All Forum Posts by: Johann Jells

Thanks Scott, I know you're trying to be helpful, but in your ignorance of the device you're verging on hysteria. If the device loses wifi it continues to function as programmed. I don't get tenants who don't get internet, it's that kind of town. And I've discovered that in the Google Home App you can create multiple homes, and share user control for individual homes without actually sharing a password. That seems workable to me. I'll continue to experiment...

I said exactly that in my OP, so I guess I pass that test. But someone elsewhere said I was creating a legal liability for myself sharing a Gmail account created just for that apartment with the tenant, like what if they used it to download child porn or something. Seemed paranoid to me, but these are weird times. My units rent for upwards of $1600, mostly to college educated young professionals, don't know where that puts me on the alphabet. I had one tenant request I install his Nest for him.

But it can be an 'upscale feature' when renting, and my utility is giving them away. I've never had a thermostat of any kind break, even the old mechanical ones, but the complexity is a possible issue. Fortunately my tenants are all young digital natives, and probably find this stuff easier than we do!

If you use a Nest thermostat for a rental how do you hand off control to a new tenant and terminate control of the old one? Do you create a gmail account for the apartment, share the PW, and change the PW when it turns over?

I know it's an old thread, but I was searching to see what people thought of Nests for rentals. My utility is actually giving the Nest-E away.  Seems like a good idea to me, but the support for new tenants having to learn it's ways seems like it could be a hassle. 

BTW, I've found the best plan for minor internet service like these need is an old cell phone as a hotspot with a supercheap data only plan. I have a 1gb plan for a video intercom that only costs $7/mo.

All my rentals are over $1600, I paint my walls BM Superhide eggshell Navajo White, a warm 'parchment' off white, trim semigloss Behr color Swiss Coffee (though I have it made up in BM Ultraspec) and ceilings flat white. I hate the gray wall trend. My buildings are all 100+ years old, gray is like a miniskirt & tats on a 80 year old!

 I was excited to hear of what sounded like a good alternative to Quicken, which has not been maintained well recently. But screwing around with it is not encouraging. Just the fact that they call both banking/credit accounts and categories "accounts" is absurdly and unnecessarily confusing. Not looking good, but I'll keep playing. One thing that has me there is that they say they'll import Quicken data. I was reluctant to move to any app that didn't let me migrate my decades of data. Often Quicken is the easiest way to remember what contractor did the roof on 2004 or such.

I don't know how you all are spending money that needs paper receipts. 99% of my expenditures are either ACH or CC autopay's to utilities, banks or other regular things, or paid by credit card to Lowes or HD who email receipts to my 'landlord' email with the PO (unit or property) I entered at checkout. Those get autosorted to a folder. I download the bank and CC statements to venerable and inexpensive old Quicken, which also prints the rare checks to contractors etc, where I categorize them and they're ready for a report to the accountant. I know where every dime went and never ever pay cash if I can help it. All my tenants are ACH deposits from Apartments.com, so income is all there too.  Contractor receipts go in a shoebox for the hopefully never audit.

I agree there's great variation in the prefab surrounds. The cheap glue up PVC ones suck. The nice fiberglass ones can really hold up, I've installed 5 Sterling 4 pc surrounds in very small baths and they've been terrific, have kept pretty clean.

Good news, nonpayment is the one way to always successfully evict! At least was pre-covid. The court doesn't entertain stories of vermin or maintenance if the tenants don't have the money there on the day. No payment in full means judgement for the landlord. Thankfully it's been a while since I was in housing court, and I've only been twice, but I recall it was less than 6 weeks total.

Of course, 'winning' is only half the battle, since the tenant now has an eviction on their record and won't get an apartment from any responsible landlord. I was basically blackmailed into rescinding the eviction and saying it was a misunderstanding in order to actually get rid of nightmare tenants, the kind that you worry will burn the place down.