All Forum Posts by: Joshua A Kloos

@Jim K.

Heeeyyyy, be nice. This sort of situation is a nightmare for both the tenants and the building owner. 

I do agree with you it is a little strange that the issues are all popping up at once. I'd wager the previous tenants just never mentioned the issues and there was not a detailed walk-through prior to the current tenants moving in. 

@Account Closed

I have had this happen before when I worked in maintenance. For future note, it could have been a case of over promising and under delivering. If the tenants expectations are too high OR one of your employees has thrown you under the bus (said something negative about you), things can easily spiral out of control. 

If they are paying rent on time, maybe just weather the storm and take what you can from the experience to never experience this sort of frustration again. 

On the bright side, man, you have a ton of repairs done AND you were able to collect rent for all of the months it may have needed to be vacant! 

PS There are some cool answering services who will screen calls and forward them to you for after hour emergencies if it is deemed to be an emergency by the standards you give the answering service.They run as low as $75/month. 

Might be worth the investment! 

Good luck!  

Make sure you turn off the valve at the actual water meter. A lot of old homes will have random valves all over the place (I do maintenance for a living on 1880-1930s era buildings). That being said you may just be experiencing the building water draining...the system does need to drain once shutoff. 

Also, there could be a return pump - I doubt your building would have one of these though unless it is a larger commercial building. Good luck! 

Hi! 

I work full-time as a maintenance guy at a property management company and we do these types of projects weekly! 

Here is my two cents: 

I love tiling. There is nothing better than a bathroom with a full-tile floor and walls. It adds aesthetics, clean-ability and durability. And, from a maintenance standpoint, is much easier to clean when the tenant moves out...and much harder to damage. 

However, tile is much more expensive. Shower inserts are nice, look nice and provide water protection just like tile would at a fraction of the cost. The downside to shower inserts is that they look cheap fairly quickly - the caulking yellows and they can peel away from the wall when water gets behind it (water will get behind it)

At the end of the day, either option is good but I always push to do the tile. The unit just looks nicer. When a resident walks in and sees tile it immediately feels like a much more upscale unit.

Investment Info:

Small multi-family (2-4 units) buy & hold investment.

Purchase price: $214,000
Cash invested: $9,500

A 1890's build duplex - two 3 bedroom units. Approximately 1300 square feet each.

Currently owner occupied.