All Forum Posts by: Yvonne H.

F = At least 2 of these criteria are met: 

within 2 blocks of a homeless shelter, 

multiple houses within 2 blocks that are burned out/boarded up, 

recent murders or shootings have taken place there; 

while you were asleep, someone drove by your rental and shot at/through it,

a police officer was shot within 2 blocks

Zillow reposts to Trulia and a number of other sites. Cozy reposts to realtor.com and a number of others. Between those two sites you will find your ad posted to most all legit sites. I would advise against posting on FB or CL. 

Craigslist, sadly, has become about 70% scam listings, and anyone who uses it to find a place is rarely the ideal tenant.

FB (also Zumper) is possibly worse. It attracts inquiries from anyone who sees the ad--not just tirekickers, but people who aren't even in the market for a new place to live. So you have people who are in the market for sneakers and like the way your housing ad looks, and boom, you have a thousand inquiries from people who are not really even seriously looking for a place to live. FB is truly awful for listing rentals. I always get TONS of inquiries and NONE of them work out.

Cozy and Zillow will get your listing to the right people and get results. 

If you wait until Whole Foods and Trader Joe's arrives, you're about 10-20 years too late! Those large chains indicate stabilized neighborhoods. Determining what is up-and-coming requires more feet-on-the-ground or local insight that can only be gained by first or second hand insight.

Just finished putting my Lowe’s purchases into our tax worksheets. 3,210 individual items purchased at Lowe’s last year. That’s a lot of stuff... Anyone else?

Going back to this--I don't think we are getting the full story and I'm not sure you have grounds to evict the tenant.  How long have you owned this rental? I understand your frustration, but a lot of this may just need to be chalked up to "live & learn, and be a more knowledgeable landlord as a result".

I'm surmising that there is a reason this apartment was not rented out before and now you are finding out why. It might not even have a separate electric meter, or maybe the outlets are wired to the shared common meter. The first thing to do is to verify how that apartment is wired. Again, you can't just "move breakers", that doesn't even exist. You have to some rewiring in order to have an outlet or appliance go to a totally different meter. You can possibly pull a large wire from one subpanel to another, but that would be obvious and if that were the case, you would know it. It would be physically obvious. The current tenant is probably using space heaters on outlets which are running to the common meter. She doesn't control how the wiring is done. And unless you stipulated that she must use propane, then it's ok for her to use electricity. Now you just have to determine how much she owes for electricity. You can do that based on past history of the electricity. 

For a water bill to skyrocket, you probably have a leak--and that is on you to fix it. It's not your tenant's fault. (Again, reasons why this apartment was not rented out before ) You or the manager could call whoever supplies the water and ask them to check at the meter for a leak. They can determine for free if you have a leak on your side. But really, you or your new property manager can do it too, by just looking at the meter and seeing if it's turning when no one is running any water. This may be as simple as replacing the flap inside a toilet. Who knows. 

The problem seems to me that neither you nor he seem to have a good grasp on how the utilities are metered out. That would be the first order of things to do. Otherwise you will continue to have the problem, no matter who the tenant is.

@Derek Sperzel are they rim locks or mortise locks? I would love to see a picture. 
Also this paint is going to be your friend: 

Also—a hump in the middle if the room is usually one of two things: -the floor was saggy and owners jacked up the middle but overcompensated -the exterior walls have settled deeper than the middle because the exterior perimeter soil is wetter over the years due to rainfall off the eaves

This is strange. You can’t just “move” breakers—the wiring would have to be redone. Has that apartment ever been rented before during the time you’ve owned it? My first impression/guess would be that it has always been wired that way and you are just now finding it out because it wasn’t rented before.

My 2 cents. You should have gone in the crawlspace and looked for yourself before making an offer. We always wear get-dirty clothes when viewing a potential property. I always want to know what the crawlspace looks like—joists, plumbing, etc.

Love it! Where is it located? Post some pics of the interior? I’m a renovator of historic properties. Do it right and your buyer might even be eligible for a 20% tax credit—and you pocket the difference. That’s if you’re able to get it on the national register. Also, word of advice, it’s cheaper and more beautiful to keep most all of the old than to try making an old house fit a new mold. Good luck!