Life Balance or whatever you call it.

[Pat Goodyear]

I apologize that this post is going to be long. I have been a landlord since 1996. Self manage. By career I am a Nurse Practitioner and a Reservist. I love my career and don't intent to quit to landlord fulltime. I have always, even through busy seasons, felt that it would eventually calm down and be manageable again. For the last 12-15 months, it has been crazy all the time. My turnover is usually low, but it seems tenants have been moving almost monthly. During all of this I decided to move to one of my rentals and rent out my home of 12 years. For the last 6 months, every day off has been spent working on the houses: painting, sanding floors, cleaning, etc. My attempts in the past to find labor outside my immediate circle have failed miserably with poor work ethic and overcharging. The few people I did use - one is collecting unemployment, the other 3 got W2 jobs. 

The tenant of mine who just moved into my house, unbeknownst to me, wrecked the apartment she was in for 7 years. They burnt so much incense the walls were soot stained. I had to wash them before painting. I gave her a move-out checklist, with cleaning, but her end response is "Pat we lived her for 8 years...what do you expect?" I started getting hostile and ultimately she is in my newly painted, cleaned home so i took $200 of her security. My lease has always said no incense. Every smoke detector was missing. So, anyway for the last 10 days, I have spent ever moment I'm not working over there to get it ready. The new tenant (who is actually a current one) is moving in 7/3. That is because her and the downstairs tenant (who has rented for >15 years) have been fighting non-stop over noise issues. Oh and I got a lead violation and have until August to fix it. 

Anyway, on top of all this I am a single mom to 5 kids - 13yo to 7 yo. One of my 11 yo's came to work with me all weekend. So, in dwelling on this some thoughts:

1. not enough routine inspections, actually none. Need to do them more often to find issues/problems

2. No cheap labor - lawnmowing, painting, cleaning. Everyone wants $20++ an hour which becomes outrageous at 12 hours a day

3. Tenants are dirty. They have no concern about cleaning before moving, even with warnings and checklists. They put out too much garbage and the city fines me. 

4. I lack processes to streamline things and with 20 properties that doesn't work anymore.

I would appreciate any thoughts or ideas? I have considered getting a property manager, but worry that things will go to h3ll and I'll pay even more.