All Forum Posts by: Walt Payne

That could result in a very exciting experience, even with permission.

@Karen Margrave  Wordpress does have it's advantages, and blogs are useful at building ratings. If you want to look at easy to use tools for developing more traditional websites, one good one that I like is coffeecup software. Their Visual Site Designer is easy to use, inexpensive, and they have great support. 

One hard to spot element in their literature, is that it is designed for Linux. It will work under Windows, but ..... If you use godaddy they provide the needed support elements, just set up as a Linux server, not Windows.

 As I said above, you may not be getting the labor for free. The deferred costs could be significantly higher than painting it yourself.

@Hattie Dizmond  You would be surprised how much that cheap paint will cost you. We use a medium grade satin paint, and use the same few colors for all of our rentals, though in different combinations and proportions. So one quick coat will almost always suffice. Cheap paints require extra coats, so you have not only paid as much for the paint, but you have doubled your labor costs.

@Dustin DuFault  

I'm going to advise against EVER allowing tenants to paint unless they are painters by trade. Even if you think 70% might be neat and tidy and not make a mess (a hugely inflated number) how much damage do you think one messy painter can cause to your property? For example I almost never paint ceilings. But a messy painter could cause a serious mess against the ceiling, requiring that it be painted. And what about kitchen cabinets, carpets, hardwood floors, tile grout, etc, etc, etc.

Really bad way to save yourself some labor, because in the long run it could cost you a lot. And since you approved it, you eat the cost.

Listen to your husband. I think others have said this in a different way, but I would approach the problem as a "what" rather than a "who". Fix the problem of what is being done, because dealing with it as far as who is doing it will be impossible. Even if it were not a legal issue it would be impossible to restrict their visitation without causing problems. 

I like a variation of @Elizabeth Colegrove's idea of fines. Maybe add in to the lease that all police reports involving problems caused by tenants, or their guests, will result in a $100 fine, to be donated to a charity benefiting police widows and children. That way you don't come off as greedy, and hopefully the problem gets resolved.

We go one step beyond that. We treat it like a building inspector does. We list critical mileposts that will trigger inspections and also draws. Obviously small jobs do not require such inspections, and not all jobs will.

We do 99% of our own work, but my old boss used something like this .... "Contractor will be directly responsible for the quality of workmanship of any workers or subcontractors he hires. Contractor will be responsible for the timely, professional performance of all tasks, in accordance with legal requirements. This is to include any building permits or licensing requirements. Contractor will provide proof of liability insurance and workman's comp insurance prior to beginning work. No payments will be made until insurance, licensing and permit requirements are documented." He also used a penalty/bonus based on holding costs as suggested by @Will Barnard . 

@Joshua Dorkin  I second the idea of a podcast on this topic. Or maybe you need to just schedule a short series of them because there is so much to cover.

 Yeah. I have had a few that when I asked for information the first thing they ask me to do is send a copy of my driver's license to a gmail account. Yeah, I'll do that right away.