All Forum Posts by: Christine Swaidan

I'm a member of the Apartment Owners Association. They have a monthly magazine with helpful information. Their website also has downloadable forms that I use all the time, plus I do my credit checks through them. They offer free or low cost classes on different topics throughout the year. 

As a property owner I have been through a few plumbers. The most important factor for me was finding someone who would cover emergencies at off hours (for multi family properties). I had a couple instances where plumber showed up, turned off water to building and I had twenty units waking up to no water. Some things can't be avoided but at least once when this happened it should have been fixed when they came the first time. Second factor is being neat and tidy on the job. I found I couldn't live with the guy who would leave his mess behind for manager to clean up and damaged some carpet while he was doing a repair because he didn't use a drop cloth.  I discussed this with current company that I use and so far so good (18 months and counting). 

We "recommend" in the rental agreement. 

We deal with a lower income clientele. Our residents for the most part could not come up with a larger security deposit. Most tenants that exit get their full deposits back. Rarely do we run into a situation where I must bill them for damages beyond their deposit. This is probably because we have seniors and it tends to be the last stop for many of them. 

Fillmore, CA. Small town, in Ventura County. 

We ask for a security deposit equal to one month's rent. 

Our units are not separately metered so one bill for 20 units per month. Tenant pays water for SFR.

@Account Closed I agree the a/c must be working. And working means blowing cold air. When it's 112 that cold blowing a/c is not going to cool an apartment down to 68 degrees. We keep two new units on hand at all times and change out as necessary. For those seniors that don't want to run their units because of electric bill we have a/c in lobbies where we pay electric bill. In fact if I were smart I would drive the 25 miles from my home on the coast--NO A/C HERE--and sit in the cool lobby of my apartment building. Terrible heat wave here in SoCal. This heat is killing me!

Hi @Eric N. I have senior units in Fillmore with our handyman on call all weekend to take care of a/c issues. When it gets as hot as it has been these past few days I'm not surprised that your a/c is considered inadequate. We've let our tenants know that When it hits 112 (like yesterday) there will be limitations to the systems. I would not pay for the hotel as long as it is working. I suggest you check the temperature in the house near the a/c.  If it's a window unit it could help to run a fan in front of it to push the air farther into the room. 

hi @Raj Kamaria  Just going through some old forums and thought I would answer your question. We have part time handyman. The instructions we give to our onsite manager is to keep a running list of jobs that need to be done. We never call the handyman for just one small job, however if there is something thing that needs to be done asap he is called. It is a guarantee that handyman will be walking through the hallway and tenants will stop him with request. We want to make it worth his time to show up.