All Forum Posts by: Matt R.

I only have one property so far.  I use Cozy.co to accept payments.  When I first rented my property, I also used Cozy's background check and credit report service.  I don't currently use their other features (like applications), though.

For accounting, I just use spreadsheets, stored locally on my PC.  They get backed up regularly to an external hard drive.

Whether you use spreadsheets or property management software on your PC, always back up the files.  A big USB flash drive, or an external hard drive, is a good way to do it.  If you use online property management software, see if it offers some way to download everything as a spreadsheet or zip file or something.  If so, do that every month, and save the file to your backup device.

Check your state and local laws.  I know at least one state (Oklahoma) passed a law, in the late 2000s, to make it a crime for a landlord to rent property to someone in the country illegally.  I think that law may have been challenged in court, but I don't know the outcome.

Some other states and cities have a law that you can't ask about the immigration status of tenants or prospective tenants.

Disclaimers: I am not a professional appliance repair person.  I did sell appliance parts over the phone 20+ years ago. I don't have any connection to any sites mentioned.

To add on a little - sometimes there's something you can replace yourself, or have your handyman / maintenance person replace, without needing a full service call from an appliance tech.  To do that, you have to come up with the replacement part.

Getting parts:

There are Web sites that are pretty good at helping you find the part you want; a couple of them are Repair Clinic and Parts Select.  Even if you don't buy the part from them, that tells you about what the part costs when it's on the other side of a UPS truck.

The big-box stores like Home Depot or Lowe's will stock a few really popular parts, like electric range elements, knobs, water filters, etc.  Some of the knobs come with multiple inserts and scales, so they will work on different brands and models.  They might not match the other knobs or the appliance, but you can buy them at 8 PM on Sunday and get your tenant back up and running.

Most big cities will have a store that just sells appliance parts.  So far, I have found that when you find the right store, their price will be pretty close to the online price.  You pay a little more for the building and being able to walk out with the part today, but often that's worth a few extra bucks.  Sometimes the price is different if they think you're a homeowner, vs a landlord, vs a service tech.  Walking in there with your model and serial number (or part number if you have it), ready to go, helps.  Spending 20 minutes asking the person at the counter to diagnose it for you hurts.  Showing up in your work clothes helps.  :D

Appliance stores will also have some stock of the most popular parts - more than Home Depot or Lowe's has on the shelf, but not as many as a dedicated parts-only store.  Usually it works better to go to a "Bob's Appliance" type of store for this.  Their prices may be a little higher than a parts-only store, but again, you can have it in your hand today.

Some appliance manufacturers will sell some parts directly on their own websites - usually the stuff that's really easy to replace or install, like shelves for a fridge or oven, knobs for a range, water filters for a fridge, etc.  These are usually at list price (high), but it might be the only option if your appliance is really new.

Ebay and Amazon are more of a mixed bag.  I tried to order some filters for the range hood in my rental from a seller on Amazon; they never showed up, so I got a refund.  A few weeks later, they showed up in the mail, but when I tried to install one, it was the wrong size.  I have since been ordering them through a local store; they cost more than Amazon, but they are genuine parts that fit right.

I have had a little better luck on Ebay; I bought a new motor for my washing machine at home, and it turned out to be a genuine part at a good price.  Standard Ebay rules apply; just because the appliance manufacturer's part number is in the ad, and the photo of the item shows it sitting on the appliance manufacturer's parts box, doesn't mean it's actually a manufacturer part.

A little more on fridges:

The fridge in my rental is the first one I've owned with an electronic control board in it. It can do some tricks if you open the door and operate the door light switch a few times in a row, like turning the various motors and the defrost heater on and off in sequence. You have to be comfortable swapping parts to do anything with this information, but it might help you decide what's going on without taking the fridge apart. The sheet of paper that's folded up in a little envelope, behind the grille at the bottom front, tells you how to use the test modes.  Other appliances with electronic controls may have similar test modes.

Because of that electronic board in the fridge, I bought a small one-outlet surge protector, and plugged the fridge in through that.  It's been OK for about 3 years now, but ask me in 5 or 10 years if I think it helped.  :)

It probably won't pencil out, but it might be worth looking at what it would take to rent furniture from somebody like Rent-a-Center, or a local furniture store that offers rentals.  Normally that is a pretty expensive way to buy furniture, but since you only need it for about 8 months, maybe it would work out.

I have used cheap plastic drywall knives as scrapers before; I feel like they have a lower chance of messing up the surface than a razor blade or metal putty knife, and when they're new, they have a decent edge on them.  Home Depot, Lowe's, etc, sell them for about $2 each, or a 3-pack of different widths for about $5.  Usually they're at one end of the aisle with all the drywall.

Check the refrigerator manual.  Sometimes there's a slighly-not-obvious rocker or slide switch on the side of the icemaker you can turn on and off; usually it's on the edge of that big white plastic square piece that's closest to the freezer door.  Often there's a wire arm or plastic flap that shuts off the icemaker when the ice bin gets full; sometimes you have to manually pull that into the "not full" position the first time to get the icemaker to start.  Also make sure that arm/flap isn't still taped down, or blocked by a chunk of Styrofoam or cardboard that was there for shipping.  If it has fancy electronic controls, see if there's an "enable icemaker" buried in the menus somewhere.

On the back of the refrigerator, the spot where you connect the water line from the house is usually one side of the solenoid valve that lets water into the icemaker.  There will be an electrical connector with two wires on it at one end of the valve - you might have to take off the cardboard or plastic panel at the bottom back side of the refrigerator to see it.  Make sure this connector is plugged onto the valve all the way, and not just dangling there.  If you think it's loose, unplug the fridge from the wall outlet, reconnect the connector at the valve, and plug the fridge back in again.

Most of the time, the icemaker has a short cable that ends in a multi-pin plug, and there is a matching socket in the wall of the freezer that it plugs into.  If that plug is loose, the icemaker may not work.  You may not be able to see the plug until you take the icemaker partially out.  Typically the procedure is to unplug the fridge from the wall, remove the ice bin, and then use a screwdriver to loosen (not remove) a couple of Phillips-head screws that go into the wall of the freezer.  The icemaker usually has "keyhole" slots in it - lift up on the icemaker and pull it away from the wall of the freezer to free it from the screws.  You should then be able to see the cable from the icemaker going to the plug - make sure the plug is seated all the way, or even unplug it and then plug it back in again.  Hang the icemaker back up, tighten the screws, plug the fridge back into the wall, and see what happens.

If none of that helps, call an appliance repairman that does warranty service for your brand.  While you're waiting for them to get there, if you haven't done it already, go online and register your model, serial number, and date of purchase with the appliance company.  This will make the paperwork a little bit easier later.

Disclaimer: I am not a professional plumber.

Some water meters have a "ticker" in them; they will make a clicking noise every second or two whenever water is flowing at all.  Sometimes you can hear it from all the pipes, but sometimes you need to put your ear right next to the meter.  If you just have one meter, maybe have a helper listen to the meter, while you go around and shut off various things in the different units, to see which one makes the ticking stop.  You'll have to follow the usual procedure to give notice to the tenants that you'll need access to their apartments.

Besides the odometer-type wheels that usually measure hundreds of gallons, some water meters have a small indicator on their face that spins whenever water is flowing.  The ones I've seen look like a small red triangle, maybe 1/2" on a side.  Same deal... one person watches the meter, while the other person goes around and turns things off, until the indicator stops spinning.

My local water department offers dye packs, for free, if you go to their counter in City Hall and ask for them.  You put a dye pack in the toilet tank and wait to see if the color shows up in the bowl.  If so, replace flapper.  I've heard of, but not tried, adding some food coloring to the water in the tank to do the same thing.

Sometimes on a new-build house, or one where they've done lots of plumbing work, a plumber will pressurize the lines with air, from a compressor, to check for leaks.  (Air doesn't make a mess if there is a leak.)  Basically, you either cap off where the meter goes (new house) or close the main valve (rework), and try to drain the water from the lines, if they're not already empty.  Go around to make sure all the faucets, etc, are closed.  If the toilet tanks are dry, you have to close the shutoffs at the toilet.  Then, at the garden hose bibb or the washing machine connection, you hook up a fitting that has garden hose threads on one end, a valve and an air line connector on the other end, and a pressure gauge.  Plug the air line into the compressor, run the compressor until you have about 60 psi on the gauge, shut off the compressor, close the valve, and wait.  If the pressure stays steady for many minutes, or even an hour, it's OK.  If the pressure drops off, you have a leak somewhere.  If it's a big enough leak, you might be able to hear it if you get close enough to it.  All plumbers should know how to do this test; some home inspectors will do it, as well, but they may or may not want to do it on an occupied property.

A couple of the walls in the bathroom in my residence have wallpaper that had been painted over once, which I didn't realize until right before I repainted it.  I went ahead and painted over the paper again, and I sort of wish I hadn't.  Most of it is OK, but the vanity is in the corner, and doesn't have a "side splash", so that part of the wallpaper is exposed to water splashing from the sink.  The paint and wallpaper is starting to wrinkle up in that area.  If any part of the wallpaper in yours is close to the countertops, you might think about removing it.

On the other hand, I've helped pull wallpaper off of drywall before.  Expect a lot of sanding, and some spackling, to get everything reasonably flat again so you can paint it.

It might be overkill, but you could install actual grab bars - like what you'd put in a tub or shower - as towel rails.  (Going the other way, towel rails as grab bars, doesn't work.)  If you do this, it probably helps to get them with a relatively smooth finish, instead of knurled or pebbly.  It also is a good idea to make sure they're really well fastened into the studs on both ends, because if it looks like a grab bar, somebody might reach for it one day if they start to slip.

I put grab bars in a tub a few years ago, for a relative.  Home Depot and Lowes sold grab bars that were specifically not in multiples of 16 or 24 inches long, I think so that at least one end would miss the stud.  They offer a super-duper toggle bolt for about $10 that they say will hold a grab bar, but I was skeptical.  I ended up ordering the grab bars online, because I could get them in lengths where both ends would be on the studs.  They've been in there for over 4 years now and no complaints.

The place I ordered mine from currently offers smooth grab bars, 1.25" diameter, stainless, at about $14 for a 16-inch bar, $17 for a 24-inch bar, or $19 for a 32-inch bar.  I ordered one 16-inch bar and one 32-inch bar and the shipping was $15.

About three days after I posted that, I went to turn on the cold water on that faucet, and the big nut that holds the cartridge into the faucet body broke.  The cartridge itself was fine, as was the handle, but the zinc or pot-metal nut was in 3 pieces.  The faucet had been in service for about 10 years and 6 months at that point.

American Standard sells that nut on their site for $2, but it was on the other side of a UPS truck.  Curiously, the one they sell is brass... I wonder if they got too many warranty claims on the zinc ones, or if they still ship faucets with zinc to meet the price point.

Home Depot, Lowe's, Menards, and Ace Hardware did not stock this nut for an American Standard faucet, either as a genuine part or as a Danco generic.  It might have the same threads as a relatively large (like 3/4") compression fitting nut, but none of them stocked compression fittings that big.  The closest I got was the correct replacement cartridge at Menards, but it didn't come with the nut.  Ferguson had the part number on their web site, but they want to play the game of "apply for an account for us, and maybe we'll give you one, and then maybe we'll tell you what it costs and if it's in stock".  (That game has been obsolete since December 24, 1990, and I refuse to play it.)  The employee at Ace directed me to a local plumbing business that he said stocked closeout and salvage parts, but I didn't end up trying them.  I had a couple of nuts that I had salvaged from scrap kitchen faucets of unknown brands, and they didn't fit either.

I gave up and put in the warranty claim with American Standard, and they did mail me a new nut for free, but it took a few days to get here.  In the meantime, I bought a $10 plastic bathroom faucet at Menards, and installed it in the kitchen sink, so I could at least have water.  When the nut showed up in the mail, I put the kitchen faucet back together, and it's been working OK for a week or so now, and I have a spare bathroom faucet.

So... my recommendation for American Standard is not as strong as it once was.

(And no, I wouldn't screw around like this if the faucet at the rent house broke; I'd try to buy the part, and if the part wasn't available at the first store or two I tried, I'd just buy a new faucet and install it.  At my residence, I have greater latitude to be cheap.)