Received my first "landlord emergency" phone call.

[Alan B.]

Received my first "landlord emergency" call the other night.

Quick back story about my experience since I don't post often: I'm a new investor managing and rehabbing a duplex right now. The lower level is rented out with a Section 8 tenant in place as of Sept this year. Rehab on upper unit started last month and is 90% complete. 

Wednesday night I get a phone call from my tenant. She is at work and her babysitter calls her to tell her that the place is being flooded by the unit upstairs. I call the babysitter and talk her through turning the water off at the meter and jump out of bed & speed over there.

It's a disaster. Some plumbing was being done on the upper unit and a cap blew off the end of some pvc pipe upstairs and flooded my lower tenants kitchen. It's about 10 at night & me and my contractor are on the phone cussing each other out because I need him to come fix this now and he doesn't want to get up.

Being that the girl has kids I don't want her water off all night and I don't want her angry and calling her case worker about this. Me being a 1st time landlord I don't exactly know how the housing commision would react although this was an unforseen accident, I'm by no means a slumlord. 

I told my contractor to forget about the top unit and let's get my tenant squared away ASAP. Will need to replace the drywall and some floor tiles in the kitchen this weekend. Fortunately still have a lot of leftovers from the lower rehab.

Things I've learned: 

If I buy another multiunit I need to make sure or have installed a separate water shut off for each unit. There wasn't for this one which is why I had to get my contractor up out of bed.

If I buy another duplex I may only get side by side & not upper/lower. That way I won't have to deal with a problem on top possibly creating a problem on the bottom.

As I acquire more properties I need to have a system in place for emergencies so that as the property owner I'm not the one receiving calls & jumping out of bed at night.