All Forum Posts by: Kimberly H.

To those of you who allow dogs, how do you handle doing your interior property inspections and contractor work when the tenants have dogs?

Do you require that the tenants have dogs that can be crated when the tenants aren't home? Do you only schedule your inspections when someone can be home to manage the dogs?

Do you trust your tenant when they tell you the dog won't bite you when you come into the home and the dog is alone?

How do you handle it when work needs to be done during the day at the property and no one is home?

I have a situation where the city, who does yearly rental inspections, decided that they are now requiring egress sized windows in all bedrooms and lower room of split level homes to keep your rental license OR to sell the property. This basically means I will need access to the entire house, minus the bathrooms and garage because if I am doing the bedroom windows I might as well do the few other windows that are old wood ones (the sad thing is two of the bedrooms have new vinyl windows that don't meet the new egress but that's besides the point). 

This effects great tenants with dogs and they work during the day when I would be there for contractor quotes and to get the work done.

Was wondering how others of you handle this.

@Zachary Taylor the city of Chicago does the 3x security deposit penalty as well. And this created a cottage industry of lawyers who look for tenants to sue landlords over security deposits, working contingency fee basis. So now a lot of Chicago landlords instead charge fees: a move-in fee, higher application fee, fee per pet, etc.

@David Zheng is figuring this out the highest and best use of your time?

I would instead hire an accountant who deals with the taxes of those who own rental property on a regular basis, otherwise it will probably be screwed up if you hire an accountant without a lot of experience with that. Then, once they give the first draft back, ask questions until you understand what the accountant did. You may find a few mistakes that even they made. Even this will be very time consuming but less so than the approach you propose. Then at that point you can figure out if you want to do next years yourself.

@Jack B.  Every time I get frustrated, I think, it's a good thing we have these other people, because if they were all as smart as me, I would no longer have a huge advantage by being smart.

A little empathy helps as well. 

That's a very very minor problem that can be solved with the above advice. I ditto the Wire to switch or get humidity sensing fans. The only bathrooms we have problems with are the ones we haven't done that with yet.  The cheap bath fans sound like an airplane taking off, so we get better quieter ones.

Has anyone gone into the attic to make sure it's vented to outside and not the attic? Not the cause of your problem, but if not done, you will have an attic problem.

We acquired a rental with a fireplace (gas). Had a fireplace company come out to take a look at it and found out for a number of reasons that were very expensive to fix that it was a fire hazard. We removed it.  I honestly wouldn't trust that tenants wouldn't still try to burn wood or burn whatever in a gas fireplace. If you read the thread "current tenants say the dumbest things" you'll understand why.

@Cedric Mitchell is the CHA still paying the their part of the rent?  I thought section 8 required a one year lease.

Going forward I would be *way* more on top of this stuff. Evictions in our area can take months.

I have heard you need to be careful when talking to section 8, such as, if you complain about the tenant violating section 8 rules, section 8 may stop paying, causing you much bigger problems.

Keep in mind things are SO tenant friendly in the city...it may be worth seeking out other landlords with rentals in Chicago city limits; I just deal in the burbs.  

May be worth seeking out an attorney who only handles Cook County evictions for some advice.

Get all three girls on the lease and the mother as guarantor for sure if she is the one who plans to pay. The other two girls aren't going to want to pay for their friend. Make sure the lease says jointly and severly liable and like @Tim Asher said explain to them what this means.

Also make your emergency contacts people you contact if the late is rent as well as the other normal emergencies.

We actually have a set of three girls who for the first time are late on rent because one girls check bounced. The girl with the bad check emailed me before it bounced on my end, I emailed all three back, and haven't heard a word back since last Thursday. Tomorrow I plan to drop the hammer including re-explaining that this is EVERYONE'S problem not just the girl who wrote the check...

pass. 

I'd be curious to know what the landlord is doing that is terrible. The assistant at the hairdresser I go to was saying her landlord was so terrible... because her kitchen was last updated in 1970. But she didn't want to move because the rent was so much cheaper than anywhere else.