Michael Rossi's Landlording Blog

It's finally Friday and the end of a very busy week. Yesterday, I described the very frustrating beginning of the week and although today wasn't frustrating, it continued to be very busy. I guess I was owed a busy week after taking almost all of last week off.

I got up very early this morning after my wife heard the plop, plop, plop of water dripping from the ceiling (through the smoke detector) in the upstairs hall. It seems that the storm damage was more severe than I anticipated and last night's one-inch rain allowed the roof to leak. I had tarped the damaged area of the garage and that was dry. However, I didn't have a tall enough ladder to reach the roof over our house and the contractor thought the roofing felt would be sufficient to prevent leaks. There really wasn't any damage to the ceiling, other than perhaps the smoke detector. I will need to repaint the now water-stained ceiling, but that should be it. If it is going to rain again before the roof is replaced next week, that high portion of the roof must be tarped.

I started my work day by declining to accept a tenant that lied about a previous eviction on her application. She and her boyfriend had applied to rent one of my one-bedroom apartments. They already had a local government agency that was going to pay their first month's rent and their security deposit, and I had confirmation of that agency's committment to pay. Unfortunately, when I checked the application, I discovered that she and her husband had been evicted in 2007. Worse yet, the landlord that evicted her was her mother! What kind of scumbag makes her own mother take her to court? I don't want to find out!

Next on the agenda was signing the lease for one of the two 1-bedroom apartments that I had left. The screening results for this woman were very good and she paid two months rent up front. Gotta like that!

I then showed my last available 1-bedroom apartment to another prospective tenant. He liked it and said he will call at the beginning of the week to sign the lease. We'll see.

Then, it was time to collect rents - TWO DAYS EARLY! Because the first day of March arrives on a Sunday, many people got their government checks today and still others got their direct deposits yesterday. So, I ended up picking up about 8 rents today, even though official rent collection doesn't start until the 1st!

Between picking up rents, I received not one, but two calls from tenants that were having problems with their faucets. The first tenant had a kitchen faucet that was making a very loud whistling sound. I thought that the strainer was partial obstructed and took it off and cleaned it. After re-installing it, it still whistled. I took it off and discovered that the faucet was whistling even without the strainer installed. I'll install a new faucet there next week.

The next faucet problem was a little more serious. This faucet would not shut off, even though both knobs felt like they were working properly. I made a quick trip to Lowes to pick up a faucet and installed it. No leaks!

I also stopped by one of my 2-bedroom house that some of my neighboring tenants reported might have experienced a move-out. Sure enough, the tenants who were about 6 months into a one-year lease were gone. There was a significant amount of trash in the house, but I didn't see any damage. If I have any spare time this weekend, I may go trash it out. I don't think it will take much longer than an hour.

I got home in time to make up some quick deposits and run to the bank before it closed. Quite a busy week and I'm glad it's over.

Have a good weekend!

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.

A few days ago, I ordered 4 new cameras and the power supply for my second surveillance camera installation.  I will be installing this system, which will eventually be 8 cameras, at one of my 4 unit buildings.  With the 8 cameras installed, I will be able to cover the 4 unit building; my duplex across the street; and another of my duplexes a few doors down the street.  I'm anxious to get the new surveillance system installed as it provides not only security for my tenants but also helps reduce problems on the entire street.   

FedEx was scheduled to deliver this package today and my wife had somewhere to be.  Therefore, I decided to take the day off and wait for my package to arrive and work on progressing a little farther in my new 007 "Quantum of Solace" game for the WII.   I had been stuck in the warehouse section (near the barge) and was having a great deal of problem killing all the bad guys.  I probably played this section at least 25 times, but I finally got through it today, by switching from a sniper rifle to an AK-47.  That allowed me to kill all the bad guys and move onto the barge and therefore to rapidly clear that level.

In a bit of real life crime fighting, I received a call this afternoon from the city prosecutor.  She called to tell me that I would be receiving a subpoena from the sheriff regarding testifying against the convicted felon that I caught on my surveillance cameras attempting to break into six apartments and then setting an arson fire in an adjacent building (not mine) as he attempted to kill the tenants there that he was mad at.  She said that she is going to subpoena me for both the pre-trial proceeding as well as the actual jury trial.  I told her that I would be happy to testify and that I looked forward to getting this scumbag off the streets!

Tomorrow is supposed to be a beautiful day, with temperatures in the mid 50's.  I'm planning to get out of the house and do a little work.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet, but I'll think of something.

Michael Rossi is the author of 1 Minute to Rental Property Riches, which is the only book that tells the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about the rental property business. You won't find any guru motivational nonsense; unrealistic hype; or promises of instant riches without work in this book. What you will find is the critical information that you need to start, build, and operate a successful rental property business. And if you're wondering about the title of the book, 1 Minute to Rental Property Riches, it's a sarcasm of the silly guru infomercials that promise untold riches without work - which we all know is RIDICULOUS!

A few days ago, I ordered 4 new cameras and the power supply for my second surveillance camera installation.  I will be installing this system, which will eventually be 8 cameras, at one of my 4 unit buildings.  With the 8 cameras installed, I will be able to cover the 4 unit building; my duplex across the street; and another of my duplexes a few doors down the street.  I'm anxious to get the new surveillance system installed as it provides not only security for my tenants but also helps reduce problems on the entire street.   

FedEx was scheduled to deliver this package today and my wife had somewhere to be.  Therefore, I decided to take the day off and wait for my package to arrive and work on progressing a little farther in my new 007 "Quantum of Solace" game for the WII.   I had been stuck in the warehouse section (near the barge) and was having a great deal of problem killing all the bad guys.  I probably played this section at least 25 times, but I finally got through it today, by switching from a sniper rifle to an AK-47.  That allowed me to kill all the bad guys and move onto the barge and therefore to rapidly clear that level.

In a bit of real life crime fighting, I received a call this afternoon from the city prosecutor.  She called to tell me that I would be receiving a subpoena from the sheriff regarding testifying against the convicted felon that I caught on my surveillance cameras attempting to break into six apartments and then setting an arson fire in an adjacent building (not mine) as he attempted to kill the tenants there that he was mad at.  She said that she is going to subpoena me for both the pre-trial proceeding as well as the actual jury trial.  I told her that I would be happy to testify and that I looked forward to getting this scumbag off the streets!

Tomorrow is supposed to be a beautiful day, with temperatures in the mid 50's.  I'm planning to get out of the house and do a little work.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet, but I'll think of something.