All Forum Posts by: Mark H.

From a landlord perspective, I would get out of the internet business.  Unless all of your competition is providing this and it is essentially a defacto requirement in your area in order to rent a unit, there's just too many things that can cause problems (legally and otherwise).

From a technical perspective, I do networking and server administration for a living and I would be complaining as well especially as I'm assuming your lease doesn't say "internet is for school related usage only."  Going to a device, loading a webpage, and saying that it works is like going to a sink, turning it on all the way, getting a slow drip, and saying the sink works.  If I were her, I'd be complaining too.  I should be able to sit in my room and have functional internet.  Yes, Netflix can be very bandwidth intensive if the bandwidth is there.  It will also degrade down to about 5 megabit before failing to work.  My dad has an 8 megabit DSL connection, works just fine.  So if her's isn't working, she's getting less than than.

Part of the problem is the repeaters.  They kill speed because your device makes a request, the request goes to the extender, the extender then repeats the request and the same thing happens on the reverse.  They're great if you have little to no signal because now you have more than you had, but they do slow things down.

I suspect the problem with the wifi signal is in one of two places.  From the sounds of it, you're using the wifi embedded in the modem that the ISP is providing.  These are generally "cheap" units as no big business is going to pop for the quality units they're deploying to hundreds of homes.  The other potential problem source is most routers provicde 2.4ghz and 5ghz signals.  The 5ghz signals almost can't even pass through a piece of paper (ok, I'm exaggerating somewhat), but they do degrade quickly the more they have to pass through walls and such.

I also wouldn't discount the damage a simple staircase can do to wifi signals.  I have one in the line of sight between my router and my bedroom.  Don't know what's inside that staircase, but it kills the signal.  Ended up replacing my cheap Linksys router with a much more expensive Asus router and all my signal issues went away.

So while there's probably not much you can do for her, you are essentially her internet provider and if I were in her place, I'd be complaining too.

@Betty Klein I'd call a few other realtors. When I listed my primary residence a few years ago, two agents wanted to list at $160-165k. I knew it was worth more based on recent sales in the neighborhood. They said it wouldn't sell for more. I called another agent recommended by someone my mom worked with and she walked in the door without me saying anything and suggested $195k. Had an offer accepted within a week.

@Jonathan Hulen I haven't had that issue, but since the redesign I've had horrible sorting issues and this other issue where all the sudden posts will just start moving around without me doing anything.

@Natasha Chap A bad outlet in one room a total outage does not make unless that's the only outlet in the house. Inconvenient, maybe, but not deserving an angry email. To the OP. Pull the cover off and just check the connector on the back. If it isn't tight, this could be the cause of the issue. Beyond that I would definitely be talking to the cable company. They will normally track this stuff down. But there is probably a splitter somewhere and the connection could be bad there or even the splitter itself has gone bad.

@Aaron Klatt Agreed. I recently moved into a neighborhood here and it seems to be a thing here to wedge cards between the flag and the mailbox or rubber band them. Oftentimes whatever it is ends up on the ground or blowing around the yard. Personally, I dump anything like that into the recycling sight unseen.

I'd leave the HVAC and the gas meter alone. Short of an incompetent install, it was probably code/the way things were done at the time.

I find this interesting. When I bought my personal residence, the seller had an undisclosed lien that took forever to remove. I was ready to walk over the situation and was told I was stuck in the contract as long as the seller was making a good faith effort.

I wonder if some sort of seller finance deal would work here. They carry the note, but instead of a mortgage payment the "payment" becomes a credit toward their rent and their rent becomes your rent amount minus the mortgage payment. That makes their out of pocket costs lower vs having a large rent payment.

@Jesse Smith I'm honestly not even sure how to think about this anymore. While it technically comes out of the sellers proceeds, I believe sales prices go up to compensate for this (hence the higher prices with an agent), but given that the buyer is the only one showing up with funds to most closings, it is really the buyer paying for both sides and even paying 15-30 yrs of interest on it in most cases. And I do agree the system is somewhat broken. Given the technology available these days the current system is broken.

@Rhys Boschert Might want to make sure they're billing you for the right meter? Our bills here include the starting/ending readings. Make sure they match up.