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One more thing I thought of, does your house have central heat and air? Do you smell the smoke when the heat comes on? Your ducts and A-coil may be the problem. They would pick up that smell and circulate it every time your unit runs. Having the A-Coil cleaned will help because it tends to have a build up of the tar and also dust that holds the smell. The ducts are the going to be the hardest thing to get the smell out of. Maybe you should just start smoking, or cooking lots of curry chicken??

Ofgift, are you sure its not coming from your floor coverings, carpet and padding? I have had a rental that had been heavely smoked in and I primed walls and ceilings and repainted and it was much better, but untill I cleaned and replaced some carpeting you could still smell it.

I do know a guy who did this. He has a stable of fenced area for each horse and also has some land that the renters can exercise the horses on. He supplies the water and also has a storage area for the renter to store some feed for their animals. He does not actually care for the animals, just rents the pens. I do not know what he charges but I think they stay full most of the time.

You can also install your own carpet. It is not that hard, you just need to buy the cutter that slides along your base board and cuts it just a little short and then I rent the lever strecher from the rental place. It is a little labor intensive but it really isnt that bad. I buy the lowes 55 cent also and it looks realy good.

I think from reading MikeOH's blog that he seems to most of his own maint. I don't have that many houses but I do all my own work,several major remodels done and working on one now. I have read some posts that your are wasting valuable time that you could be shopping ...... I couldn't make it work if I farmed it all out. How much do you do? Happy Thanksgiving to ALL.

Some times I wonder if we don't go far enough with advice to new investors. Some give great advice on the numbers of investing. But should we also talk about the mind set involved. Are you the type of person who can hand over the keys and still sleep at night, just wondering if your good tenants are having one hell of a party. Also are you ready for the work involved. It takes allot of time to get that first house ready to go. If it needs rehab and you do it yourself are you prepared to work late at night and on your weekends. If you hire it done you had better be there to check on the progress (not as much work but still allot of time). There is nothing easy about this except for opening the rent check and signing the back on the way to the bank. I guess you should also be warned that once you get that first deal done, it seems to get in your blood and you can't wait to find the next one, what starts out as a little investment becomes a fixation of sort...At least it did for me. I know there are things I left out, I just know its not always about the numbers.

You have to remember when you look at properties YOU are not going to live there. Don't fall in love because it cute. You have to buy at a big discount or you will lose money, and thats not an investment. Might as well buy a Cadilac.

I think this would be an excellent idea if you are in a large enough city for it to work, New York definitely. In a small town no way to remain anon. Everybody knows you and what you do. Never have spent a dime on advertising, have more people wanting to rent than I have property.

Bryan is right, find and fix the problem first. I have used a strong bleach mixture in a pump sprayer and it worked well. Remeber if it is on the outside of the drywall it is behind it also. Make sure to tear it off and remove and replace insulation behind if on an outside wall, spray the studs with bleach let dry well. Then prime with kilz or zizner primer to seal in anything that you didn't kill. I have seen the 10 thousand dollar remediation work and they just remove the moldy material and spray down with something to kill the mold. They don't go the extra mile and prime the studs. Just remeber to find the moisture source or it will come back eventually.

I wish I had started young in this area. I would be working for myself instead of the Man. I too have had many naysayers about rental property, both family and friends. I just keep doing my thing hoping to retire with a little extra. Most people are to lazy to do this type of investing. It takes lots of work and some cases sweat and some tears. (If you do your own rehab some blood also) :cry: I know that when I finish a project I tend to think that I am going to lay off for a while, But in a month or so I go stir crazy and have to find something to do.