Don't Want to Fix Toilets? Read This!

[Tyler Henry]

Ok, we’ve all heard the excuse and maybe even used it ourselves at one point. “I don’t want to fix toilets, so I wouldn’t be a good landlord.”

Well, that may be so for some and I wasn’t exactly excited for the toilet call either.

BUT

I’ve officially been a ‘landlord’ for about 18 months now and let me tell you, I was not(still really not) totally prepared. I’m not following all the 'rules' of investing and certainly not in the correct order but I AM following the advice of almost every expert and successful investor, JUST DO IT. You’ll learn along the way, not just from the books, articles, and podcasts...believe me, I’ve read and listened to it all.

Anyway, back to toilets. I had my 2nd ‘broken toilet’ call last week. Let me tell you how hard it is...I put in about 5 minutes and $5 of my time and money fixing both those issues, combined. Ok, maybe another 5 minutes looking up toilet videos on YouTube.

My point is, as with countless others, just do it! Start! Begin! Go! Send It! Whatever, your success can’t start without a beginning, so what are you waiting for? (Insert Wayne Gretzky quote here)

The first call was literally just tightening a nut behind the seat to stop a leak.

So,does it still really sound all that tough?

I’m by no means a success story(yet) but I can see my foundation forming around me and it’s so exciting.

Thanks for reading! Thought I'd share since I felt pretty good after installing my $5 part, which required 0 tools, and I had 0 knowledge of fixing a toilet about 10min prior.

[John Teachout]

Interesting post. There is nothing about a toilet that is complicated including removing and installing them. The only issue I encounter from time to time that may exceed some people's capability is a broken or rusted out mounting flange. These are readily resolved but certainly raises the bar. Assuming the flange is ok, everything from there up is easy enough to fix or change. For $20 you can buy a kit that replaces all the working parts of a toilet. ie everything but the ceramic parts and the seat. A seat costs $10-15 and takes less than 10 minutes to change. Nothing scary about a toilet other than you might get your hands dirty.

On another note, we own a number of single family homes and for most of them we average less than one maintenance call per year. Yes, per year. I'll put that 10% management fee in my pocket, thank you.