Michael Rossi's Landlording Blog

If you were looking for me today, you would have found me in the kitchen. No, I haven't suddently taken up gourmet cooking, I was rehabbing the kitchen in a one bedroom apartment. The rehab started with the badly sloped floor at the back wall in the kitchen. This is an older building and I assumed that the floor joists might have wrotted or otherwise dropped a couple of inches. Once I started working on the floor, I was pleasantly surprised that the structural members were in good shape. In fact, the floor had obviously been repaired in the past few years (before I owned it), but the repair just wasn't level. My solution was to cut out a section of the floor; add some new material on the joists to level them; and then install a new section of flooring.

After repairing the floor, I went to Lowes to buy some new kitchen cabinets and countertop because the old ones were beyond repair. Today must have been my lucky day because Lowes had a scratch and dent 36" base cabinet for only $79! I bought that base cabinet; two 15" cabinets; and a new countertop and headed back to the apartment. Normally, I wouldn't put new cabinets in a rental if there were any other choice, but in this case, there simply was no other choice. I did get the new cabinets installed; the countertop cut; and the double stainless steel sink installed. At that time, I had reached my limit of fun for one day and I called it quits. I'll continue the work on this apartment tomorrow.

I didn't see the convicted felon that has been stalking me today and I assume that he was arrested last night for violating the restraining order I have against him. Hopefully, I won't see him for another couple of months.

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.

 

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me! There are a lot of little children's sayings that have to do with lying. They were probably all written by parents who were landlords; not as a result of the children lying, but because of the tenants lying! As a landlord, I'm so cynical that I just assume that everyone is lying until proven otherwise. When it comes to tenant applicants, if you assume that the applicant is lying, more often than not you'll be right.

In addition to assuming that all applicants are lying, I also judge a tenant by their looks, mannerisms, and the words they use. If they've got a lot of tattoes, especially on their face, neck, and hands, I assume that they're a druggie. If they've got such baggy pants that they need one hand to hold them up, I assume that they're a druggie in training. If the applicant carefully chooses their words, I assume that they're trying to shade the truth (lie). If an applicant pauses when asked if they've been evicted or stumbles when asked about their criminal record, I assume that they're trying to hide the truth.

Using these simple clues and a little common sense, I'm able to pick out about 95% of the scumbags before I ever do a screening. However, there is always a very small percentage of the population that are such practiced liars, that they slip past my initial meeting with them. Such was the case of a young family that I met a couple of days ago. They looked at the 2 bedroom apartment I just got back from a mental patient turned druggie that voluntarily left in lieu of being evicted. They were in their 20's with a young baby. I didn't see any tattoes or inappropriate piercings. They answered all my questions immediately and confidently. They filled out an application and said that they would take the apartment. I was very comfortable that they would pass the screening and move into the apartment in the next couple of days.

THEY FOOLED ME! I always start my screenings with a check of the local municipal court website. With barely a single mouse click, the extent of their lies became blatantly obvious! They had just been evicted in late 2008 and the husband (shack up boy friend) had been arrested at least 3 times in the past year! That was all I needed to see and I stopped the screening. Needless to say, I'm not renting an apartment to lying scumbags like that!

The moral of the story is no matter how nice and upstanding a person seems - you've got to screen them!

 

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.