All Forum Posts by: Stephanie Medina

Quote from @Bruce Woodruff:

Can you go and get it yourself? Or are you not nearby?

Unfortunately not, I love about an hour away. 🫤. But I think finding a cleaner to do it and/or a neighbor kid may be my best bet!

Quote from @Melanie P.:

As mentioned by others above, require your cleaner to remove all refuse from the property, including anything in the bins, every time they visit the property. If your cleaner doesn't offer this service, find one who does. There are lots of cleaners. 

Oh! That is something I did not consider. Thanks!

I am currently converting my LTR in Houston to a STR. I am trying to figure out a solution to my trash situation. It's a townhome in a small gated community of 7 other townhomes. Each thursday, you have to wheel trash to the curb and outside of the gate, then bring it back. My property is at the end. There is another STR owner in this community I've talked to, and he's been doing it for 1-2 years and he said it's still been a real pain to deal with. Depending on the time of the week, he will ask the maid to do it and it's sitting out there a few days. He'll also ask the guests, and that is very unreliable as you can imagine. His property is right at the gate too!

I have already reached out to several valet trash services that service multi-family residences in hopes they would also serve a single family home, so waiting to hear back about that.  

I also thought of paying a neighbor kid but that sounds like a stressful situation to rely on neighbors I don't really know well.  Maybe I could post on nextdoor for neighbors that don't live on the same street, I'd feel better about that.

Any other ideas?

I found a pretty stellar deal in Texas hill country, a few months earlier than I was prepared for (doesn't seem like most deals have particularly convenient timing!)   I can fund the deal, but it will be a real push with time/energy (this will be my first year owning STRs). Heck it's so good I could manage a loss for a few months but I really think the cash on cash return will be 10% + first year and 20%+ 2nd year.  I'm motivated enough though, because this is what I have been looking for!  

So here's my question.  This is a 3br home, but it's pretty small.  I will also need to do 15k+ in repairs.  I know I could put furniture on 0% interest credit cards, but I would need 2+ years to pay it off and I don't want to have to jump through hoops to cycle a balance onto new cards.  I know with places like Rooms to Go, I could get 50 months 0% financing, and honestly that would make cash flow so much easier and just be much less of a burden.  I am not sure I will have time to go thrifting or the like, as the property is 3 hours away and I work full time.  

So... how much of an impact would it be to just go straight to cookie cutter Rooms to Go stuff for the big ticket items?  Keep in mind, while this is a local destination, it's a small town and not a *ton* of competition.  I think most of the visitors are just looking for a nice private home to enjoy the hill country, which this home would offer.

Quote from @Mya Toohey:

With my STRs here in Tampa Florida.  I try and disclose problems.  With this one I would a paragraph that states " in case of any unforeseen circumstances due to the plumbing, we ask that you not flush wipes or pour grease down the drains "  that way you have stated that in the rules part of the listing.  If something does happen you can at least show AirBNB that you stated that there may be issues and the guests were made aware of a potential problem.  (We had a boat as an AirBNB and the plumbing would clog very easily and we had to state a similar statement and it got us out of refunds and bad reviews) hope that helps! 

That is a great tip!  I could also add there is often construction in central Houston and it does cause unforseen issues.  Because it really, really does.

Update: I decided I will pay a $500-750 or so to do an initial hydro-jetting of the system.  Based on our history of all this, that could last 1-1.5+ years.  Hopefully I can garner enough good reviews by then that a one time sewage incident review does not wipe out my status.  Then based on @Michael Baum's suggestion, I think I will have my cleaner and/or maintenance person do monthly/quarterly maintenance like using using enzyme based cleaners, grease fighting drain treatments and hot water flushing.  ChatGPT gave me a couple of recommendations on that.  If I can recruit some neighbors to also do some of these things, this may put off another incident indefinitely.  I'll be getting several more opinions from other plumbers as well.  

Another thing I was thinking about was this has been by far the longest we've gone without an incident.  It could have been the tenants of the house right next to my property continuing to flush things they should not have despite lots of warnings from the city, and they moved out a little over a year ago.

Quote from @Anil Shah:

Since I read a townhome, I assume there is HOA - do they allow STRs? Many HOA don't.

There is no HOA for us.  One of the 8 townhomes is already a STR, but they don't have the same problem that I do since they are on the opposite side.

Quote from @Michael Baum:

Ok, so I see this might have been a design flaw in the original build so there isn't much you can do unless you rip it all out.

You could have it all scoped and see what's what so you can get an idea of what you are dealing with.

You could comp the guests a night. That isn't a bad way to keep folks happy and make sure they want to leave a 5 star review.

Yeah, the toilet is one thing but the tub, whew. Nasty! :)

I am sure this is a solvable issue with some work.

Do you happen to have an HOA covering the neighborhood? If so, there might be a way to make the HOA take care of the issue as it is part of everyone's sewer and not just yours.

I would get it scoped out. Most plumbers have camera systems that can go 100's of feet usually and it is pretty easy. Then you can see where the issue is. If there is a weird bend, maybe that can be dug up and fixed.

There could also be a slope issue. Sometimes a sewage line will sag over time due to settling of the surrounding soil. It could cause a low spot where things slow down and then it all compounds until there is a clog.

Thank you!! No HOA but you gave me plenty of other ideas

Quote from @Stephanie Medina:

Quote from @Michael Baum:

Hey @Stephanie Medina, so it sounds like this is the sewer main line right? And the problem is the other units?

So it sounds like this is a once in a while problem. It doesn't sound like a showstopper to me.

Did you ask the plumber if there is anything people can flush that will help keep the lines clear? Something once a month or 2x a year that will help dissolve anything stuck.

There are things that you can flush to deal with roots.

If it does happen with guest there, just get someone out to deal with it asap and move forward.

You might ask about a backflow preventer on just the tub. It could cause an issue with more pressure on the toilet but less messy if it happens.

Thanks so much for your response, Michael! 

So the line is a shared private line between the 8 houses.  To give a little more detail, these houses are in 2 rows, 4 on each side, so the line starts at the public street line, does a U-turn at the end houses then back out to the street. My property is at the end, and the two at the end are the only two that really suffer. Sometimes the houses right next to those a little affected, and gross sewage in the nearby ditch.  The clog tends to happen somewhere downstream the line and it backs up into those two houses somehow.  I've talked to a few plumbers and even a plumbing engineer about it and they all are a little stumped.

That is an excellent suggestion about something to dissolve 1-2x a year!! I hadn't thought of that, so I'll start looking down that avenue.  I'll also talk to the last plumber again about the backwater preventer on just the tub.  It happens to the toilet too, but I imagine people would be much less upset about that.  

Thank you again, your post was so very encouraging to me. Would you comp the guest 1-2 nights or anything as well? 

 Correction, I just re-read my notes from last October.  This is a single private sewer line that runs down the middle of the houses, and each house connect to it. There is some sort of u-shaped or curved situation somewhere but I can't recall where

Quote from @Michael Baum:

Hey @Stephanie Medina, so it sounds like this is the sewer main line right? And the problem is the other units?

So it sounds like this is a once in a while problem. It doesn't sound like a showstopper to me.

Did you ask the plumber if there is anything people can flush that will help keep the lines clear? Something once a month or 2x a year that will help dissolve anything stuck.

There are things that you can flush to deal with roots.

If it does happen with guest there, just get someone out to deal with it asap and move forward.

You might ask about a backflow preventer on just the tub. It could cause an issue with more pressure on the toilet but less messy if it happens.

Thanks so much for your response, Michael! 

So the line is a shared private line between the 8 houses.  To give a little more detail, these houses are in 2 rows, 4 on each side, so the line starts at the public street line, does a U-turn at the end houses then back out to the street. My property is at the end, and the two at the end are the only two that really suffer. Sometimes the houses right next to those a little affected, and gross sewage in the nearby ditch.  The clog tends to happen somewhere downstream the line and it backs up into those two houses somehow.  I've talked to a few plumbers and even a plumbing engineer about it and they all are a little stumped.

That is an excellent suggestion about something to dissolve 1-2x a year!! I hadn't thought of that, so I'll start looking down that avenue.  I'll also talk to the last plumber again about the backwater preventer on just the tub.  It happens to the toilet too, but I imagine people would be much less upset about that.  

Thank you again, your post was so very encouraging to me. Would you comp the guest 1-2 nights or anything as well?