All Forum Posts by: Tina C.

All of our tenants have had pets, some we acquired when we bought the duplex. I have had more problems with the tenants being slobs or spilling paint on my floors than the pets honestly. Years ago when we moved out west and we were looking for a place to rent we didn't bother looking at places that wouldn't allow pets. We had 2 dogs and a cat at the time and all were very clean and with our family for years, last thing I would do is give up a family member of 8yrs to rent a house.

I make it perfectly clear that if the animal destroys my unit the tenant goes or the animal goes. In our years we've only had to clean up after 1 set of tenants who I don't think ever cleaned up after the dogs in the back yard-how they let the kids play out there i'll never know.

So far all units have very responsible pet owners. I would never ask my senior tenant to give up her cats of 10 yrs because I bought the house.

For instance, we give a gift card at Christmas as a Thank-You for being great tenants.  When I have a new tenant move in I like to make sure they have the local phone book, recycling/garbage schedule and other local info (restaurants and such) I also like to get a small plant to welcome them.

We have some long term tenants that really take great care of our properties and we like to say thanks to them, I was told by a senior that lives in a unit that the gift card I gave her at Christmas fed her for a week! It wasn't much but she doesn't go out much and this allowed her some prepared meals and leftovers.

Just curious to see what other landlords do.

Have a great day!

Now that our one tenant is out (*insert big sigh here*) we are able to get some repairs done quickly.

I'm so pumped, we've discovered that the front of this duplex MIGHT have clapboard underneath the siding. We HATE siding, I find it so unattractive and prefer more natural exteriors. We were going to do board and batten BUT that may change with the new find.

New supports on porch and new stairs are in the plans.

If the clapboard is in good shape (it's been covered for over 25 yrs according to the upper tenant who used to own the duplex-she had no idea what was under the siding) I'm going to use a good quality oil based paint-any recommendations on brands and colours.

I'm constantly looking at house fronts to come up with ideas.

It has to stand up to our cold winters.

Hi all,

We live south of Ottawa and have a  single family home in Pembroke and a duplex in Brockville. We would love to connect with experienced investors that we can bounce ideas off of every once in a while.

We've owned our properties for 8+ yrs and love taking care of them (most of the time) It's one of my favorite jobs.

Currently have 1 very problematic tenant moving out this weekend, our others are long term renters and we couldn't ask for better people to look after our properties (while living there) 

We are going to be doing some reno work when our 'problem' moves.

Nice to see some canucks here also.

If I could afford to work on houses full time I would, it's something I LOVE to do. I can't wait to see the finished house-great work so far.

We had to do MANY dump runs when we bought our current farm, is it bad the guys at the dump gate know your truck lol?

The neighbourhood has many other older houses with earthy colours, there are quite a few artists in this area and they have really dome up some of the exteriors of their houses quiet nice so I'm trying to pull different ideas from different houses and mesh them but not in a gaudy way.

We MAY get lucky when we pull the siding off the front of the house-we saw some clapboard underneath and if it's in reasonable shape I can fill in the nail holes and paint it.

The house used to be a single family (easy to tell when you look at the inside and how things were changed around) maybe one day we'll turn it back into that but for now it's 2-1bdrm units.

Here's what we've done so far, new pot lights (on a dimmer) took out all the old wood and plaster and lathe on the house (under the porch covering) insulated, house wrap and new front door (I'd like to paint it also)

We are just in the beginning stages, you know the FUN part! LOL

@Bill S. 

 The current 2x4 is left from when we took the siding off the porch, it was lined with plywood inside the siding. I left it there simply to keep it 'safe'

The tenant is moving out at the end of this month so we can really rip everything out without having to work around someone living there. I do want to put spindles and we will close in the underside with lattice or fence board so the neighbourhood cats don't use it for a litter box.

These pictures are just when everything was ripped apart so it looks like crap. I'll take more pictures as we get more work done.

The retaining wall is actually rough  stone  and very solid-just as I said ugly. The piece of rock sitting on the right end of the wall was under a potted plant and was just left on the wall after it was used. I'd love to redo it but it's far down on the list of 'to-do's'

I love that I'm getting so many responses so far and i'll certainly keep everyone updated with our progress!

Thanks for all the suggestions so far! Yes the front yard is hard to maintain (if the tenant doesn't want to) we are about 40 mins away and I can't just zip over to weed after wk.

The retaining wall is actually pretty solid just ugly as all get out-I was going to plant some creeping plants to cover it after the reno is done.

I had been thinking about painting the siding to a nice dark blue/grey colour BUT when it was installed there were many gaps left and it's just a horrible job all around.

So far we've taken all the wood off the top (underside) of the porch and replaced it with tongue and grove pine and replaced the single ugly exterior light with 3 brushed steel pot lights attached to a dimmer. The wall under the upper bedroom windows was insulated properly first.

We replaced the front door with a steel door with a half window (original door was a full single  glass interior door-that's going to be our new to us bedroom door)

I like the idea of boxing in or replacing the posts to give them more appeal. We've also mulched EVERY YEAR and heavy and can't control the weeds-it's sickening.

We are currently fixing up the outside of this up/down duplex. Trying to get some different ideas to work with.

We've pulled off all the siding on the front of the porch (it went right to the ground) the front of the house can now 'breathe' and now we can show off the porch.

We need to do a small foundation repair under the current porch and will be taking the floor boards up to do this.

I'd love to get rid of the siding on the front of the house under the protection of the current covered porch and eventually remove it completely from the house (think board and batten or clapboard-vinyl siding is a big pet peeve of ours)

We have a habitat re-store nearby and many small sawmills that we can visit. Windows are slowly being replaced (this duplex has so many!)

Just looking for some ideas to freshen up the look of the front and give it some nice curb appeal, it's located in a historic district of town with many other older homes around it.

We are taking out the concrete steps (left in the picture) and putting a new staircase on the right of the porch, it will come down 4 stairs to a landing and turn 90% and have more stairs to the driveway.

I'm thinking raised beds on the rest of the lawn-full sun all day and steep.

Thanks all!