All Forum Posts by: Karen F.

Shut off their water.  If there's a leak that's damaging the unit, video it, and text them asking for access to repair the leak.  That will document their refusal or failure to respond.  Water goes back on as soon as they allow you access to repair the leak.

Legally, you can secure it, and if they ask for keys, you have to give them keys.

But there's no court right now, won't be probably until July or later, and I have a feeling that the cops aren't going to help them.  I'd declare it abandoned, inspect for evidence of illegal activity and call the cops in if you find it (grow operation, meth house, drug scales, you name it), secure it, move their stuff into a storage place that gives first month free (take tons of pictures) and board the place up really tightly, including the best locks you can get, and start getting the place cleaned up, and re-rented as quickly as possible (but don't remove the boards on windows until you either have tenants in there, or bars on the windows.  Send a certified letter to their last known address (your unit) informing them that you found the property abandoned, and where their property is, so that they can collect it.  Let them go to court in three to four months.  I have a feeling that the judge will give you the benefit of the doubt, under the circumstances.

Does anyone know if mom and pop landlords can apply for unemployment or a forgivable loan under the stimulus?  I wouldn't be surprised if over half our tenants don't pay us until this is all over.  But we are a small mom and pop LL, no employees.  We have about 32 units, in about 12 multifamilies.

I've had people offer me this after they've gotten a big settlement from..... nuisance lawsuit against a former landlord!  This is a huge red flag.  Stable people with normal income don't do this.  People with money and no income, no stability, for whatever reason, do.  You'd have to factor in the eventual cost of an eviction for non-payment of rent, not to mention the repairs.  If you had a clause regarding monthly inspections in the lease, it would discourage those who are looking for a site for illegal activity.

Rent is still due because the tenant is still using my property, which provides MY livelihood, not to mention that I am incurring expenses to keep that roof over his head.  One might as well ask, why do people still have to pay for the food at the supermarket?  Tenants can get unemployment, Medicaid, food stamps, utility shutoffs are suspended.  They will have the means to pay their rent.  Unfortunately, as a Class C housing LL, I forsee that some will see it as an opportunity to sit in the unit without paying rent for as long as they can, until the courts reopen and we can evict them.  We'll get them out eventually, but I bet I'll lose 6 months rent on the unit, and since they're marginal to begin with, I won't see any of it from them.

All rental buildings are unmortgaged.  We do have about a 50% mortgage on our primary residence, and about a 2/3 mortgage on the summer house, which is rented.  Thank GOD I already have the entire payment for the summer rental, which is more than the carrying costs for the house.

We probably have in cash reserves enough to pay the carrying costs of the rental buildings, our mortgage, and the mortgage on the summer house, and our living expenses, for a year or more, without going into retirement funds, but I'm sure we will see some rent coming in.  We are definitely those people who have NOT taken advantage of leveraging.  We have enough.  We could have had more.  Had we been highly leveraged going into 2008, we could have lost it all.  

I have a feeling that people are only mortgaged to at most 80% of value, won't lose their rentals if we don't have rent for a few months.  It's not as if the buildings are upside down - although if property values on rentals drop precipitously, they might become that way.

These are all nice ideas, and help to give you a sense of control over something that you cannot control, which may be comforting to some.  But they won't do a damned thing to protect yourself from infection.  The only way that you can do that, is to avoid encountering the virus, and the only way you can do THAT, is to self-isolate totally in your home.  When forced to go out by necessary circumstances, take every possible infectious disease precaution.

I have a unique combination of factors that make me able to do a lot of research.  I'm a retired primary care physician, a cancer patient, and a news-junkie, also a medical history junkie.  Also a very critical reader.  I was morbidly fascinated and horrified by what was happening in Wuhan, and knew that unless we shut our borders to incoming travelers (all travelers, not just non-citizens, not just people returning from China), that we'd be in the same boat, soon.  That ship is just now setting sail, and we do not have the same kind of society that will permit the extraordinarily strict shutdown that China used to stop it, so it's likely to sail to its final destination - it won't stop until 70 to 90 % are infected, and with a death rate of 2%, 6 million dead.

  We pulled all our money out of the stock market a little less than a year ago, because we felt that the bull market was unsustainable, although we did think that it might run as long as Trump was in office, because we felt that he would do anything to prop up the market.  I wanted to put it all back in two days ago, when the DJIA was at about 18500, because of the fact that even events like 9/11 didn't keep the market down for very long.  Other than the Great Depression, the nadir came very quickly after any event.  With the '29 crash, although the market recovery took a long time, the nadir came in '32.    I felt that with this being long term retirement money for my husband (I don't think I'll be around to enjoy it), we still wouldn't need that money for another decade, and it was better to jump back in on the way down, than try to catch the rapid rise on the way up.  But he was afraid, felt that the market's nadir will be when things are much worse (which they will be in a month or so), and he couldn't see that our government giving a blank check drawn on future generations to prop up the market now would probably mean that this would be the nadir.  I think that it will, however, have another dead cat bounce or two, will go down into the upper teens again, before this is all over.  I told him that I'd discuss it with him, but that my inclination was to catch the next time it's in the upper teens, knowing that we would likely miss the nadir by about 10%, but better to do that than miss it by 20-30% on the way up.

As for staying alive.  If you do not want to catch the virus, don't do take-in food.  Coronaviruses are cold viruses.  How many times have you come down with a cold, and you have NO idea where you picked it up?  That was likely from fomites (viral particles on objects) or respiratory droplets, and not from someone who was sneezing or coughing, because you would have remembered that.  Take in food is just too high a risk.  The cook, the person who packed it, the person who delivered it are all possible for getting viral particles on the food, packaging, outer bag.  Of course, if you sign for anything, that's a total fomite bath.

  I would recommend stocking up the house, if you haven't already.  If you can, leave phone at home.  Wear all washable clothing, and a mask and gloves to shop.  If you don't have a mask, use a bandana.  It's really to keep you from touching your face.  Remove mask and gloves and throw in back seat of car when you arrive home.  They're no touch for two days.  In fact, so is the car, since you were possibly carrying viral particles on your hands when you drove home.  When you put the groceries in the car, separate the perishables from the non-perishables.  The non-perishables, leave in the car for two to three days.  Then they'll probably be safe.  If you want to be absolutely sure, three days.  The perishables - after you take off mask and gloves and throw them in the car, go inside (leaving trunk and car doors open so that you can get at groceries without touching handles) and wash your hands thoroughly at nearest sink.  Throw all your clothing into the washing machine.  You go straight to the shower.  After that, get bleach wipes, or rubbing alcohol and paper towels, wear clean disposable gloves if you have them.  Wipe down every perishable container with the wipes.  Take items to the sink, wash them well with soapy water if possible.  That will remove any viral particles, and now they'll be safe to go into the fridge.

Then do not go anywhere nor does anyone in your household.  If you go outside, stay at least 15 feet from others.  Respiratory droplets can travel more than six feet.  Order non-perishable food online, or get someone to shop for you, and treat the delivered food as detailed above.

I know it sounds crazy, but as an MD with absolutely no functioning immunity to viruses at the moment, I had to research the safest way to handle this.  I sent my healthy teen to live with my healthy young adult for the duration.  We are only three in the house, and two of us are immunosuppressed.  The third is of course observing these criteria in order to protect the two of us.  Fortunately, he has enough science background to understand how critical this is, if he wants me and our daughter to live through it.

The reports of it being more serious in young adults than we had thought have me worrying that I made a mistake to send my teen to the older sib, who works in a critical job that has contact with the public (although now the bank has closed its lobby, and only does transactions drive-thru), and still has some social contact.

As for the apartments, if something really needs immediate emergency attention, like the one toilet or a water leak, we have a young and wonderful workman we can call upon.  We tell the entire family to leave the apartment before he gets there, and have him wear a mask and gloves.  We only have one vacant unit right now, I screen the applicants carefully before potentially showing it, my husband opens it before they arrive, he stays 15 feet from them, they go in by themselves to see it, then he locks up wearing gloves and mask.  We really would only show to a perfect candidate - perfect record by our standards, and a job in a critical industry that won't shut down.  We can afford for it to sit vacant as long as necessary.

Stay safe and healthy to all.

It's actually an interesting point.  It is felt that the tremendous death rate in Europe from the Black Plague in the 1300s led to the Rennaissance and the end of feudalism, because it cleaned out so many people, including the landowners.  Sort of like a social/population forest fire, that allows for new growth.

If the coronavirus cannot be stopped by social distancing, then it could very well take most of the people in their 90s and 80s, and a big chunk of those in their 70s too, along with some younger ones.  Think of the effects on society.  There will be a transfer of wealth from the elderly to their children, plus a great decrease of draw on social security, Medicare, and Medicaid.  It's awful to say, but it would relieve a lot of the pressure on social security.

Of course medicine has improved.  We have antibiotics and ventilators now.  But people who are dying of coronavirus are not dying of bacterial pneumonia.  They're dying of viral pneumonia, and as of now, we have nothing to fight that.  But you're assuming that people will have ACCESS to care.  They won't.  In about 3 weeks, every ICU bed and ventilator in the country will be in use, and there will be many, many people in need of ICU/vent care who won't be able to get it.  They will die in place at home.

360 million.  Say 300 million get it.  2% death rate.  That is six million.  You do the math.  This is only the beginning of the beginning, unless we can stop it by strict lockdown and intense contact tracing - and we haven't done either yet.