All Forum Posts by: Tom C

I hear ya Debbie, but when you are deal with Sec 8 tenants, running credit is pointless, most of them can't even get a checking account. Honestly, this was a good responsible guy. He often just made promises he could never keep. He would have came in and clean the place, but when he finally got around to it and that's not how it works. Besides, this place needed much more then just a good cleaning.

I am sure I could research this pretty easily, but how did the whole 'eviction' process start? Who ever thought up the idea that you have to go to court to kick someone out of your property? The whole idea seems completely redickulous when you really think about it.

Youngstown is a very difficult place to make a buck.

Anyone that would name their kid "Mondoman" has real issues. Although his wife is pretty hot.

We can only apply for a reassesment once a year. I believe it is in Aug. So far our values have not dropped enough to make much difference.

If the city, county and state would cut back to 2000 levels and start running like a company this would not be an issue. Instead of laying off workers, either cut their pay or freeze it. I know of 20 cops and firemen who were recently laid off that would rather have what they got paid back in 2000 then have nothing.

The majority of the schools around me have been in emergency status several times and if they can't pull out of it, the state comes in and takes it over until they can. It's really not a big deal. Heck, the school I went to was always in emergency status and the state did take us over and nothing ever changed.

When you have a total school population K - 12 of 372 kids and a bunch of dirt poor parents, what do you expect.

that's an understatement.. How in the world did you pay $230K in 2004 for a property that will only appraise for $140K now? Is it possible for the value to go that low?

Matty,

I hope you watched him and asked a lot of questions. That's how you will learn to do it yourself. Saturday my home oil furnace went out and after screwing around with it for several minutes, I determined that it must be the Primary Oil Control. So I got on the web and found one for $120 bucks. I found a company that had one local. I went there and it turned out to be the wrong one.

So I was going to buy one on line, but then decided I would call the company and ask them a few questions. After talking to one of the tech's, I found out that the control was working exactly the way it should, basically shutting my furnace down because something else was wrong.

So I buckled and called a furnace guy that used to put in central air last summer, by this time it was 5 pm on a Saturday. He came out and I watched him clean and completely service my furnace. He spent about 2 hours and got it running great and only charged me $158. It was a complete mess.

I stood there the whole time and watched what he did and asked a lot of questions. Next year when it's time to service it, I can now do it and won't have to rely on someone else. I felt real guilty about not being able to fix it myself and my Dad wouldn't be very happy with me either, but as a kid we only heated with a wood stove and I never got the chance to learn how to fix a oil furnace.

You can bet next time, even though his was extremely cheap, I won't have to call him just to come out to clean out the heat exchanger, put on a new nozzle, clean off the cat's eye and change the oil filter.

Very cool Doug.. I am in no hurry. We have plenty of stock and the my last rehab over the summer really kicked my butt, then I just finished a 2 week rehab on the rental that a Sec 8 tenant trashed on his way out the door. I can tell ya though, if I have to fly to a recent purchase, that is far too much work for me. I want to be at least 30 mins driving distance from my homes.

Good luck and keep us posted on your rehab.

Matty,

It sounds like you have an outlet that is controlled by the switch. Many of my older homes have this where there is no light in the ceiling. This is so you can still plug in a lamp and control it with a switch on the wall. You must have wired it incorrectly at the outlet. Look for an outlet that is closest to the switch that you are turning on, remove the wires to that outlet and then turn the switch back on and test it to see if there is power going to it, turn the switch off and test it again, make sure the power is turn off.