All Forum Posts by: Kathleen Leary

Good neighbors are your eyes & ears when you're not there. Get in good with as many neighbors as possible & it'll make your landlording a lot less trouble. 

HOWEVER: I'm in a similar situation with a "bad" neighbor - he's mentally unstable & I'm pretty well convinced one of these days he's going to snap. I do make sure my tenant is aware of the situation & should feel free to call the police if warranted. 

It's a tricky situation to be in - good luck to you in getting a resolution!

Tub/shower caulk & window screens! Drive me nutty! (In all fairness, I've got great tenants & it's not their doing.) But these are two things I am constantly having to keep on top of.

And what happens when it has to be replaced? Have you considered all the cutting to get the laminate flush with the sole plate? Having taken out some floors that had framing done on top of them, listen to the guys who know!

I've also painted MILES of old woodwork! Here in the Midwest, white woodwork is pretty traditional; I also am a fan because it's easy to touch up high-traffic spots between tenants. 

As others have noted: wash it, lightly scuff-sand it, use the best primer you can stand to pay for & use a semi-gloss topcoat. 

In my opinion, nice bright-white woodwork looks clean, tidy & freshens up a whole room. I always get comments from prospective tenants; "It's so CLEAN!" Well, it is, but the woodwork adds 50% to that impression.

Given the age of the house, that's a nice-looking solution. Good job!

• I don't care if your lease is 20 pages long: PUT IT IN WRITING! Sit down with potential signers (before finalizing) & read over the whole thing with them. Any infractions will be addressed, up to & including eviction. Be fair, but be firm.

• SCREEN, screen, screen! Better to go another month vacant than take the first warm body with a job: you may be verrrrry sorry!

• RENT IS DUE ON THE FIRST. Period. Eviction will commence as soon as legally allowed following non-payment. Period. This alone takes care of all kinds of excuses, sob stories, tall tales & BS. States are different, but know your local procedures & rights. Follow them!

• Don't handle cash. I know some LLs do, but I have a bank account set up for tenants to deposit whatever form of payment they want. I check each property account online the morning of the second. (See above if not deposited.) I won't touch cash; it's too easy to start "he said, she said" & have no paper trail to back it up.

• Respond, repair, replace - but on your schedule. Unless it's a true emergency (see first bullet), & you take care of the problem in a timely manner, tenants aren't going to turn into pumpkins if the faucet leaks another day.

• Get set up with reputable local contractors/tradesmen. Pay them on time, don't pester them for little stuff you could take care of, be polite, never think you know more than they do (if they're pros, you don't!), & don't hesitate to recommend them. A good plumber, electrician, HVAC tech, realtor, etc. is GOLD. Treat them that way.

• Document everything. (Especially nice if you get called into court.) That includes texts, receipts, e-mails, photos, daily work log, etc.

Plus everything previously said! Nothing like horror stories to make a point - learn from other's experience!

Yikes! Either get an income-stable co-signer on that lease or move on! I know it's tough starting out, but it's YOUR INCOME if they don't pay up. 

I personally have pretty much given up on references; it's an additional hoop for applicants to jump through, which can help weed out folks who aren't really that interested. But every person will say, "Sure, Lazy Larry is a great guy & I'd rent to him in a heartbeat," blah, blah. I've had foremen tell me flat-out what a hard-working, dependable guy so-&-so is, only to find out from the company itself he only works one day a week & doesn't show up half the time. 

Seriously: are you going to put down somebody as a reference, knowing they're going to throw you under the bus? I'll bet not.

I list my available property on the usual sites (CL, Trulia, etc.) & every respondent gets the same reply e-mail: "Thank you for your interest / Our next Open House will be . . . / Manager will be available to take applications & answer questions." I quit taking phone calls long ago: the callers generally haven't read the information provided & are sometimes really rude when they realize there's no smoking or pets allowed. Frankly, I've got better things to do with my time than answer the same questions that are detailed online, anyway. One thing I do (small town, remember): my "For Rent" sign has a metal box attached to the top that I put small informational fliers in. Interested drive-bys can pick one up & get the information they need (plus a link to web photos, etc.) to see if it's a rental they'd be interested in. It also weeds out the "Lookie-Lous:" folks who can't afford it, bad background/credit, smokers, etc. For me, one trip into town with some fliers takes one-tenth less time than dealing with even two LLs on the phone!

It's becoming more & more common . . . you may even have prospective tenants ask about your lease's requirements. Be sure in your locality that you can REQUIRE a policy - there are undoubted some places you can't! As noted, it's quite inexpensive & quite frankly, if a tenant is having to cut their finances so close that they can't swing less than $20 extra a month, that's a warning sign right there.

Can't tell you anything about Florida, but even here in drought-prone Kansas, we usually have to mow every two weeks in the summer. And that certainly doesn't keep things looking golf-course spiffy, just sorta one length. So maybe they're telling you the truth. Call around to some lawn-care places & see what package deals they offer - that may shed some light on the usual mowing frequency for your area.