Michael Rossi's Landlording Blog

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! 

 

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.