All Forum Posts by: William Westfall

7/18/17 - The property is still drying out but coming along nicely. The tenants have been there and pickup a few things but not much, quite a bit of belonging left inside. Today I am scheduled to meet with the lease signer to return their prorated rent and give them a 30 day notice so I can be sure they move the remaining items as quick as possible. Quotes on the furnace replacement are around $2,600 which isn't too bad but the water heater quotes are quite high, $1,300. This will be something I will install myself as the water heater itself is only $650 delivered. Two more quotes for the furnace and water heater will be coming in next week along with drywall installation.

Painting will be a large job as the entire house will need to be done. Looks like I get new equipment! Airless sprayers are less than $300 and I would be using it more down the road. I hate painting! Already thinking of flooring in the basement and main living area. Looking at some type of click lock vinyl flooring but I need a type of stone pattern in the entryway and kitchen as these areas are perpendicular and wood plank would look weird.

@Account Closed these tenants will NOT be back. We found some drug paraphernalia in one of the couches when we removed it from the property. Arrangements are already made to return the prorated rent for July and we have documentation of damage that has occurred not due to the flood. They have 30 days to gather their belongings and move out. After that a walk through will be done and damages itemized and submitted to the tenant for them to repair or deduct from the security deposit. I have spoken to the Village already and since we are more than a mile from the nearest body of water (lake) we are not required to have flood insurance. I also spoke with our insurance agent and even if we have flood insurance it would not cover anything below grade which is where 95% of the damage is.

7/16/17 - Stopped at the house and it is drying out very nicely. Poked a few holes in the drywall to dry it out and make demo easier. Found out a friend of ours just opened a drywall company so that will be convenient for us.

Investigated our landlord policy and even though it does not cover loss of property for flood it appears to cover lost rent from damage. We will see where that goes.

7/15/17 - With the help of two hired hands and a buddy we were able to clean the entire flooded levels of all debris. 168 large garbage bags later we finished after a 9+ hour day. Tenants showed up around 12 pm to begin removing the leftover items. Note to self - add an addendum to lease about a limited amount of items stored. The crawl space is roughly 20x16 and was completely full of cardboard boxes of junk. AC unit is still functional, replaced 5 breakers, removed all wall plates, started up two fans and a dehumidifier. When we went to pickup the fans and humidifier we had our sump plugged in with an extension cord, when we arrived back at the house I found the sump was unplugged by one of the tenants - not cool! Day 2 complete and on schedule. 

Tomorrow will be a quick check on the moisture, punch a few holes in the drywall to circulate air flow and change the locks. Due to some items found in the property the tenants will no longer be allowed on the property without supervision!

Still in process of securing a loan which we should see the funds sometime this coming week. We are not eligible for any FEMA grant money as this is not our primary house, and frankly there are others that need the money more than us. It does appear the we can receive a low interest loan from the SBA so that will be something for us to follow up on.

I have created a spreadsheet to add up all my estimates for repairs and keep track of spending. Total cost for just the clean up was $1,100. The village is going to be picking up garbage for quite some time so that should save us the cost of a dumpster.

On 7/11/17 we had over 10 inches of rain in less than a 24 hour period. Needless to say our rental basement was flooded with the water line coming up about a 1' above the main level floor. 

7/14/17 - Police finally allowed us into the area and we pumped out the basement and started up the sump and ejector pumps. Thankfully these are submersible pumps so they appear to be functioning normal. One circuit was still functional in the upper level so we were able to find power for the pumps. End of day 1 of recovery.

So, we had our single family rental house flooded by mother nature. I hired two guys and had one volunteer plus me and my wife remove bags and bags of garbage from the house. All of it was the renters possessions. Who is ultimately responsible for it's removal?

Well, first post here and I think I may be able to help. :)

I owned an older home and it too had asbestos siding. I was looking to re-side it in vinyl siding and started going through the proper channels to do the job right. My local inspector came out to look at the job and asked why did I want to remove it? I said because I thought I had too. I was wrong. The inspector said to side over it and DO NOT REMOVE IT. Well, I applied for the permit to install the siding, hired a contractor do to the work and everything went smooth.

Moral of the story, check with your local offials on the proper way to deal with this stuff. You never know, you might be walking away from a great rehab home.