All Forum Posts by: Susan Maneck

The problem is that you lose most of that snowmelt to evaporation in a dry area like Arizona unless you put the irrigation system underground. 

There is a very, very old solution for Arizona and by that I mean Iran mastered it more than three thousand years ago. It is called the Qanat system, an underground irrigation system that brings water from the snow capped mountains to the arid plains. Unlike wells which lower the water table within 50 years, it takes 10,000 years for the water table to be effected using a qanat system. The main drawback is that this irrigation system has always been very labor intensive, but surely modern technology could help take care of that. The University of Arizona has an Arid Lands program which could help in this endeavor. https://azhydrosoc.org/june-me...

Besides the financial end of it, one way to teach these kids about the mechanics of fixing up or owning a house might be to have them work on a Habitat Home. 

We need to teach financial literacy as a whole in Mississippi both at the high school and college level.  When I first started buying real estate in Jackson I had a dream of eventually selling my houses to my tenants, but most of them don't even have bank accounts! We especially need to teach them about credit, debt and how to avoid predatory lending. Hilliard Lackey and myself have led Youth Empowerment Programs in the past but we were mostly working with Middle Schoolers and were concentrating on other areas. I'm living in California right now but you might consider talking to Dr. Hilliard Lackey about what you are doing. I can give you his contact information privately if you are interested. 

HUD requires that Section 8 tenants be provided with stoves and refrigerators so unless a tenant tells me they have their own, I provide them. No, I don't have that many Section 8 tenants but I do want to be prepared for them. What I don't do is repair ice makers. If they create problems, I just disconnect them. If the house came with a dishwasher I will replace them when they breakdown. Only once did I provide a washer and dryer and the tenant stole them when they were evicted!

Self evictions are legal in Mississippi *only* if you can do so without causing a breech of peace. The only time I've ever done them is when the tenants had essentially abandoned the property. As others have suggested you might consider taking the utilities out of your name first as he is clearly unable to compensate you for them, but give him a few days notice first so he has the chance to put them in his own name should he choose to do so. I would treat the gun just like you would any other deposit. If he leaves owing you more money than the deposit then you don't return it, but you do send him a letter specifying what is still owed and that it exceeds the deposit. Keep in mind that if you don't take him to court you can't get a judgment that would enable you to garnish his wages and get back the money owed. It is a good time to sell real estate in Mississippi, the best I've seen it since right after Hurricane Katrina, but you will likely have to put some money into fixing it up. Good luck! 

I don't know about Milestone but when it says the application has been paid it really means the money has been approved. 

 No, they did not say the application was ever paid they just left it in limbo for month after month after month and when I would call they only told me the application was pending.