What is it with bad landlords?

Just got a call tonight from an acquaintance who's friend is having a rough time with her landlord. The sewer lines in the basement are backing up, and the landlord told her that it's her responsibility to fix. It's a townhouse where the lines are shared with the neighboring tenant.

The friend didn't do anything wrong and the landlord has not fixed many things that this person has had to fix herself. So I was called as I know the state statutes and what the landlord is responsible for or not. I gave advice the best I could quoting from the statutes and emailed her a link to the PDF online.

When I was a tenant, I really had no idea what my rights were. I would guess that most tenants really don't know, and so therefore some landlords just do whatever they want, which gives landlords a bad name.

I'm reading Robert Kiyosaki's book "Before You Quit Your Job" and in it, he talks about having a mission that relates to the solution of a problem or filling a need.

In becoming a landlord, I at first started out because I wanted to have a method of controlling my own destiny; a way to control my future for retirement and not rely on what ever was going to happen with social security. It was about having enough income to become financially free.

It still is about becoming financially free, but what's interesting is along the way something else happened. As I started showing off rental units, I kept hearing the same stories over and over again:

My landlord never fixes anything.

We're in a bad neighborhood right now and my kids can't even play outside.

You wouldn't believe the places other people are trying to rent out ... they're so dirty!

I've been paying my landlord but they got foreclosed on and so now I need to find a new place.

There is a gap in the Milwaukee market (and I'm sure other markets too) for really good landlords. And here I'm thinking, really? How hard is this? Treat your tenants with respect!

I think there are some prospective tenants that will go into defensive mode automatically because they haven't been treated the best in the past. But if you keep true to your word, and over and over show them that you are one of the "good ones", they will come around.

Now, don't get me wrong, I screen the heck out of anyone who comes to rent from me. (There are bad apples in the world.) But it's also important to treat someone who does pass your screening with respect. Take care of the things that are broken. Be friendly but not friends. Bend but don't be a push-over.