All Forum Posts by: Damon Duperre

I meant to say it helps to keep the toilet lid closed.

Rats (and mice) can actually enter a house through the bathroom drains or the toilet. I am not kidding. They can actually swim through the pipes and come out the toilet or the drains. It helps to keep the toilet lei closed and make sure you have good drain covers securely attached. 

I would have agreed with everybody who says it is no big deal until recently. I still might agree with them sometimes but now I know that it can be a VERY big deal. You have to have a pro get rid of them first and then plug up every single entry point with metal or they will just chew right through it and return. My experience was with rats though. If they are bad the entire house will always stink no matter how much you clean it. All they need is a hole the size of a quarter to enter so I imagine mice only need a much smaller hole (or the crack under a door).

It can be a serious health risk also.

I would ask the landlord to let me out of the lease and move. If he refused then I would worry about what to do about it.

I forgot to add that renting houses here is EASY EASY. Finding good tenants is moderately difficult but when I put a sign in front of a house (with no advertisements at all) I usually get several calls the same day. I have rented a house with no ads in one day before. That was my fastest. My longest was about 2 months but I got at least 50 applicants. I am just kind of picky.

I am in Fort Worth. Many things have been said here that are exactly correct. Like for example 2011 was the best time to buy for sure. By far. Also the selection of homes for sale is small compared to last year. The property taxes are done at the county level but they also vary in different cities within a single county depending on which school district the house is in and a few other details. Generally anything outside of city limits has much lower taxes but not always.

As for foundation cracks I say yes and no. I don't know Dallas county but in Tarrant county (Fort Worth, Benbrook, Arlington, Blue Mound etc..etc..) there are certain spots where that is a problem. For example much of Benbrook is fine but part of Benbrook is really bad. The ground is good and solid in this entire area but there are some neighborhoods built on top of landfills and those are the bad ones. For example the Timber Creek neighborhood in Benbrook (especially down along Timberline drive) is terrible. It sits on top of what was a huge landfill and the ground shifts all the time. 

North Benbrook (which is where I live) is not on top of a landfill and I live in the same house my parents bought in 1974. This house has never had a crack and neither has any of my neighbors houses. North Benbrook is the part with a 76116 zip code instead of 76126. Part of the Westpoint neighborhood in Fort Worth is also on top of an old landfill. Westpoint is the part of Fort Worth with a White Settlement zip code (76108). Not all of that area but part of it.

I would be happy to advise anybody as to whether a particular address is on top of an old landfill that I know of. There may be some old landfills I am unaware of but there are many that I am aware of.

It still remains to be seen if all of this natural gas drilling and fracking will have a negative effect on peoples foundations but they are just about finished drilling around here.

Of course that is also another plus as they are very generous with paying whoever owns the mineral rights to the land to explore under it and even more generous if they find some natural gas to drill. But like I already said that is winding down now. 

On the property taxes you can file a protest with the county appraisal district each year and usually get them lowered. 

There might not be any data to support it and it might not be the case anywhere besides Fort Worth but here all you have to do is drive down Las Vegas Trail on the westside of Fort Worth to see what section 8 has done to that area.

I would go with the 2nd one. For the future I would keep my eyes open for a guy who was a licensed certified HVAC guy for many years but now does something else for a living who will do it after hours. Don't ever tell your tenants.

I hope that you verified that you were actually speaking with his actual landlords and not just some friends of his.

I don't know Ohio law but I do know this is a touchy subject. I would say ask a lawyer just to be on the safe side.