All Forum Posts by: Steve Balinski

 Ohh they do in mine, lease has paint in there.  If they move into a freshly painted unit and I need to re-paint it, thats on them.  I've lived in my place for several years and there is hardly  a single mark on the walls, I expect people living in my building to treat it as I would.  I let them know I don't play around when they move in.

Hello everyone,

I'm curious how many people paint in between each tenant? Surely depends on condition, but if it has some basic scrapes and marks here and there, do you repaint for each tenant?

im calculating the costs of I do this every time.  Leasing fee is 1100/month, paint is $1500 for the whole place.  This means for each tenant I'm immediately $2600 in the hole.  For those who shoot for $200-400 per door, how do you even break even just with these costs alone? That's 7 months of rental income just to pay off the move-in costs alone.  

I understand some of this is subject to state laws, but just want to get a general idea of where to go with this

2 tenants, both of them weren't getting along and decided one of them was going to move out, so I gave the other a 30 day notice to leave and signed the new lease with the one who was staying.  Today is day 28, the one who was supposed to leave is saying his plans fell through and he will need another month.  I had a bad feeling this person was going to end up being a squatter from the beginning, and now here we are.  I really don't want him to stay, but he basically told me he is staying and will need another month to come up with plan B and agreed by Nov. 1st he will be out.  Current lease states anyone living there not on the lease will incur a $xx/day fine.

My questions are: Can I amend a 1 year lease contract with the other person and make an amendment for the other person to stay for 1 month?

Can I charge an additional security deposit (month rent x2) because now I see him as very high risk?

How would I go about removing him without removing the good tenant who I re-signed with, is it the same eviction process?

honestly, im not sure there always is a source, the more and more I learn.  A fly or two gets in the house, lays eggs, and thats the start of the cycle.  I've had several people inspect the attic, I have someone coming today to scope the drain lines, but my and my neighbors drain lines are separate, wouldn't make sense if BOTH our drain lines cracked on the same week after 30 years..

 I actually tried this, but unfortunately the smell from the basement is now getting recirculated through the house...curious to see how well it works though.  They have to be laying eggs somewhere, I have a feeling its on the windowsills

Anyone ever deal with a fly problem?
I have a duplex, about 2+ weeks ago both of our units started getting flies. My unit has about 10-15 a day, the other unit has about 30+
I had Orkin come over, they didnt see anything specific that indicated where the problem was coming from. Both attics are pretty "clean", except there is evidence of a squirrel (crap) in my tenants attic, BUT no smell of anything dead, AND no swarms of flies in the attics. At this point I dont know what to do. I've been told they run their course, but going on 3 weeks seems kind of long. I'm not sure what else to do at this point.  My tenant has them all over the house, mine seems to be localized to the basement.  I put a stick trap on top of the floor drain, 0 flies on it in 3 days now, they're just all on the windows.

Hello everyone, I need some help.

A new tenant just moved into one of my units and they are putting up a trampoline. The lease does not specifically state no trampolines....is there anything I can do. I see this as a liability issue AND i'd assume it will kill the lawn beneath it.

 The tenant works at a school and has great credit.  I'm sure she wants to keep that credit score and doesnt want collections company trying to contact her at a school, or get served at school, that'd be pretty embarrassing, and just not a good look overall