Tongues Anyone?

I now officially have two spare tongues. Hold on, before you jump to the conclusion that you have reached some sort of weird body parts auction site, the tongues I'm talking about are steel tongues from my doublewide project. I finally got back to work on the doublewide project and finally got both of the tongues cut off. Normally, the tongues are bolted on to the frame, but this house didn't have any tongues when I bought the house. The mobile home mover found some tongues but they didn't line up with the bolt holes on the house. So, the mobile home mover welded the tongues onto the house. It was my job to cut them back off.

When I first tried to work on them the other day, one of the torch gauge sets was broken. I bought another gauge set and started cutting the tongues off with the torch. However, I decided that the risk of fire was great enough that I wanted to try cutting the welds off with an angle grinder. I started doing that, but needed another cutting wheel. So, yesterday I finally got the new cutting wheel and was able to successfully remove both tongues.

Yesterday was also inspection day for one of my Section 8 rentals. On the day of the inspection, I usually go the the unit about two hours before the inspection to make sure everything is up to Section 8 standards. This includes checking the smoke detectors, fire extinguisher, paint (especially around the windows), electrical outlets, glass in the windows, plumbing for leaks, etc. I have a 5-gallon bucket that I call my Section 8 bucket. It contains everything necessary to repair most Section 8 issues. For example, one item in the bucket is smoke detector batteries (9 volt batteries) . It is typical to find smoke detectors without batteries. Low income tenants often remove the batteries to use in their CD players and other appliances. Yes, they're just plain stupid for doing so, but that is the reality. When I checked the 3 smoke detectors in the rental unit yesterday, one was missing the battery and one had the battery disconnected so that it wouldn't function. Those would have both been failure items during the Section 8 inspection.

When the Section 8 inspector arrived, it was an inspector I had never met. He explained that the regular inspector was sick and that he was filling in. He also said that he was the trainer for all the Section 8 inspectors in the area. Wonderful! That's all I need - the inspector that trains the other inspectors! As it turned out, the regular inspector had told the trainer inspector that I was one of the better landlords in town, which was nice. I did pass the inspection and the inspector told me that this unit was only the second to pass all day! I felt good about that.

Next up for the doublewide project is to finish the blocks on the end of the house. I am planning to do that on Monday. I'm taking the weekend off. Everything comes to a halt in Ohio when the Buckeyes are playing football. Kickoff today is high noon! Go Bucks!