All Forum Posts by: Genny Li

Regional and even town-to-town differences in utility costs can be profound.  My tenants were confused about their utility bill, so I saw their water for August.  Total charges were $43.12.

Then you break that down into what they're for....

Flat sewer fee (for condos and apartments): $22.02

Flat stormwater charge: $2.79

Flat water meter charge: $12.40

Water usage charge: $5.91

While the water usage charge will probably be 50% higher next month (because some moved in late), that's still so little that even renting furnished/utilities, water usage isn't going to be something I worry about.

There's no way to make blanket advice that makes sense for everywhere!

I wouldn't change anything to rent it out.  Repainted cabinetry is always going to be higher maintenance than the original finish.  Make changes if you really want them for YOU while you are there.  Otherwise, wait for stuff to wear out!

Can't remember the last time I saw shower glass doors. They are the most hideous, useless and dumbest inventions by mankind. They get stinky mildew between the tracks, they get stinky black mildew outside the tracks and frames, they leak and damage the floors, the glass is hard to keep clean and I personally had a friend who slipped in a shower, fell through a glass door, cot cut bad, passed out and bled to death. When is the last time you saw glass doors in a motel or hotel. There must be a reason!

 She said sliding glass door, so I'm assuming a patio door. Can't see how you'd get a chair through a bathroom door in a typical house while horsing around.  I'm sorry about your friend. My husband nearly died going through a commercial glass door as a child. Both are supposed to be safety glass, so that is supposed to be impossible.  In my husband's case, it was not safety glass at all.

In my own home, I have glass shower doors and absolutely love them, but they're pivoting doors with sweepers on the bottom--no tracks to collect muck.  But the new shower doors actually usually have tracks only on the outside and nothing at all on the inside, so they don't collect too much grime.

I wouldn't put them on a rental, though.

"The really weird thing is no matter what room I’m in they come and start scratching the floor any time I’m kneeling down or putting a lot of pressure in one spot."

That isn't happening.  Either you're hearing floor squeak as scratching, or you're having hallucinations.  I've been on home boards for 20 years now, and there have been 3 or 4 times that people have come in about scratching pest noises that follow them, and in every case, that person has been hallucinating, and in some cases, it's progressed to a clear psychotic break, going from "there are mice I can't get rid of" to "the government/my ex husband is sending in spy mice to get me."

If there aren't signs of a pest being there, bring in someone else.  If they can't hear it when you do, the sound is not there.  If the sound only happens when you're alone, it's not there.  There are actually a lot of functional people who suffer from hallucinations. The key is knowing that they're hallucinations and getting treatment.

Top freezers have the least issues.  If you have a really nice property, though, go side-by-side.  (I have a side-by-side because I've got 4 students sharing one fridge!)

Bottom freezer are most issue-prone. I love my enormous french door bottom freezer in my own house, but neveh eveh in a rental!

If you do stainless, do the fingerprint resistant ones.  It'll be less of a pain to turn over.

This is more of a "in Y market, a property that costs $X should have a fan."  Sort of like a dishwasher.  In certain markets, fans are expected in all bedrooms (at least) if that property is nicer than a certain amount.  Other markets hate fans with a passion. lol.  It really depends.

In a San Antonio B property, I'd expect them. I would not expect them in a Washington DC B or A property!

 Mine are college students.  Two got lost on the way to the condo even though it shows up great on Google maps and had to be coached in....

 I have left behind 9V batteries and will just charge them for whatever they use because every single smoke alarm had been disabled by the students who had been there before.  There are no hardwired ones in the rooms (they're directly outside the rooms because that was the norm in 1998), only battery powered ones, so it would start beeping when the batteries were low and the students would just take the batteries out and never replace them.  I just asked them to pay me (at cost) for the batteries they use, and if some are missing at the end, I'll charge 'em for it.

 Lol!  These are not grow lights!  Fortunately, the boys are all very straightlaced. One of them wanted me to completely forbid any drinking at all in the unit.  Another my parents realized they knew from premarital Christian counselling. lol.  (Those two haven't actually been the ones to need so much help, though.  It's the other 2 I've heard from about...problems.  Light bulb guy is toilet guy and hole-in-door guy.  Utilities guy is my-room-is-too-hot guy, but then again, the light bulb guy's room was freezing, but he just didn't complain about it.

They have had remedial register adjustment training, so they should be GTG with that, at least!  There is honestly a bad HVAC balance problem, but it's more something that I'm worried about wearing out my air handler super prematurely than something that they can't adjust to make their stay comfortable.

 Thank goodness I didn't sign the kid who needed me to send him a link to the bus schedule, because he couldn't figure it out himself and didn't realize that campus buses had a different schedule when classes were in session.  He also asked me how he was supposed to get to the grocery store.  *facepalm*

You may have missed the event at the end of the last month where one of the boys thought I would send a plumber because he clogged a toilet with poo.