All Forum Posts by: James DeRoest

And don't ever call them cockroaches. From here on in they are and always will be palmetto bugs. If a tenant calls them cockroaches, correct them "oh you mean palmetto bugs", suddenly takes the sting out of the word "cockroach".

 Either spray the property yourself, you can get the stuff cheap enough, and go round once a month with a sprayer for three months and then back it off to every three months. You don't need to go over board with what pest companies tell you - given half a chance they'll be in each week.

What you do need to do though is go round the property and find out where they are getting in, it's difficult to keep them out, but not impossible. Make sure door sweeps are on external doors, make sure there are no gaps round the doors, make sure all holes eg plumbing fixtures under sinks are sealed, pipes going through walls are foamed up to seal, and so forth. Anywhere where they can get in.

 Move on. 

 Nope, because then the tenant realises that they can do this to the next landlord. It's a slippery slope.

However, with an eviction, what she will discover is that renting just became really difficult. 

 Step away from this nonsense.

Unless she has a source of income to actually buy this, that she hasn't declared to the local housing authority, I will bet that she wants to use her Section 8 deposits to  you to purchase the house. and if she hasn't declared her extra income to section 8, then she's just defrauding the system.

You can either say "no" directly to her, or just say that you still have a mortgage and you can't enter into a lease purchase agreement for at least another 12 years.

 Depends on housing authority. Ours will not allow the tenant to pay extra, everything is declared and goes through the HA.

This is over and above the portion they have to pay.

The big problem is that if the tenant is found paying more, then both the tenant and landlord are removed from the program and blacklisted.

One of my tenants had a problem neighbor. Cops would not take things seriously, then a friend of his said that there are key phrases that the 911 operator looks for and priorities accordingly.

The phrase he was told was "if you don't come, something is going to go down".

Interestingly, this abusive neighbor of his had only ever gotten verbal warnings from the cops. The usual japes, hanging a noose from a tree, black glove with middle finger up, just general racist "first ammendment" stuff against my tenant just didn't get a response from the cops.

So one Saturday, the racist neighbor kicked off, my tenant called the cops, used the line he'd been practicing for a few days.

Sheriff office sent a supervisor, who saw this racist practicing his first ammendment rights, decided that it was harrassment with credible threat, the neighbor got hauled away, spent two months in jail, the tenant got a restraining order from the judge, and after some back and forth, the neighbor took a plea. We discovered that the public defender had told him the proescutor was upgrading the crime to a hate crime if he didn't plea down. So he did.

Time served plus probation.

He died of a heart attack six months later.

"Something is going to go down".

Have fun.

This can only end well....

 I've never called myself an investor, I just go with professional landlord these days.

Landlord isn't a great word, but it's a little more honest than trying to sound a bit mighty with "I'm an investor", and then, the problem with saying that your an investor is that once you've explained "I own 2 quads" your friend will merely reply "so you're a landlord then", and then whatever air and grace you built up in your mind is soundly crushed under foot. 

So, you might as just go with "professional landlord".

As for "real", I suppose it's when you go into a room of "investors" (and some are), and people seek you out to bring their latest deal to you. When your reputation is opening a door, that's when it gets interesting. 

"One property ahead" is amateur hour.