Investor · Austin, TX · Member since 2013 · 443 posts · 174 votes
I know there are the standard rats, mice, termites, bedbugs, fleas but anything out of the ordinary you have found? Reason I ask is I am currently dealing with some birds that think they can just make nests in every nook and cranny of my siding/roof. Birds are just rats with wings as far as I am concerned!!
P.S. Bonus points if you have a solution to my bird problem!!
I am going to write a blog post on this but the short (and interesting) part of the story is that the first investment I ever did was a lease to own MH that was 5 hours away, and after a year of making payments on 5 year note, the guy decided he didn't want it and just left and moved in a family of undocumented people. He then charged them rent but eventually stopped paying me. Only found out after the rent came later and later, and then stopped, and I had to fire the "property manager" who let that happen and find another to help just figure out what was going on and clean up the mess. After she got them out, found out the place was hoarder-level trashed, and a few weeks later a feral dog had found a hole in the floor in a closet and got in the house after the people were out, and had a littler of puppies in it. Whee!
I got a call about bats in the basement of a duplex once. I went out and didn't see anything. Did a good walk around the perimeter and sealed up any holes I could find. I vot another call a week or two later. Didn't find anything again and the holes were still sealed and just snowed a decent amount outside. I came back a couple days later deciding that I was gonna reseal the "bird boxes" rim joists in the basement. I pulled out the insulation and caulked the seams and then painted them. Every now and then I would grab the first piece of insulation to pull out and hear a couple squeaks. I had about 6-7 bats pulled out of that basement but nothing since then. I did this project over a couple days and one day I came down and went to go pull the string to turn on a light and a bat had gotten its wing caught on the string, gotten stuck and died and started to shrivel up on it. Gross!!
Couple mice, voles, moles, bees and ants, a possom on the back porch once. Squirrels do a lot of damage though and do not give up. I probably had to take out a half dozen before they stopped building nests in my front porch roof which I then could seal up knowing that they were not in there.
Once had a tenant complain about fly maggots. She didn't get it that maggots don't migrate from elsewhere, they were hatching in her own dirty apartment!
The saddest thing.... a dead fawn under the back deck. The pest control company that removed it for us suspects the fawn had probably become sick and it's mother (mommy deer-est) probably tucked it under the deck for protection.
A friend of mine had tenants move out and leave a 300 lb pet pig in the house . She was going to call animal control , her husband was " Hell no , I am calling the butcher "
I am continually suprised in my short time of landlording, on tenants behavior day in/day out, as well as their entitlement mentality. They continue to make bad decisions for them and their family, yet seem to have no concern for changing or whats actually going on in reality.