All Forum Posts by: Jim K.

@Sonia Vanegas

Going forward, what JD mentions here really is something you have to be completely aware of. Your landlord is both not too swift, and is also self-managing a $3000+/month rental. He's going to screw up like this again and again, and the way these things go, most of the burden of dealing with it is usually going to be on you.

As far as him ever taking you to court over this and winning -- this is not the sort of dispute between adults any sort of magistrate feels should ever end up in court. Your LL should be very wary of that avenue, not that it's impossible to win with this, but that it's trivial and the magistrate will not definitely appreciate being called upon to mediate something like this. Magistrates tend to have long memories and also tend to hold grudges against local incompetent landlords.

So if he wakes up and talks to someone with any brains and experience, this won't go to court, but he'll start looking for another excuse to get rid of you, something much easier to argue in court. And he will likely do that at the first opportunity, if you cross him on this paint thing.

There's not much winning here. Especially for you in your $3000/month rental. Can you find something cheaper and run by a competent property management company? As a self-managing landlord, I used to believe that almost everyone could learn the skill stack necessary to become a competent property manager. It's been a few years since I was cured of that delusion. The bulk of properties run by small private landlords are managed rather poorly by people who don't know what they're doing and really have little idea about how to get better at it. In the $3000/month range, you deserve a lot better than this.

 Oh, stick around. We haven't gotten our annual what-should-I-do-with-my-haunted-house post yet. Come to think of it, what happened to the my-property-manager-is-shacking-up-with-my-tenant posts? Or the my-Airbnb-was-used-as-a-porn-studio posts? I have a special fondness for I-found-a-pile-of-gold-in-a-crapshack-basement-help-me-invest posts.

 I want 5% if you use "The Two-Holey Wonder®" as the name.

 LOL, you're just a dream-killer with these Debbie-Downer corpse stories, Jay!

@Corey Goldstein 

Aw, come on. Where are the protection pentacles? The summoning ring? The cages for the sacrifices? The blood spatter on the walls and floor? Satanic, my foot.

This just looks like the result of run-of-the-mill substance abuse and mental illness issues.

One of the few times when I feel I have to disagree with @JD Martin.

Older, heavier people with incontinence issues like elongated toilet bowls and good toilet paper. I suspect that I get substantially more multigeneration reunion-type bookings than most people in my Airbnb. This WAS commented on (thankfully privately) when I stocked Aldi toilet paper. I now stock Charmin UltraStrong.

Nothing wrong with bulk toilet paper per se. But single economy rolls from Aldi didn't cut it for us that one time.

Am I missing something here? Airbnb offers $3M damage protection insurance (AirCover) if guests don't pay for the damages they cause, and $1M liability insurance if a guest gets hurt or their belongings are stolen.

That being said, I too do not allow instant booking or most last-minute long-term bookings out of nowhere. I suspect that weeds out a lot, but beyond that, I don't screen my Airbnb guests.

I've haven't had to take advantage of AirCover yet in six months of operating an Airbnb, so I'm honestly curious how this works.

Well, this is a wonderful thread.

All I can really contribute with enough experience to be absolutely sure of what I say: if you live on the coasts and your spreadsheet tells you your best passive returns over the long haul are going to be in the Rust Belt in cheap rentals, then your spreadsheet needs to be looked at by someone with a lot more experience in cheap Rust Belt rentals than you have.

My own take on the musings here of why everyone wants to quit their job these day and its possible connection to young people and their participation trophies, their possible work-ethic failings, moral turpitude, contemptible world outlook, lack of grit, et hoc genus omne...yeah, I know I don't know squat about all that.

This is a FANTASTIC price for a 120-foot 3-foot ditch in Pittsburgh. Almost certainly too good, even for pickup labor in the slow season. And the fact that these people are willing to fetch your materials from wherever makes the whole thing even more questionable. Is this going to be an exterior French drain? Because anyone quoting you this price for anything inside a basement with the need to haul the dirt elsewhere is clearly getting ready to rob you. But to dig the ditch, lay the canister assembly in gravel, and fill in the ditch for an exterior French drain? I'd take that price any day and I would assume they're using a small excavator.