All Forum Posts by: Gail K.

Hey; crap happens.  Who could have guessed that a racoon would come calling.   Sounds like the repair work was done promptly.  Drywall typically does take a couple of days; replace the sheetwork and mud one day, let dry, come back the next day and remud, let dry, sand, prime and paint.

She got debris on her shoes and house plants.  So...you wash the leaves of the darn house plants and shake out your shoes.  This is not rocket science.  How much "damage" did the photos she sent you show?

What do I do when rent is late?  Three day Pay or Quit notice with the late fee included.  If no response after this time period filing for a dispossessory (our version of an eviction).

Would your HOA allow such a business? I've had a few inquiries from folks wanting to rent my properties for the same thing. I've always declined; not because I have an HOA to deal with but because in my area there have been a number of unlicensed assisted living facilities being run out of rentals until they are finally shut down when someone reports elder abuse. The folks who contacted me were typically someone who had worked in one in a nursing (NA/LPN) capacity and wanted to start their own seeing the potential for big bucks. The ones who have been shut down (and their management arrested) were those who, sadly, cram four elderly in a bedroom, paid "nursing" personnel $10 a hour to monitor them and, in one sad case, gave an elderly woman in a wheelchair her shower by rolling her out into the back yard and spraying her down with the garden hose.

If I were to consider renting a property to be used as an assisted living facility I would only do so if their contract was with a VA Medical Center. My background is 30 years working in the VA and we had many hospitalized older vets who, upon discharge, needed placement in assisted living. At least in my VA these facilities were closely monitored to avoid any issue with abuse of these elderly. Monitoring is often more sketchy in these other smaller, private assisted living situations. While it is unlikely you would be cited simply for renting your property out the idea of what happens to some of our elderly without family leaves a bad taste for me.

Selectblinds and Blinds.com must be owned by the same company; at least their online advertising is very similar.  Both always seems to have sales of at least 45 percent off the "regular" cost.  The aluminum blinds tend to last so much longer than vinyl ones.  I have aluminum ones in my own bedroom that I probably hung almost 40 years ago when I first bought my house.  They were likely purchased from whatever big box store was around back then as I don't remember ordering them online.  They are still in good shape.

It's easy to become disheartened when dealing with issues such as these.  Most landlords do pride themselves on being decent folks who maintain their properties.  However, if you have to get someone out who, for example, has not paid rent be prepared to be called everything, include slum landlord  (probably the nicest description they will toss at you).

I'm on a couple of tenant forums on facebook and it's pretty eye opening on what some tenants assume they are owed, including the ability not to pay rent because, after all, the landlord is rich, greedy and generally scummy and free rent should be a right for all tenants.

I find that when it has reached this stage I just follow the legal steps in my state to get the renter out of my property.  No discussion, no begging, no pleading, etc..  Often attempts to settle these issues on what one might consider a realistic basis often only shows you are dealing with an unrealistic person.  Letting the law (whether this is hiring an eviction attorney or simply dealing with the steps to an eviction in your state) handle this helps to take you out of the loop as much as possible.

Glad this got taken care of.  I have heard of folks being able to unclog such issues with the use of a strong shop vac that may (or may not) have sucked the clog out of there.

Hope you charge your tenants appropriately for what they have done.

Are they even legal where your rental property is?  What happens in case of a fire (other than a fire escape would be pretty useless if one can't actually get to it)?

Zillow, Zumper and, for giggles, FB Marketplace.  I stopped using Craigslist several years ago; ads get stolen so easily (even watermarking the pictures) and often get lost in the continuous postings for "rent to own" scams on that site.  It got so bad with stolen ads that, at one point, I had to put signs on the front doors of my available rentals telling folks that yes, I was the real owner and no, this three bedroom, 2 bath house was NOT up for rent for $500 a month.  Reporting stolen ads on Craigslist led to an (eventual) removal but two days later they would be back up again.

FB Marketplace tends to bring a lot of responses (typically the "Is it Available" response) but many don't bother reading the ad even after placing the requirements first in the ad.  Once you reply back asking them if they have reviewed the requirements (and repeat them) then ask if they meet these probably 90 percent of initial responders fade into the woodwork.  The good thing about FB Marketplace is that you can highlight that persons facebook site and many are not in private mode so postings can be reviewed.  Thus the person who responded to an that does not allow pets will sometimes have lots of interesting picture of their four pitbulls chained up in their back yard.  They've instantly screened themselves out of your rental.  FB Marketplace does have a problem with stolen ads (although so far none of mine have been stolen).  I typically report two or three a day that appear to be stolen and they seem to be removed quickly.  Zillow doesn't seem to have that problem (although I've seen a few stolen Zillow ads on FB Marketplace) because they now charge a fee for ads.

Might be time for the "Happy Clause" for these folks.

What type of maintenance requests are they asking for and how much is each request costing you?  If these are reasonable requests they make sense.  If not it may be time to put a stop to these.  Does your PM have a limit on cost where they must get your approval prior to initiating service calls?  For example anything over, say, $250 must get your approval before continuing.  If so and after reviewing these requests and finding many are unnecessary then request this limit be significantly decreased for these tenants.  Then simply respond with "nope" over maintenance requests you feel are petty or bogus.

The local Tax Assessors Office may be helpful.  Either someone is paying the taxes on these properties or after a couple of years they are likely to be up on the tax sale list (unless this has happened already and they've been purchased but the new owners cannot do anything to them for a least a year after the sale).

Got a GIS (Geographic Information System) online in your area.  That's the site that lists all the property records in my county.  Try typing a google search under your county and this GIS.

Interestingly enough I was at one of our local Lowes this weekend and overheard one of the older employees talking with a friend about how he had to wait until March for his kitchen cabinets.  It seems his Christmas project was replacing his own kitchen cabinets and he wanted to use his Lowes employee discount to purchase these but was disappointed about the wait.