The next day, he took his belongings out of the cart and put it on the porch of a house a couple of doors down, leaving me the cart. I am simply not going to put up with riff-raff hanging around my property. I've spent a lot of time and effort cleaning up the area and I'm not going to allow it to be taken over by losers.

As I was at the building to pick up supplies today, I saw this druggie walking down the sidewalk. I told him in no uncertain terms that I will not permit him to be on the property and that I will aggressively have him prosecuted if I see any evidence of illegal activity from him in the area. I advised him to go elsewhere and avoid the area. As part of my efforts, I also had a lengthy conversation with a local police officer about the issue and he agreed to keep an eye on the area and on this particular criminal.

My projects today started with re-connecting the water lines in the two bedroom house that I rented a couple of days ago. As each house goes vacant, I've been installing a Sharkbite quick disconnect fitting in the main water line just after the water line enters the house. That allows me to quickly disconnect the water line if the house becomes vacant during the winter. That permits draining all the water from the lines and allows me to leave the heat off without fear of having frozen water lines.

My next project was fixing several small maintenance issues at a two-bedroom house that I recently rented. The repairs included installing a new shower head; fixing a sink stopper; installing two new faucets for the clothes washer; fixing a leaking sink; and repairing a loose window pane. This all went uncharacteristically smoothly and I finished all of these items in about an hour.

My final project of the day was to visit one of my tenants in a nursing home where she is finishing a long rehab after having nearly died from a very serious pneumonia. She needs a ramp installed and she needs the couch elevated about 4 inches. She is still extremely weak and will have a difficult time getting up the step and getting out of the low-sitting couch. So, I met her at the nursing home to discuss installing the ramp and elevating the couch for her. A member of the rehab staff met with us to discuss the dimensions of the ramp. I'm planning to build the ramp tomorrow.

That was it for the day and I was home by 3pm. I also played my new James Bond Quantum of Solace game some more this afternoon and evening and made it through the Science Center level. I really like that game and highly recommend it.

I'm hoping to get a few more things done this week, because I'm planning to be gone on a little trip with my wife for 5 days starting Sunday.

Things are definitely picking up, despite it being the middle of winter and extremely cold here in Ohio. Today, I signed the lease and received the money for my last available 3-bedroom house. I also have a Section 8 tenant approved for my last 2-bedroom house and hope that he will be moving in later this week. I have been out of one bedroom houses for a couple of months. So, hopefully, by the end of the week, I won't have a single house available for rent.

I still have a little more work to do on the apartment front. While I've been out of 3-bedroom apartments for months, I currently have one 2-bedroom apartment and two 1-bedroom apartments available.

On the maintenance side, I repaired a bathtub faucet in a 3-bedroom apartment and installed a gas heater in one of my 1-bedroom apartments.

That was enough for today. I got home early (about 2:30 pm) and spent some time with my new James Bond game (Quantum of Solace) on the Wii. I have one of those Zappers which makes the game really cool!

Yesterday, I had a Section 8 tenant fill out an application and give me his "Request for Tenancy". I screened the applicant this morning (all ok) and took his paperwork to the local Section 8 office. Late this afternoon, I received a call from the local Section 8 director asking if they could do the inspection tomorrow. That's great, because it will allow me to start getting paid for the property. However, the house needs a new water heater and I'll have to do that tomorrow morning before the inspection. It currently has a gas water heater, but I'll be replacing it with an electric one. I also have a ceiling light to install.

Today, I showed a couple of rentals to prospective tenants and continued my waterline replacement project in one of my 3 bedroom duplexes. I have now completed my work on the cold water portion of the waterlines. Sometime in the next few days, I'll do the hot water side. As usual, I'm replacing the old copper and galvanized water lines with PEX. The PEX offers many advantages in that it won't corrode and won't break when frozen.

The temperature here tonight will be below zero, and I'm hoping that I won't have any frozen water lines to fix tomorrow (or worse yet, tonight)!

As I was driving into town at about noon today, I received a call from one of my Section 8 tenants. She said that they were nearly "frozen to death". Since that sounded pretty serious, I told her that I would be right over, I certainly don't want to have any tenants die from the cold. I knocked on the door and was surprised when the female tenant (the one that called) was wearing shorts and a short-sleeve shirt. I asked her what the problem was and she said that the kitchen was so cold that the water in her washing machine was frozen and that it was "ice cold" in the bedrooms upstairs.

Now I'm no newbie when it comes to operating rentals during the winter. I know that EVERY year tenants call to complain about the cold and about their utility bills. During the winter, I always carry two thermometers in my truck. So, I told her that we would put a thermometer in each room to see what the temperature actually is. Within a couple of minutes, the thermometer in the kitchen read 68 degrees and the one upstairs read nearly 70 degrees! Hardly cold enough to "freeze to death". As I did a little more looking, I determined that the tenants had placed things over the registers in both rooms. So, I instructed the tenants to uncover the registers and expressed my sincere belief that they would indeed survive!

Never underestimate a tenant's ability to exaggerate and be dramatic!!!

Freezing drizzle, wind, snow flurries, clouds, and cold - those are a good description of our weather today. In fact, it was an absolutely miserable and gloomy day here in Ohio today. I had intended to do some work on rentals, but after hearing the cold wind howl and seeing the gloomy weather, I decided to take it easy today. As a confirmed political junky, it was a good day to stay home. I watched the Hillary Clinton confirmation hearings, which were quite interesting. A big topic at the hearings was the money that Bill Clinton has made, especially from foreign governments. I knew that Bill Clinton had made a lot of money with his overseas speeches and consulting, but today I heard that the number might be $500 MILLION! WOW! I think we're all in the wrong business. Where do I sign up to give speeches to the Saudis?

Late this afternoon, I decided to go to K-mart to buy a new cellphone case. My old one lasted all of one month before falling completely apart. I bought it at WalMart, so I decided to see if K-mart would have a better one. While at K-mart, I hit the discount jackpot by finding a pair of very nice hiking boots for $15 on a clearance table! I felt like I had found a $100K house for $10K! That's one thing that real estate has taught me. Whether I'm shopping for a rental property, a car, or a pair of shoes, I want to buy at a HUGE DISCOUNT! In addition, I have learned that sometimes a deal appears even when you're not looking for one and you need to be prepared to take advantage of it. You can always do better than retail with a little effort!

While I was getting my stuff at K-mart, I received two calls from people that wanted to look at 2 different houses. So, since I was already in town, I agreed to show them the houses. They both seemed interested, but neither put down any money. I'd like to get them rented and based on the number of calls I'm receiving, I feel confident that I'll have them rented soon.

On the way home, I also stopped by the duplex where I fixed the front stairs yesterday to pick up the cones that I left.

I'm planning to actually get something done tomorrow. No more goofing around!

I had a great day snowboarding on Sunday. We went to Snow Trails right here in Ohio and the conditions were good. They had about 6 inches of real snow on Saturday and had done a good job grooming it. I particularly enjoyed the terrain park, or at least I enjoyed it right up until the moment I fell off a rail and about busted my butt (literally)! (OUCH!) I guess a day at the terrain park wouldn't be any fun without a few bruises.

Yesterday, Monday, I did a few little odd jobs on my rentals. I fixed some air leaks (cold air leaking around the door, etc) at one apartment and a leaking shower drain at another. I also put some vinyl concrete patch material on some steps while the weather was above freezing. Between doing these jobs, I showed 3 rentals and actually got one rented (complete with money)!

One of the applicants was a trio of young (20 something) people from Florida, two men and a woman. The looked at and wanted to rent my only remaining vacant 3 bedroom house. I explained our screening process to them and told them that the application fee was non-refundable. They took an application and said that they were going to the bank to get the application fee. This trio looked ok, but I still had an uneasy feeling about them. A little while later, the woman called and said that she had the application filled out and the money for the application fee. She also said that one of the men had decided to get his own place and wouldn't be applying! BINGO! I immediately knew what they were trying to pull! I told her that I understood that this man wouldn't be living with them, but I woud still be screening him since she originally told me that he would be living there. There was momentary silence on the line. So, I asked her if the truth was that the man couldn't pass the screening and she verified that he had indeed been recently evicted. What they were now doing was using her name to get an apartment and I would likely need to evict them also! Obviously, I told them that they were DENIED!

Here's an update on the arson/break-in situation that I reported on a couple of days ago. The police did catch and arrest the criminal. Evidently, this has become a relatively big deal in my area. I have received telephone calls from a police officer, a detective, and the arson investigator about the incident and I have now taken a copy of the security camera video to the arson investigator and the police. The police say that they are planning to charge the criminal with multiple counts, including at least one felony count, and are hoping to send him to prison for several years. Let's hope so!

All landlords know that you don't receive a lot of calls in the morning (at least til about 10am). Tenants that work day shift are busy working and tenants that don't work (far too many) are busy sleeping. When I got a phone call this morning at about 7:30 am, I knew that probably wasn't a good thing. The caller was a long time Section 8 tenant in one of my low income apartment buildings. She was calling to tell me that someone tried to break into her apartment at about 4am this morning. She said that there was some damage to her door and that the police wanted me to check our security camera video to see if we could identify the culprit. Since this wasn't an emergency, I told her that I would be there around 10 am.

When I arrived a little before 10 am, I went straight to my apartment building next door, where our security camera system is located. This particular security camera system covers both buildings. As I approached the door to the storeroom where the security camera system is located, I immediately noticed that something was wrong. There were scrape marks on the door frame; the door knob was dented; and the plastic trim piece on the padlock was missing. Someone had clearly tried to break into my storeroom also. Upon entering the storeroom, I started to burn a DVD of the camera footage from the night before.

While the DVD was being burned, I went next door to talk to the tenant. The door trim had been taken off the door by the criminal and there were tool marks on the door where the criminal had attempted to gain entry. There was also a shoe print on the door where it had obviously been kicked. I repaired the door and told the tenant that I would contact the police with the camera video after I had a chance to review it.

It's easiest to review the camera video on my laptop, so I grabbed the DVD and prepared to go home to get look at it on my laptop. As I was getting to my truck, I saw a man walking on the sidewalk wearing a badge around his neck (like a detective). I asked him if I could help him find someone and he asked who owned the building with the security cameras. I asked him who he was and he said that he was the investigator with the fire department. The building next door to mine had been the victim of an arson fire last night. I told him that I owned the building with the cameras and that there had been break-in attempts at both of my apartment buildings last night also. That couldn't be a coincidence, crimes at three buildings in a row in an area where there hasn't been any significant crime (at least since I put in the security camera system). I also discovered that 2 bicycles had been stolen from my building last night. I explained to the investigator that I had the camera video on DVD and was going home to look at it. I told him that I would call him with the result.

I went home to watch the video and have an early lunch. What I saw was shocking. A well-known criminal from the area was responsible for this mini-crime spree. I instantly knew the identity of the criminal. I had encountered this loser many times before. However, what was surprising was the extent of this criminal's activities the night before. The video caught him attempting to break into 6 apartments; attempting to break into my storeroom; and walking to the building next door at exactly the time that the fire was set. BUSTED!

I called the fire inspector and told him that I would bring the DVD down during the afternoon and I intended to call the police about getting them the video also.

My intention for the afternoon had originally been to replace an old corroded galvanized water line that was supplying one of the water tanks in the same building that had been broken into. So, one the way back into town, I stopped at the plumbing supply store to get the parts. I dropped off the video at the fire station and went back to the apartment building to start working on the water line. No sooner had I arrived at the building, my phone rang. It was a tenant at my apartment building next door. The criminal that had been on the crime spree the night before was there and in a confrontation with one of my tenants who caught him with her stolen bike. He was threatening my tenant with the same hammer that he used the night before to strike my door knob and pad lock. Needless to say, I immediately called the police, as did some of the tenants. Within a few minutes there were two police cruisers on the scene. The criminal had fled the scene, but I had the opportunity to show the officer the video. The officer said that based on the video, they would attempt to arrest the criminal and they asked me to take a copy of the video to the police station in the next couple of days.

After all the excitement settled down, I went next door and replaced the water line. That was enough for one day and I headed for home.

Tomorrow, my wife and I are going snowboarding!

The weather in Ohio was very cold and dreary today and I just wasn't motivated to do much. I originally planned to do a little work at about 10 am, but I just couldn't get going. By the time noon came, I had pretty much given up on doing anything significant. About that time, I received a call from a couple that wanted to look at one of my 3 bedroom houses. I went to the bank and post office and then I showed the house to the couple that called. They said that they would have the money on Monday, but I'm not holding my breath. As you may recall, I showed four units to applicants yesterday and I haven't received a single penny from any of them yet, even though all of them wanted the rentals. Needless to say, I won't hold any properties until I have cash in hand!

The only maintenance item I did today was to fix a leaking drain line in the basement of one of my apartment buildings. That was literally a 10 minute fix and then I headed home.

My day started with a call from one of the tenants. He reported that his furnace had gone out and that they were "freezing". I made that my first stop this morning and I took a look at the furnace, even though I am not a furnace expert. I checked that all the wires were intact; that the overtemperature switch was working; and everything else I could think to check. I discovered that the furnace motor was not working, although the motor switch seemed to be ok. Therefore, since I wasn't sure exactly what was wrong, I called my HVAC guy and he agreed to meet me at the property later in the morning.

Stop number two was at one of my 2 bedroom apartments - to show it to an applicant. The woman liked the apartment and said she would take it, but I never believe it until I receive the money.

Stop number three was at one of my 2 bedroom houses to show it to an applicant. This woman liked the house and also said that she would take it. I had already screened this woman and her husband about a week ago, but without money, it's far from a done deal.

My fourth stop was at a duplex that had frozen water lines in the basement during the last 5 degree day. I installed those insulating sleeves on all of the water lines and we'll see how it does during the next cold weather this weekend.

Stop number 5 was at one of my 3 bedroom houses to show it to another applicant. This couple liked the house and said they will have the money by Saturday. Again, we'll see!

Stop number 6 was back at the house with the furnace problem. I met the HVAC guy and he quickly diagnosed the problem as a bad furnace motor (which is what I thought). Fortunately, he had one on the truck and within an hour, he had it installed and the furnace was once again working.

On a humerous note, the tenants in the apartment were wearing heavy winter coats and talking about how cold they were. According to the thermostat, the temperature never got below 63 degrees F! When I told them that my wife and I keep our house at 67 degrees all the time, they said that they keep their apartment at 75 to 80 degrees because of their pet lizards! These are Section 8 tenants whose rent is 100% paid by Section 8!

My final stop of the day was back at the 2 bedroom apartment that I showed eariler in the day. Another couple wanted to look at it. They liked it and said they will take it. So, I've got two people that say they will take the same apartment. Personally, I'm just hoping that one of them will follow through!

Now that the holidays are over, we can finally get back to business! As I've said before, the rental business (and many other businesses) just absolutely die during the holidays (from Thanksgiving until after New Years). People are thinking about Christmas; buying presents; traveling to Grandma's house; parties; and other things not related to working. It's a nice time of the year from a social standpoint, but a very dull time from a business standpoint. Fortunately, that will end beginning Monday (January 5th) as people return to their normal routines.

Needless to say, I'm not immune to the Christmas holiday season. My wife and I attended several parties; bought Christmas presents; had a two day Christmas celebration; participated in the Christmas Cantada at church (no, I didn't sing); and even hosted a New Year's Eve party. We had a good time with family and friends, but now it's time to get back to business.

Since New Year's Day was the 1st, rent collections this month will be concentrated during a 3 day period (the 2nd through the 4th). For that reason, I will collect more rents on those days than is normally true. I collected a bunch of rents yesterday and also fixed a wobbly toilet and touched up the paint in a vacant 2 bedroom house. Today, I'm planning to take a deposit to the bank; collect more rents; and do a little preparation at one of my 3 bedroom houses for Monday's annual Section 8 inspection.

I've been slacking off during the holidays and haven't been posting my blog regularly. Now that the holidays are over, I'm planning to get back to posting on a regular basis.

I hope you have a happy and prosperous New Year!