All Forum Posts by: Marcus Auerbach

@Kelly G. I am not sure if you actually needed a drain tile repair in the first place. I see so many properties in Milwaukee with all four walls braced and new drain tile all the way arround and in my mind I am congratulating the contractor for being a great sales guy, who sold a homeowner a lot more than needed. I have spent a lot of money on basement repairs over the years on my rental properties and looking back not all of it was necessary. There are a number of far less expensive options that we go through first before we call the guy with the jack hammer. Most times the root cause of the problem can be tracked down to something that is easily fixable, the trick is to push the right button. This spring we were rehabbing a property on Calumet adding a fully finished basement and we had a huge water issue. The sump pump would cycle every minute or so and water was just pouring in from the drain tile system. A power outage or failure of the sump pump would have flooded the finished area within half an hour or so. My plumber suggested two sump pumps and a backup battery system for power outages. The sump pump discharge looked fine and was dumping about 10ft off the walls. We were convinced we had a well under the house and ready to spend the money. On a whim I picked up a 30ft discharge hose for a few bucks and drained the sump pump all the way to the back of the yard. The result was unexpected - by the next morning we had a dry sump crock and it's been dry ever since, including last night on my final check up (it's rented as of today September 1st) and it was a $20 fix. My point is that it takes some experience and sometimes some experimenting to find the right button to push and the fix does not always involve a foundation repair. You have a mold issue and there are two basic steps to dealing with mold, you can read up on the EPA website: number one eliminate the growing conditions (#1 water and #2 food source) and the we use an Ozone generator to kill any spores alive. Based on your discription I am not sure what exactly is going on in your house, but feel free to PM me or give me a call.

@Kelly G. I am not sure if you actually needed a drain tile repair in the first place. I see so many properties in Milwaukee with all four walls braced and new drain tile all the way arround and in my mind I am congratulating the contractor for being a great sales guy, who sold a homeowner a lot more than needed. I have spent a lot of money on basement repairs over the years on my rental properties and looking back not all of it was necessary. There are a number of far less expensive options that we go through first before we call the guy with the jack hammer. Most times the root cause of the problem can be tracked down to something that is easily fixable, the trick is to push the right button. This spring we were rehabbing a property on Calumet adding a fully finished basement and we had a huge water issue. The sump pump would cycle every minute or so and water was just pouring in from the drain tile system. A power outage or failure of the sump pump would have flooded the finished area within half an hour or so. My plumber suggested two sump pumps and a backup battery system for power outages. The sump pump discharge looked fine and was dumping about 10ft off the walls. We were convinced we had a well under the house and ready to spend the money. On a whim I picked up a 30ft discharge hose for a few bucks and drained the sump pump all the way to the back of the yard. The result was unexpected - by the next morning we had a dry sump crock and it's been dry ever since, including last night on my final check up (it's rented as of today September 1st) and it was a $20 fix. My point is that it takes some experience and sometimes some experimenting to find the right button to push and the fix does not always involve a foundation repair. You have a mold issue and there are two basic steps to dealing with mold, you can read up on the EPA website: number one eliminate the growing conditions (#1 water and #2 food source) and the we use an Ozone generator to kill any spores alive. Based on your discription I am not sure what exactly is going on in your house, but feel free to PM me or give me a call.

Works great and I much prefer to use ozone over chemicals. O3 is very effective destroying organic compounds such as smells, the source of smells, mold etc - naturally it also attact cells in your raspatory system. Thats why the space treated needs to be vacant. After treatment be sure to open windows and doors and air the space thoroughly. O3 also breaks down into the more stable O2 within a couple of hours.   The nice thing is it gets into every nook and cranny - if air can get to it, then ozone will too. Often times the source of a smell is hard to reach, like inside an air duct and those areas are hard to clean with chemicals.

@William S. just came across your post and I am curious what your thoughts about Brown Deer were?

not a letter, but we put a bottle of champagne, some soda and if they have kids some icecream in the fridge. It's always a pleasant surprise for new tenants and starts the relationship off the right way. Cost is about $30.

@Darryl Pitchford find you WHY and if it's strong enough it will get you to your big goal, but there are a lot of small goals on the way. How about getting one rental to cut your mortgage payment in half? Or two to pay for your mortgage and life for free? Every journey begins with a single step. I feel like mine is just about to start now gggg

@Darryl Pitchford find you WHY and if it's strong enough it will get you to your big goal, but there are a lot of small goals on the way. How about getting one rental to cut your mortgage payment in half? Or two to pay for your mortgage and life for free? Every journey begins with a single step. I feel like mine is just about to start now gggg

@David Rawls well, that's what I thought I'd do. Glad I had two weeks in Spain and France in June, because now I am more busy now than I was before including weekends! But I do have 4 time blocks for vacation scheduled for the next 12 months (straight out of "The ONE thing" for G.Keller)

@Nicholas W. Thanks Nick. It was great meeting you yesterday! You know already a lot more that I did when I started. We'll find you a great first deal!

@Eboni Harmon glad to hear, that's what these posts are for! Thousands have done this before us, it's not even that hard, it just takes consitent effort and some patience. Without my corporate job I could not have doen what I did. It starts with qualifying for financing and it ends with having the funds to pay for a rehab gone over budget, It happens...