Michael Rossi's Landlording Blog

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!