All Forum Posts by: Jared Schroeder

Well I only have one single family my wife and I bought last year. Nervous about getting more rentals locally as the county I'm in and most of the surrounding counties have had declining population for a while. I'd need to drive a bit over an hour to get to places where there's growth. The one rental I have is doing well. We're losing money for now, but had to buy appliances, paint the house, etc.

I'm definitely a fan of your improvements! Looks about 40 years newer now! :D

Good luck! Looks like it's coming along though.

If you have a receipt... Lol

Wow, thanks everyone for the great advice! Really appreciate it! Will be fixing up the floor in the near future!

Awesome! Didn't know they made such a thing! Thanks :)

Yeah, it's green, too! What kind of floor would you recommend for a bathroom? Do you think laminate would be acceptable?

Hi,

My wife and I just bought our first rental house. It looks great and have a tenant lined up. We were redoing the caulking around the bathtub/shower and noticed right at the end of the tub on the floor, it is squishy. Looks like it gets wet there whenever the shower is used. The bathroom is carpeted, so I am unsure of what's going on underneath. From underneath, it seems ok. Not like there is a hole or anything, but just wondering what you guys thought? Is there any way to keep the water from getting out? The shower curtain only goes to the front of the tub where it starts curving, so water is splashing out on the floor. The shower in my residence is a walk in shower, so I have never had to deal with this issue. Any advice or suggestions would be much appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

Joshua,

I had termites in my house when I first bought it. It is a single story block ranch on a slab built in 1940. The walls were not insulated and would sweat in the heat, making moisture in the walls (perfect for termites). My wife and I completely gutted it down to the roof joists and replaced the roof, rebuilt the walls, and sealed everything up very well with lots of drylok. We figured we should protect against termites coming back in and got a quote to treat the garage and house. It was something like $1600 and then another $300/year to keep the service "active". We didn't have that in our budget, so we did some research and found bait stations. We bought two packs of these: 

http://www.amazon.com/Spectracide-Terminate-Termit...

Seemed to have good reviews, so tried it out. Planted them per the instructions. If there are termites eating the bait, a bright orange indicator will pop into the air. They will eat the poison, and take it back to their colony. It is a slow acting poison, but it will kill the whole colony as they all eat it. Within a week of putting my stakes in, the indicators began popping up. At first, they were clear full of termites. I replaced them over and over and gradually the termites stopped coming around. I haven't seen any termites in them for a few months, so I assume it worked. I will keep more on hand and monitor them occasionally. A problem with this I have found is that other insects (like ants) occasionally get into them and cause the indicator to pop. You can see termites crawling around in the bait station if you lift it out of the hole.

The pro to doing this is obviously the cost and the peace of mind knowing you did it and can monitor it yourself. The con is that you don't get any kind of warranty or anything. I know a lot of the companies will offer something like "if termites damage your house during your pest control contract with us, we'll replace the damage at our cost". You can also get one of the pros to come in and check it out and give you a quote for free. They will let you know if you have termites and what the cost would be for you.

not sure how to reply to a single person yet... But thanks all!