Electrical Fire

This is my sixth year in the rental property business. With several dozen rentals, I've had just about every bad thing occur that is possible. However, this morning I received the call that I've always dreaded. It was a call that one of my buildings (a duplex) was on fire.

Before I get too far into the story, let me back up a little bit. I keep my cellphone with me 24/7. I use my cellphone for all my business activities, including dealing with tenants. In the past 5+ years, I've never received one of the stereotypical "3am broken water line" calls that you always hear about. Nevertheless, I always keep it on just in case. Last night was no exception. When I went to bed, I put the phone on the headboard. At about 5am, my &%$#@ cellphone started chirping that the battery was almost dead. I was tired and it was nearly morning, so I shut it off instead of getting up to put it on charge. When I finally got up about 7am, I plugged my phone in and turned it on. I immediately had two voicemails, which I knew was a bad sign. Sure enough, as the first voicemail began, I could hear sirens in the background. The call was from one of my tenants who was telling me that the duplex was on fire. That voicemail was received at 5:50 am, a full one hour and ten minutes before I plugged the phone in. As I started to listen to the second voice mail, I had a call waiting, which was the tenant. She told me that the fire had started in the downstairs apartment and that the fire was out. I told her that I would be right there. It was quite ironic that I received the dreaded 5 am call on just about the only occassion that my phone has been off in the past 6 years!

About 10 minutes later, I arrived at the house. There was still a fire engine in the middle of the street with the emergency lights flashing. As it turned out, I knew the fire captain that was on the scene and he took me into the apartment to show me the cause of the fire.

I had been using this one-bedroom apartment for storage. There were a lot of tools and supplies still in there, even though I had been slowly transferring my stuff to the storeroom at the pink elephant, which I will be using as a central location for all my rental stuff. Because it was being used for storage, there was nothing actually being electrically powered in the apartment, even though the electric service was on. Even more strange is that an electrical fire would occur in a duplex that had a brand new electrical service and all modern (or new) electrical wiring. Anyway, the fire captain took me to the bathroom to show me where the fire started. The fire started in an electric wall mounted heater that had not been used in the 4 years that I have owned the property. We installed a new electric furnace and heat pump for the unit and I was planning to remove the electric heater when we renovated the unit. There was little doubt that the heater was the cause of the fire. The walls in the bathroom were completely charred, with the worst charring immediately surrounding the heater. The only other electrical appliance in the unit was the light, which was on the opposite wall and showed no evidence of significant damage (other than smoke damage). I have a lot of experience with electrical work, and I can tell you that I have absolutely no idea how a heater that wasn't turned on and hasn't been used in several years, could suddenly burst into flames. I suppose that it's possible a mouse was chewing on the wiring, but beyond that, I don't have a good idea. I thought that maybe someone had broken into the apartment and caused the fire, but the fire captain said that all the windows and doors were closed and locked when they arrived. They broke in the back door to gain access to the unit.

The bottom line is that the bathroom walls were charred; the kitchen has a lot of smoke damage; and the rest of the apartment has light to moderate smoke damage. I'll need to remove the drywall in the bathroom. The rest of the apartment will need to be cleaned and then painted with Kilz.

While all this may sound bad, I am actually very glad that it turned out so well. The safety equipment worked perfectly in the upstairs apartment. The smoke alarm woke up the tenants and no one was injured. There wasn't even any smoke damage in the upstairs apartment. So, all in all, things could have been a LOT worse.

Lessons learned? Be sure that there are smoke detectors on every floor of every unit (there were) and, of course, keep your cell phone charged.

Copper vs. Pex in the Cold

The last two days have been an interesting study in the relative merits of copper water line vs. Pex water line (with brass Sharkbite connectors). In yesterday's blog, I discussed how a mistake on my part resulted in a frozen waterline in one of my apartment buildings. Today, I would like to discuss another apartment that had a frozen waterline today and the starkly different result in that unit with Pex vs. the one yesterday with copper.

As you may recall from yesterday's blog post, I failed to ensure that the electric service was on at a vacant apartment and the result was frozen water lines in the apartment at the back of the building. Once I thawed the water lines, there were so many breaks in the water lines that it was a virtual downpour in the apartment. Those broken water lines were all copper. I replaced enough of those broken lines last night to re-establish water service to the two occupied units in that 3-unit building. Since the electric was obviously still out last night at the back apartment, I asked the tenant in one of the other units to let the water drip overnight to prevent re-freezing.

As you have probably already surmised, the tenant did NOT keep the water dripping overnight and the water lines refroze. So, this morning, I went over to the apartment to thaw the water lines with my torpedo heater again. Before I even arrived at the building, I received a call from another tenant in one of our duplexes and she also reported that her water was frozen. I was somewhat surprised that this building had a frozen water line as I have owned this building about 3 years and never had a problem before, even when the temperature reached 10 to 20 degrees below zero! Last night's temperature was only about zero, but the wind was blowing quite strongly.

The interesting facet to my situation over the past 2 days is the stark difference between the frozen water lines that were copper and those that were Pex (with brass Sharkbite connectors). In the unit with the copper lines, there were several breaks in the lines. In the unit with the Pex lines, there were absolutely no breaks in the lines. Furthermore, when the Pex lines that I installed last night refroze this morning, there were no breaks in the lines. My conclusion is that Pex performs exactly as advertised - it's won't break even when frozen solid, whereas copper easily breaks when frozen! This is certainly something to consider when deciding what type of water line to install in rentals in cold climates.

Self-inflicted Wound!

Today I found out what happens when an absolute idiot (me) mismanages a rental property with the outside air temperature near zero. Here's the story:

My plan for today was to pay a few bills; go to the post office; go to the bank; sign the lease with a new tenant; and then finish the laminate floor I've been working on. I estimated that this would take about 4 hours. Everything was going as planned. Since it was very cold today, I didn't go to work until about noon. After accomplishing everything on my list, I was getting ready to go home. That's when things started going downhill.

I received a call from one of my tenants who said that her water had frozen. She lives in one of my 3-unit buildings and obviously if she was out of water, the entire building was without water. I drove right over to the building and met with the tenant. Just as she said, the water was frozen. After looking carefully at the situation, it became obvious what the problem was. I WAS THE PROBLEM!

You see, the back apartment in this building is vacant. I didn't realize that the water line heat tape for the main water line that runs under that apartment was run from the electrical service of that apartment. Since the unit was vacant, I allowed the electric to be shut off and therefore the waterline became frozen.

Unfortunately, my stupidity and ignorance wasn't the end of the story. Once I got the water line unfrozen, there was a virtual rain storm in the back apartment due to the multiple ruptures in the copper water line caused by the freezing. I carry most of the parts in my pickup truck to fix almost any problem. I had several quick-connect Sharkbite connectors and some pieces of PEX waterline. Unfortunately, there were so many leaks that I didn't have enough connectors to finish repairing all the leaks, even after going to my storeroom and getting all the parts I had there. The only good news was that after cutting numerous holes in the walls and ceiling, I was able to repair the supply line that provides water to the two occupied apartments. So, tomorrow, I will still need to repair the remaining waterlines in the back apartment.

When all was said and done, my 4 hour work day turned into a 10 hour workday, and all because I failed to ensure that the electric was on at the back apartment. You can bet that this is a lesson that I won't soon forget! Who said that the rental business isn't fun? UGH!

Finally Started on the Floor

I finally got started on the kitchen floor of the 2 bedroom house today. Things went fairly smoothly and I got about 3/4 of the floor done. I am still not satisfied with the joints between the individual laminate panels. I re-read the instructions for the installation and was very careful with each piece of laminate, yet there are still wider gaps in some of the panels than I would like. This is an old house and nothing is square or perfectly level, so that may be having an effect on the job.

My brother-in-law has a very large rental business and I may talk to him about observing his next installation. He has a guy that installs his laminate and this guy does an excellent job. There may be some tricks of the trade that I need to learn from an expert.

Electrical Problem

We had a death in the family this week and therefore I didn't work from Sunday through Thursday as I was spending time with my family and we had a bunch of company at our house . I finally got back to work today and had every intention of finally laying the new laminate floor in the kitchen of one of my two bedroom houses. Unfortunately, I had a couple of other issues come up and I spent all afternoon working on those issues.

The first issue was a tenant that left a message yesterday about an upstairs tenant (Section 8) that was causing trouble. I tried to call the tenant that was reported to be causing the problem and then I tried to call the tenant that complained about the other tenant. Both of their cell phones had been disconnected. So, I stopped by the apartment building to check up on the situation. The downstairs tenant was home. He said that the tenant upstairs had started drinking heavily about two weeks ago and had been a problem every since. He also said that he saved the life of the upstairs tenant about a week ago when he was extremely drunk and severely cut his foot on a broken beer bottle.

After hearing that side of the story, I went upstairs to talk to the upstairs tenant. He wasn't home, so I'll stop by another day to get his side of the story and try to get him to behave. Dealing with tenants is a lot like dealing with 3rd grade children.

My next stop was at an apartment that supposedly had a couple of lights that weren't working. My assumption was that the light bulbs had burned out and that the tenant wasn't intelligent enough to put in a working light bulb (it happens all the time). To my surprise, putting in new bulbs didn't fix the problem. So, I checked the fuses - all were ok. Both of these lights were ceiling lights (one was a ceiling fan). I checked voltage at both fixtures and found that there was no power to either fixture. So, I went back out to the fusebox to troubleshoot that. Everything checked out fine at the fusebox. To make a long story short, the trouble ended up being a broken wire in one of the electrical boxes in the ceiling. I replaced the first light fixture and then went to Lowes to get another ceiling light fixture to replace the old ceiling fan that had been installed. It is my policy to make Section 8 rentals as simple as possible. A ceiling fan is just one more thing to go bad and they can be quite dangerous. There was a recent legal case in which a landlord was sued when a tenant lost an eye in a ceiling fan mishap. The tenant was bouncing on a couch and was struck in the eye by the whirling ceiling fan blade.

Afer I finally finished the electrical issue (more than 2 hours after starting), I had to show a one-bedroom house to a prospective tenant. He filled out an application and claims he will take the apartment - we'll see. That was it for today. I'm planning to work tomorrow. Maybe I can finally get that floor started.

New Tenant Moved In

Today's main project was to get the lease signed with the new tenant for one of my 1 bedroom apartments. The tenant was moving from Kentucky and didn't arrive until about 11:30. I had to finish moving all my supplies out of the apartment and I also installed a shower curtain rod around the claw foot tub. I make the shower curtain rods myself, which allow the claw foot tubs to be used as a shower. The reason that I make them is because the kits that you can buy to accomplish this are expensive and easily damaged by tenants. So, after some experimentation, I determined that the best way to make a tenant-safe shower ring is to use 1 1/4 inch PVC with floor flanges that screw into the wall. I can make a complete shower ring all the way around the tub for less that $40 as opposed to about $140 for the kit from the plumbing store. The floor flanges are the most expensive part of the project at about $7 each but they are cast iron and therefore indestructable by the tenants. About the worst thing the tenants can do to it is destroy the PVC pipe, which is very inexpensive.

I didn't do anything else today and won't be doing any rental related stuff this weekend. Our church is having our annual Christmas Cantada this weekend and my part is to run the projection. So, I'll be busy tomorrow with practice and then we'll have the Cantada both tomorrow evening and Sunday morning. It will be a busy weekend.

Painting Complete.

I finished painting the 1-bedroom apartment today. In addition to the painting, I repaired a soft spot in the bathroom floor and steam-cleaned the carpets. The new tenant is moving in tomorrow, so I got finished just in the nick of time!

Not too much else to report here. This time between Thanksgiving and New Years is always slow and this year is no exception. Phone calls from potential tenants are down to a handful each day and tenants are busy doing their Christmas shopping.

I'm not sure what I will do tomorrow, but something will come up. I'm thinking about taking my wife to see the movie "The Day the Earth Stood Still" in the afternoon or evening.

Painting again

I started the day with a 10 minute job to replace the element in the oven at one of my 3 bedroom houses. No big deal.

The rest of my time today was spent painting the floor in a 3 bedroom duplex and then painting the kitchen in the 1 bedroom apartment that I've been working on. Nothing too exciting.

I did have an interesting call from a prospective tenant today. She asked about one of my two bedroom houses. She asked if she could see it and I explained my screening criteria to her. After I got done, I asked if everyone that would live there would meet the criteria. Her answer was very telling. "I will be the only one on the lease and I will pass the criteria", even though she already told me that her mother and boyfriend would be living there. The translation of her answer is "my mother and boyfriend have evictions and a criminal record, so I'll be the one to apply". Needless to say, I wasn't fooled and I said "no thanks"!

Torturing a Deadbeat Ex-Tenant!

No, the law doesn't allow water-boarding deadbeats here in Ohio, so I guess torture isn't exactly the right word. However, I currently have a situation that is going to provide some amusement to me as I get the chance to make an evicted tenant's life miserable. Here's the story.

Last January, I took over a building that was mismanaged and full of druggies and deadbeats. One of the apartments was occupied by a man and woman. The woman was a crack addict and they were not paying rent regularly to the previous owner. The woman decided to spend the money on crack instead of the rent. I suppose that she expected me to act like the last landlord and accept some silly excuse instead of the rent. I immediately evicted them. In addition to evicting them, I had them banned from the premises by the police department.

They moved into another rented apartment a few blocks away, but would return to stand on the sidewalk and talk to their mother who lives in a downstairs apartment. I have told them that if I caught either of them actually on the property that I would have them arrested (and I have had some of the other evicted druggies arrested for criminal trespass). I also told the mother that if she allowed them in her apartment, I would terminate her lease (she's on a month-to-month).

Well, the bottom line is that the two druggies split up and the man is homeless. He has returned to the property to live with his mother. The only problem for him is that he can't allow me to see him, or his mother will lose her apartment and they will both be homeless. Unfortunately for him, I have eight security cameras at the building and therefore he can't come or go without me seeing him. So, he snuck into the apartment wearing a hood and now he's trapped. He can't risk coming or going without being seen. He might as well be in prison!!! LOL!!!

So, now I'm going to have a little fun! There is a little spot on one of the walls that needs fixed in the mother's apartment. After keeping him trapped in the apartment for a few days, I'm going to call the mother, when we have a particularly cold day, and tell her that I'm coming over to fix the wall. He'll have to sneak out before I get there, which I will catch on the surveillance system. While I'm there, I'll mention to the mother that I heard that he's been seen by a neighbor and remind her that if I see him going into her apartment that I'll be forced to terminate her lease. That should be enough to keep him out on the street for a few days. If he sneaks back in, I'll find another excuse to go over and force him out again. It should be fun and I'll enjoy making his life miserable after he ripped me off for hundreds of dollars of rent and eviction costs!

I took yesterday off, so today was my first day of working on the rentals this week. My project today was to paint a one-bedroom apartment. I got one bedroom done and touched up the paint in the living room. I still have the kitchen to paint and that's on the agenda for tomorrow along with painting the floor in one of my duplexes.

When is No Job the Best Job?

When is no job the best job? Answer: in the middle of a job-killing recession!

If you follow the news like I do, then you already know that our economy lost 533,000 jobs in November! The unemployment rate has also increased to 6.7%. Ironically, the only reason that the unemployment rate only went to 6.7% is that a huge number of people were so frustrated by the lack of jobs, that they stopped looking for work. In the screwed up fantasy land that is our government, when a person can't find work and gives up, they aren't counted as being unemployed! In addition, there are millions of lazy people in this country that simply don't want to work and they aren't counted either.

The point is that millions of Americans are in danger of losing their jobs right now. If we fall into a Depression, unemployment could skyrocket. Fortunately, those of us that are self-employed are not facing such a risk. That's not to say that running a rental property business is risk-free, it's not. However, at least my future isn't in the hands of some corporate bean counter that may want to save money by eliminating my job.

As long as there are people on this planet, people will need a place to live. That gives me assurance that rental property owners will have some job security!

The Rents are In!

The rents are in for this month and it looks like I'll have another month without an eviction. If so, I believe that this will be the fourth month without an eviction, which is absolutely wonderful. I still have two outstanding rents, even though my rent collection period has ended, but both have contacted me and have said that they will pay (including the $50 late fee) within the next 3 days, which is the 3 day eviction notice period.

I painted the trim around the floor that I've been working on and fixed a bad spot in one wall. I also did some other painting in the same house.

I had a young woman (maybe about 20 years old) and her mother look at an apartment today (for the girl and her boyfriend). She's supposed to bring the deposit tomorrow!

I'm planning to start installing my second laminate floor tomorrow in a two bedroom house. This will also be installed in a kitchen. I'm looking forward to improving my technique and hopefully the result.

Finally, I had a woman look at one of my two bedroom houses today. From the first time she opened her mouth, I didn't like her. She said that she needed a place to live right away. That is always a warning sign. When I asked her why she needed a place "right away", she said that her current house was about to be condemned. When I asked her why it was being condemned, she said that her child had been exposed to too much lead paint there. That tells me that she is a deadbeat parent who doesn't adequately watch her child. I asked her if she knew that my house was also built before 1978 and therefore probably had lead paint in it. Of course, any lead paint in my house has been properly encapsulated, but I didn't mention that. She didn't seem to care that there might be lead paint in my house, which is proof positive to me that she was lying about her real reason for leaving her current house. So, I asked her how it would help to move from one house with lead paint to another. Since there was no reasonable answer, she didn't apply to rent my house. AMEN! Tenants that cause trouble for one landlord will not hesitate to cause trouble for the next. The last thing I want is a trouble-maker for a tenant!

Quite a Bit Done Today!

Today was one of those days when I got quite a bit done! I collected numerous rents, which is always nice - in fact, it's my favorite part of the business!

In addition to that, I finished the trim for the floor I've been working on. I have decided that it looks pretty good and I'll try to take a picture of it tomorrow after I've painted the trim.

While I was working on the floor, one of my tenants called to tell me that she had a break-in yesterday. She said that the tenant apparently got in through a window that wouldn't lock. So, after finishing the floor, I went over to that house to check out the situation. All of the windows had locks on them, but one window wasn't completely closed and of course wasn't locked. That is apparently how the criminal got in. The good news is that nothing was stolen and no-one was hurt.

Next, I went to one of my nicest 3 bedroom houses that had three issues to address. First, I fixed a faucet handle that had become loose. No big deal. Next, I removed a table and chairs that came with the house, because the tenant got her own table and chairs. Finally, I checked the water meter to determine if there was a water leak at the house. The tenant reported that her water bill went from $32 per month to $89 per month and that she must have a leak. With the faucets off in the house, the water meter wasn't turning. Therefore, there is no leak. I suspect that the water company misread the water meter.

Floor Finished and Rent Collected!

Today was the 1st, which is the beginning of rent collections for the month. I started the day by going to the post office to pickup my Section 8 checks. I then made up deposit tickets and deposited those checks in the bank. From there, I picked up one rent from a tenant who called this morning and then came home for lunch.

After lunch, I picked up a bunch of other rents and spent a little time finishing the laminate floor that I started yesterday. After completing the floor, I went to Lowes to get the baseboard trim pieces and transition strips that I need to finish the project. I'm planning to install and paint the baseboard trim tomorrow.

When I looked at the laminate job today, I felt quite a bit better about it than I did last night. It looks very nice and really shines and the wider joints that I complained about last night don't seem to be really noticeable. I''ll try to remember to take a picture of it tomorrow.

My First Laminate Floor Installation!

Although I have had laminate floors in my rentals before, today was the first time that I have ever installed one myself. I always enjoy trying something new and therefore I went into town on a Sunday afternoon to install the laminate floor in the kitchen of one of my two bedroom houses. I spent every bit of 4 hours working on the floor. As with a lot of things, it didn't go as smoothly as it looked in the instructions. For one thing, this was an old house and there isn't one straight wall in the entire kitchen. The floor is also not level, although that doesn't seem to be a major problem.The next issue was that the tongues are more fragile than I ever imagined and are easily damaged. These laminate floors are "floating', meaning that they aren't attached anywhere. I found that the entire floor would move while working on it and it required a lot of care not to have it floating all over the place.

I finished the main part of the floor and am only marginally satisfied (I'm kinda reminded of my first attempt at laying carpet). The gaps between some of the planks are wider than I would have liked and I chipped the laminate surface in a couple of spots. Tomorrow, I still need to cover the basement door, which is flush with the floor. I also need to install the "quarter round" around the perimeter of the floor. I bought enough laminate to do at least 3 rooms and I'm hoping the next one will go better.

Drying Out

It was another very nice winter day here in Ohio. The temperature was nearly 50 degrees which made it a perfect day to work on a couple of roofs. So, I stopped at Lowes to pick up the roof cement; some metal flashing to use as a patch on one roof; and I also picked up some wood laminate for kitchen floors in two rentals. This worked out very well because the laminate was on sale for 77 cents per square foot and I had a coupon to get an additional 10% off the entire order. They only had 19 boxes of the laminate left, so I just bought them all. That should give me enough to do the two kitchens and have enough left over for another room. I've had laminate in rentals before, but I've never installed it myself. I'm looking foward to getting started (just for the fun of doing something new).

I believe that I was successful in repairing both roof leaks, but I won't know until we have a good rain.

After working on the roofs, I went to Walmart to get a new battery for my truck. The truck barely started this morning and I have never replaced the battery, so it was certainly due.

If I have time tomorrow afternoon, I may install the laminate in one of the kitchens. Our small group at Church is cancelled due to Thanksgiving and I'm anxious to give it a try! I'll let you know how it goes and I'll try to take "before and after" pictures to post.

Better Late Than Never

I finally got started working on my rentals for this week. I know that it's Friday, but at least I did finally get started. My main project today was to prepare a 3 bedroom house for the next renter. Today, I replaced 9 miniblinds; replaced an ugly toilet seat; installed a new shower curtain; installed new lightbulbs in the bathroom vanity; and did other miscellaneous projects. In addition, I measured the kitchen for new laminate flooring. This kitchen previously had an old wood floor that I painted, but I'm really not satisfied with the condition of the floor. Vinyl simply won't last in rentals and I haven't been having very good luck with commercial carpet in the kitchen, so I'm going to try some of this laminate. Lowes has it on sale for 77 cents per square foot and I have a 10% off coupon in addition to that.

After working on that unit for a couple of hours, I went to another 2 bedroom house to measure that kitchen for laminate also. This kitchen has vinly flooring that is about 3 years old. It is now in bad enough condition that it needs to be replaced.

I'm planning on working another few hours tomorrow. The project for tomorrow is to fix two small roof leaks. The temperature for tomorrow should be about 50 degrees, which should be perfect for roof work.

Update on the Homeless Dog

I haven't done a dog-gone thing this week. I've had a cold and sore throat for about a week and I simply haven't been motivated to do much. Additionally, this is Thanksgiving week and at this time of the year, all business just grinds to a halt. Why fight the trend?

For those of you that were wondering what happened to the dog from my last post, everything turned out well. The same evening that I took the dog home, I received a call from a local pastor. He wanted to know if I still had the dog. He said that my tenant was supposed to be baby-sitting the dog for a family at his church who had been involved in a domestic violence situation. It seems that the family had moved temporarily into a shelter and the Church was trying to find them a permanent home. The shelter would not allow pets, which is why the pastor had asked my tenant to baby-sit the dog. Anyway, to make a long story short, the pastor didn't know that my tenant had abandoned the dog and I took the dog to the pastor the next day. Everything turned out fine and the dog will be reunited with its owner.

We had family Thanksgiving activities today and I was out of town almost all day. Tomorrow, we have more Thanksgiving activities planned. I may do some rental related stuff Friday - but I doubt it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Another Abandoned Pet!

My project for today was to winterize 3 rentals. I have 4 units open right now. One is an upstairs apartment in one of my apartment buildings. It will receive enough heat from the apartment below and the apartment beside it to keep the pipes from freezing. The next is a 2 bedroom house that I'm just got back. I have been retrofitting all my rentals with PEX water line which easily allows me to put in quick disconnect fittings at the main valve in the basement. So, I shut off the water at the meter; disconnected the water line in the basement; and drained the lines. I also put antifreeze in the toilet bowl and all drain traps. I'm obviously hoping to have this rented for December, but winterizing is much cheaper than running the heat even for a few days.

The next unit is a 3 bedroom house that I should get back by the end of the month. Even though I don't have possession yet, the tenant is already living in their new house (that they bought). Unfortunately, I don't have a new phone number for them and they don't have cell phones. Anyway, I needed to be sure that the pipes weren't going to freeze (it's going to be 15 degrees tonight), so I went over there to see if I needed to winterize the house. The good news is that the heat is still on, so I won't need to winterize until the first of the month. With a little luck, I'll have it rented by then.

The final rental that needed to be winterized was a one-bedroom house that I just got back today. The tenant's father called me last night to say that his daughter took a job out of town and had moved out. He said that the key was on the kitchen counter. So, I went down to check on the unit and winterize it as necessary. As soon as I opened the door, I knew that the house wasn't completely empty because a dog started barking at me. However, as I walked in, I could see that the dog and a dog blanket were all that was left, other than quite a few piles of dog doo! From the number of dog piles, it looked to me that the tenant actually left 4 or 5 days ago. That instantly made me angry, to think that this scumbag tenant would abandon a little dog. The dog was obviously scared and thin, but otherwise looked healthy. I found a lid that I could use to give the dog some water and the tenant had left a container of dog food on the counter. Since the dog didn't seem to be in need of emergency attention (other than food and water), I proceeded to clean up the apartment. I cleaned up the dog's mess on the floor. I cleaned the stove and refrigerator. I cleaned bathroom sink. That was it. The apartment is ready to re-rent.

I brought the dog home and will take care of it until I can find someone to take it. We've already put out a call to several people and have e-mailed pictures of the dog to a couple of people.

A Time for Caution!

The United States economy, and arguably the world economy, is rapidly reaching a tipping point. While there has been a lot of talk on TV about the recession that we are entering, the reality is that there hasn't been much pain so far. It's true that the stock market and retirement funds are down, but that doesn't impact people unless they are now retired or otherwise need the money to live on. We've all heard about the credit crisis; the failure of Lehman Brothers; the bailout of AIG; and the bailout of the Wall Street Fatcat Bankers! However, once again, most people have not been directly affected by these problems.

Unfortunately, all of that is about to change. Job losses are starting to accelerate and will dramatically increase early in 2009. Regardless of what happens with the auto company bailouts, jobs will be lost and retirements will be ruined. As job losses accelerate, people will spend even less; foreclosures will increase; and credit card defaults will skyrocket. This will cause even more job losses and we will enter vicious circle. It is very possible (if not likely) that a depression will occur.

The point of this post is that THIS IS A TIME FOR CAUTION! Capital preservation is a must. If you have money, put it in the bank and try to hang on to it! If you decide to invest in real estate - BUY AT A HUGE DISCOUNT! This is not the time for wreckless speculation or excess risk. My suggestion is to carefully consider every dollar you spend and certainly don't risk your money on anything that isn't a sure thing.

There is a lot of hype about this recession/depression being an unprecedented opportunity. That is certainly true. People that know exactly what they're doing and who buy assets at a HUGE discount will prosper. People who lack knowledge and don't buy right will be destroyed. CAUTION is the word of the day!

Honey Do's

I didn't work on my rentals yesterday or today. My projects these 2 days were to do some Honey Do's around the house. The main project was to install a new tile floor in our half bathroom. I finished that up today and installed a fancy new faucet also. In addition, my wife needed new tires on her car, and I got that done today also. There were several other smaller projects that I also checked off my list. Hopefully, I'm buiding up some brownie points!

Tomorrow, we're having our home alarm system upgraded to a state of the art, high tech alarm system. Of course, I can't give the details on the internet, but I'm continually amazed at how the security industry is advancing. I'm also trying to find a way to put a live security camera feed onto my website, so that readers can see what's going on at some of my apartment buildings on a real time basis.

Saturday Work

I spent about two hours working this morning, even though it is Saturday. When I finished replacing the broken toilet bolts yesterday, I realized that the Fluidmaster valve in the toilet wasn't working properly. It was getting late and I like to be home for the close of the stock market, so I decided to change the Fluidmaster valve today. So, after taking my new tenant's rent and security deposit to the bank, I stopped at Lowes to pick up a new valve. The valve only took about 10 minutes to install.

My next mission was to look at the two roofs that were reported to be leaking. These leaks have both been very difficult to find. I looked at the leaks about a week ago during a very heavy rain and neither were leaking. I asked the tenants to call me if the leaks occurred again. Both of the tenants called me this morning.

The first roof was leaking through an old stove pipe that a previous owner had apparently cut off inside the living room ceiling (no wonder I couldn't find it). The top of the stove pipe still sticks through the roof, so I just need to remove the stove pipe from the roof and patch the resulting hole.

The second roof turned out to be a metal roof that had a small rusted spot where there apparently had been a small patch. That should be easy to fix also.

The very good news is that I finally was able to discover where these intermittent leaks have been coming from!

That was it for this morning and I made it home just in time for the Ohio State Game. Go Bucks!

PimpMobile!

For the second time in three days, I was a stereotypical landlord today - fixing a toilet. In fact, today's toilet problem was exactly the same as Wednesday's - a broken tank bolt. Fortunately, today's project went much smoother and probably only took about 3o minutes to fix.

My initial plan for the day was to do some painting on the pink elephant. Today was forecast to be the last beautiful, warm day of the week. I did some painting on the pink elephant yesterday and I wanted to finish up some of the trim today. However, no plan survives the first call of the morning and this morning's call was from a previously screened applicant who wanted to rent a 2-bedroom apartment in the pink elephant. Therefore, my first project this morning was to sign a lease with my new tenant, and of course to get the money!

After completing that, I met another applicant who wanted to rent my last remaining 2 bedroom apartment. She liked the apartment and filled out an application. I did screen her application this evening and she passed. We are scheduled to do her paperwork on Monday.

When it rains, it pours... and today it was pouring - applicants, that is. Just as the applicant finished filling out her application for the last 2-bedroom apartment, I received a call from yet another applicant. This applicant wanted to see my only available 3-bedroom house. As I pulled up in front of the house, I began to get that uneasy feeling. There, in front of my house, was what could only be described as a PimpMobile. The shiny yellow Caddy with HUGE chrome rims shouted "I'm a druggie". In my experience, people dress and drive what they want to be. A older man driving a red corvette is likely having a mid life crisis. A person driving a PimpMobile is likely a druggie. As I approached the car, I noticed a relatively nice and normal-looking woman sitting inside - clearly not what I was expecting. She got out of the car and I discovered that she was well dressed and well spoken. I began to think that my first impression might have been wrong. I showed her the house and she wanted to rent it. She filled out an application and her Section 8 paperwork.

I checked her application this evening and was sorry to determine that my first impression was indeed correct. She had recently been evicted. The car belonged to her boyfriend, who had a lengthy criminal record. A previous landlord had nothing but bad things to say about her. She had an $800 unpaid water bill. Once again, my gut feeling was right - she was nothing but trouble and I'm not having any part of that!!! APPLICATION - DENIED!!!

The Stereotypical Landlord

I receive frequent criticism from wanna-be real estate "gurus" who make their living trying to convince gullible newbies that they can get rich "on autopilot". Of course, that means that the newbie can hire everything out and simply sit on their butt while the money rolls in. It's a completely ridiculous idea, yet literally millions of people have wasted money on guru courses that promise riches without work.

ALL of the successful landlords that I know are very involved in their businesses. In fact, I am friends with many multi-millionaires and EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM has worked very hard to get where they are.

In my business, I do almost everything, including the management and maintenance. I do that because earning the management and maintenance expenses myself more than doubles my spendable cash each month. It is a great deal and an excellent use of my time. My critics will often have some sarcastic comment like "I'd rather spend my time finding deals than fixing toilets". Of course, that is absolutely ridiculous because it doesn't take much time to "find deals". Let's think about "finding deals for a moment". What could you really do each day to find deals? You could read the classified ads in the local newspaper to see if there are any new ads since yesterday. If you're a slow reader, that might take 2 minutes. Then, you could check the MLS to see if any new properties have been added to the MLS overnight. That might take another 2 minutes. You could drive around your target market area and look to see if any new "for sale" signs have popped up overnight. Depending on the size of your target market area, that could take an hour. Of course, in reality, you probably wouldn't drive through your target area every day. You could even spend an hour licking envelopes everyday so that you could send out a mailing. Even if you did all that every single day, that's about 2 hours a day. As you can see, this whole argument about having time to find deals is totally ridiculous.

Ironically, I find most of my deals by getting out of the house and meeting people in the normal course of my day. I'll chat with the guy in line at Lowes. I talk to neighbors near my rentals as i see them. I talk to city officials when I attend various meetings. I talk to my fellow investors at the REIA. I talk to other landlords at eviction hearings. In short, I tell everyone I know and meet that I buy property, at a big discount of course.

The point of this rambling post is that I actually was the stereotypical "toilet fixing" landlord yesterday! A tenant called to say that the toilet had overflowed and kept running. I stopped at Lowes on the way to the apartment and picked up a new Fluidmaster toilet valve. Unfortunately, when I arrived at the apartment, it became apparent that the problem was a little more involved. This particular toilet has 4 bolts that attaches the tank to the base. One of the 4 bolts had broken and this allowed the water to leak onto the floor. This would still not have been a big job, except that the 3 remaining bolts were severly rusted and I couldn't remove them. So, what should have been a 10 minute job ended up being a 2 1/2 hour job. I ended up using a sawsall to CAREFULLY cut the bolts off. Finally, I got all the bolts off. Then, it was back to the store for the additional parts and once again, back to the apartment to assemble everything. Fortunately, everything went together easily and there were no leaks!

So, yesterday, on that one day, the wannabe gurus were right - I was the stereotypical toilet fixing landlord!

Auction

Yesterday was just a routine (boring) early winter day. We're a month too early for snowboarding and a little too late for camping. I paid some bills yesterday morning and then did a little routine maintenance work on a 3 bedroom apartment. During my work on the 3 bedrrom apartment, I received a call from a tenant that said her heat was not working. So, after completing the work on the 3 bedroom apartment, I went to her apartment and found that someone had shut the gas off to the boiler. I relit the pilot light and checked that the boiler was working - no big deal. I also went to Lowes to get supplies for the one bedroom apartment that I'm getting ready to rent.

The most interesting part of the day occurred last evening, when my wife and I went to an estate auction. The weather was cold; there was a light drizzle in the air; and it was dark. I'm sure that the auctioneer didn't think about the light issue when he scheduled the auction (months ago). It was completely dark and there were no utilities in the house that was being auctioned. I think that we could say that was poor planning.

The house being auctioned was a very nice house in a low income area. It was a 2 bedroom house with a finished basement; a one car attached garage; a 2 car detached garage; and a large carport that was more like a shelter house. The floors were all wood and were absolutely beautiful. That was the good news. The bad news was that there had been a break-in and the waterlines were gone along with the A-coil for the furnace (and who knows what else). The other major detractor of the house is that it is literally 25 feet from a very busy railroad track. While I was there, a train went by and it shook the entire house!

I'm not really buying any more property (or at least that's what I'm trying to convince myself), so I had not intention of bidding on the property. The reason that I went is that there have been several auctions lately in our area where absolutely noone bid - not one person. The minimum bid on this property had been advertised as $12,000. My plan was that if no-one bid or if I was the only person to show up, I would offer them $5,000 for the house.

I was absolutely shocked when about 30 people showed up for the auction. The very first bid was $15,000 and the bidding kept going until someone paid $29,000 for the property. I'm sure that the bidders were all potential homeowners and that was certainly a great price for a retail buyer.

I firmly believe that the economy will soon collapse and I think that there will be deals that will be almost unbelievable when that occurs.

Cleaning up

I got a lot of work done today on one of my 1-bedroom apartments. This is a unit that had a move-out this month and needed a little work to be ready to rent again. The tenant took almost everything with him, but did leave a couch and dresser. The couch was in excellent condition and the dresser was old (maybe even an antique).

I had another low income tenant that didn't have a couch, so I gave her the couch and the dresser. Her family came and moved it.

Once that was gone, I swept the floors and picked up the rest of the small things that are always left in rentals: an ink pen, pennies, some pieces of paper, etc. Next on the agenda was fixing a bad spot in the ceiling with a small piece of new drywall. That consisted of installing the drywall, taping it, and spreading the drywall mud on the new piece. After the drywall job was complete, I
painted the wood floors.

As I was finishing up, I received a call from another tenant who reported that her stove didn't work. She said the light was on, but none of the burners or the oven would work. That sounded like a blown circuit breaker to me and I told the tenant that I would stop by to check it out. Sure enough, the circuit breaker was tripped. I reset the circuit breaker and checked out the stove - all OK.

That was it for my big day today. Tomorrow's another day and I'm sure that I'll find something to do.

Tenant issues!

About a week ago, I received a call from my local Section 8 office. The case worker told me that a tenant called to complain that her heat wasn't working and that her apartment was cold. This tenant has been somewhat of a problem since moving in about 3 months ago. I told Section 8 that I hadn't received a call from the tenant about the problem, but that I would check it out. At that time, the temperatures were in the 30's at night and so I arrived at the apartment in the morning to check out the temperature in the apartment. As I walked into the apartment, it became apparent that the heat was working just fine. The temperature must have been 85 degrees! The tenant's first words were that it was warm enough today, which I found ironic since the night before was as cold as it's been this year.

My first task was to give the idiot tenant a piece of my mind! I explained to her that the lease required her to call ME if she had a maintenance problem and that she was not to call Section 8 unless she was dissatisfied with my solution to the problem. After that, I asked her how hot she wanted the apartment to be, as I felt 85 degrees was hot enough (as I started to sweat). Before we converted the apartment to electric baseboard heat, the apartment had gas heat. Therefore, I told the tenant that I would add a ventless gas heater to her apartment and she could keep the temperature at 100 degrees for all I care.

This entire last week has been very warm. That warmth came to an end yesterday, so I spent a few minutes yesterday installing the gas heater for her. I have several of these gas heaters that I removed from units that I remodeled, so installing this heater didn't cost me anything.

While I was in town yesterday, I also checked up on two rental units that allegedly had roof leaks. It absolutely POURED down rain yesterday and I went to both of the units during this heavy rain. Neither of the roofs were leaking, so it looks like my previous repairs are doing great.

After that, I went to one of my 1 bedroom apartments and began preparing it to be re-rented.

That was about it for Friday. Have a good weekend!

Winterization Day!

I honestly don't know where this week went. I had the Section 8 on Monday. Tuesday, I finished collecting this month's rent. Yesterday, I paid some bills and deposited the rest of the rent money. Today, the weather was beautiful and I decided to winterize our Motorhome and swimming pool. The motorhome winterization went very quickly. The swimming pool took quite a bit longer because I have to remove all the rails and the diving board; drain the filters and heater; blow out all the lines; fill the lines with antifreeze; and put on the pool cover.

I'm glad that this was all done on such a nice day. Usually, I put that off until the last minute and it is very cold when I finally get it done. Since I didn't have any pressing rental property issues today, I decided to do the winterization today while the weather was still beautiful.

Tomorrow, I'm planning to install a gas heater in one apartment and to clean up another apartment.

What Day Is It?

Oops! I made a potentially big mistake today. I thought that the Section 8 inspection on one of my 3 bedroom apartments was tomorrow. Therefore, I planned to spend part of today checking that apartment and fixing anything that needed to be done to pass the inspection. After picking up a few rents and going to the bank, I arrived at the apartment at noon. Before I could even get my tools out, the Section 8 inspector drove up. I asked him if he was a day early and he showed me his schedule that indicated the inspection was today. I told him that I hadn't even started to look at the property yet, but he wanted to inspect it anyway. Fortunately, I try to keep everything up to standards at all times, and the apartment passed!

Tomorrow is the last day of rent collections for the month and I'm planning to do a little painting in-between collecting the remaining rents. Of course, tomorrow is also a day of mourning, when we will elect our first socialist president (no matter which one of the clowns is elected). Even though the candidates are awful, I'll still be voting - either for Socialist One or Socialist Two!

Caveat Emptor!

One of the advantages of being a landlord is that you grow to be extremely skeptical. Tenants lie - early and often. Applicants lie about their background, jobs, and even their names. I have become so cynical that I just assume all rental applicants are lying until proven otherwise (and most of the time, that is correct).

So, when I see an infomercial on TV or some internet guru promoting the fad of the month, it is easy for me to be skeptical. Unfortunately, millions of people are taken in by these scams and lose a lot of money to these gurus.

These past couple of days, I've been feeling a little ill. I'm not quite sure what I've picked up, but many of the tenants have been sick and so I'll blame them!!! (If in doubt, the tenants are always at fault). As a result of feeling bad, I haven't been able to sleep very well. Last night, I found myself wide awake at 3am watching an infomercial about some magic internet program that would surely make you rich for only $40! This post is about the RIDICULOUS claims that this guru made and that many real estate "gurus" make also!

The first thing you'll notice in all these infomercials is that there are beautiful people, beautiful cars, and beautiful houses (mansions) in the commercial. In some extreme examples, they'll even show a private jet or yacht in the infomercial. The obvious implication is that if you only buy the guru's course, you too will have supermodels flocking to your side; you too will have a Ferarri; you too will live in an ocean-front mansion. Of course, this is totally ridiculous as it takes an income in the millions (tens of millions) of dollars to support this lifestyle. However, the guru is trying to portray to you that they are rich and that you too can become rich, if you'll only spend $40!

The next thing you'll notice about all these scams is that the guru claims that you can get rich with only a minimal amount of effort. As I said, the infomercial that I watched early this morning was about an internet business. Ironically, it never said what type of internet business it was. However, they not only claimed that getting rich was effortless, they also claimed that you didn't need to know anything about the computer or the internet. Can you imagine how gullible a person would have to be to believe that they could get rich in a computer based internet business without knowing anything about computers or the internet? Of course, this is ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS, but that was the claim. This informercial claimed that the computer did all the work and that you would make money while you slept! Of course, if the guru had really discovered a computer program that would make huge amounts of money without effort, why would the guru sell this secret to you for only $40??? Of course, they would NOT!!!

Another common element that all these scams have in common is that they show customers that have supposedly made a lot of money with the course. My suggestion is to listen CAREFULLY to what they are actually saying. In the infomercial I watched, customer after customer came on and said that they made "up to" $X per month. Of course, when a person says that they made up to $100,000 per month, that really means that they made between ZERO and $100,000 per month. The infomercial is counting on the viewer to hear that they made $100,000 per month. Using that logic, I can honestly tell you right now that I made UP TO $1 BILLION DOLLARS YESTERDAY with my rental property business!!! Get it?

The other issue with claims of great riches is what does the word "made" mean? If I told you that I "made" $10,000 yesterday, does that mean that I'm rich? Not necessarily. You need some more information, and that information is conveniently missing in every infomercial I've ever seen. For example, is that $10,000 gross income or net income? For most people, making $10,000 per day sounds GREAT, but what if I told you that $10,000 was the gross income and that your operating expenses were $9,995 per day? That means that after all was done, you would only have $5 per day to show for your work. Doesn't sound quite so good now, does it? Can expenses really be that high? YOU BET THEY CAN!!! In fact, expenses can be MORE than the income, which is exactly the situation that causes most new businesses to fail.

This post is intended as a warning to new investors. I urge you to listen skeptically to anyone that claims that they will make you rich with little effort or money on your part. There is no free lunch. If you want to be rich, be prepared to work HARD for it. If it sounds too good to be true - IT IS! Caveat Emptor!

New Rehab

I've started my next project, which is the rehab of a 3 bedroom apartment. This apartment was in a building that I bought more than a year ago and I have never done anything with this apartment. In reality, this apartment is a little more complicated than that. When I took this building over, this upstairs had actually been illegally converted to 2 units and had two separate tenants that were sharing a single electric meter. Shortly after I took the building over, one tenant left voluntarily. The other tenant refused to pay the rent and I immediately evicted him. Both of these tenants were real scumbags and the apartment was a pigsty! There were mice and roaches all over the apartment(s) and dog feces was everywhere. The tenant that I evicted had 5 or 6 large dogs that he never took outside!!!

After kicking out the tenant, I cleaned up the mess and that was the last thing I did with this apartment, except for installing a new 200 amp electric service when we did the electric services for the other apartments. My rental property business has been expanding so fast, that I just put this apartment on hold for the time being.

Fast forward more than a year to today. The plan is to convert these two illegal apartments back into one. So, instead of having a 1-bedroom and a 2-bedroom apartment sharing an electric meter, I will have a 3 bedroom, 2 bath apartment that has its own electric meter. I started this process on Tuesday by ripping one of the kitchens out. This room will now be a bedroom. Wednesday (yesterday), I installed new glass (plexiglass) in several windows that had cracked or missing panes. My intention today is to begin patching the walls in preparation for painting. I'll take my time and plan on having this apartment ready to rent by Dec. 1st.

A Talk With My Banker

I had a meeting with my banker yesterday. The purpose of the meeting was to take a financial statement and tax returns to the bank, which is required each year when you have commercial loans. While I was there, I asked the banker a lot of questions about the banking industry in general, and this small local bank in particular.

Here's what I found out. My local bank keeps all their loans in their own portfolio, which means that they don't sell any loans on the secondary market. They have always required good credit of their customers and therefore do not have any exposure to subprime loans. They also have not invested in any of those mortgage derivatives that have recently been such a problem.

I asked him if the bank borrows money from the government and he replied that they normally do not. They have a strong deposit base and therefore usually don't need to borrow money for loans. In addition, with all the problems being publicized about the big banks, they have actually increased their deposits as people take their money out of troubled banks and put it in small local banks. He said that they have money to loan and their standards have not changed!!!

Finally, I asked him about foreclosures. He said that because they do not make subprime or other risky loans, that they have very few foreclosures, sometimes going an entire year without a foreclosure. At the present time, they only have two foreclosures. Both of these are rental properties owned by the same guy.

I had been curious about these issues and found the answers to be enlightening. The bottom line is that while the big banks have gotten themselves in a lot of trouble, there are many small local banks that have been doing things right and these banks are operating with business as usual.

Insulation Complete!

After a relaxing 3 day weekend, I was back to work today. I started the morning with a trip to the 2 bedroom house to meet with the government contractor that is weatherizing my house (for free - thank you taxpayers)! They finished up this morning by blowing the insulation in the walls and doing some caulking around windows. I was extremely happy with the job they did and even happier with the price (FREE).

After that, I dropped off some additional paperwork at the bank, so they can get my line of credit renewal finished. After lunch at home, I went back into town to install a curved shower curtain rod (made of 1 1/4 inch PVC pipe) at one of my low income rentals. I also moved some of my supplies from an apartment building basement to the storefront at the pink elephant, which will be my new storage facility for all my real estate supplies.

I don't know what I will do tomorrow, but I'm planning to do something.

Brush with Socialism

After my Brush with Socialism over the past couple of days, I needed a break! Therefore, I took yesterday off to help my nephew get his car running. The car is an interesting story and is actually real estate related, so it ties in well with this blog.

My sister and brother-in-law are also in the rental property business (in another city here in Ohio). In fact, they operate a LARGE rental property business. They recently bought another rental property at an estate sale. It is a very large 4-bedroom house and they were the only bidders. While at the auction, they saw a 1976 Jaguar XJ12 in the yard that was also being sold. My nephew is just starting to drive and he wanted to buy the car. The car had been the pride and joy of the owner, who had recently died - thereby necessitating the estate sale. To make a long story short, they bought the car for only $500.

The car is in good condition, but hadn't been run for about 4 years, since the previous owner became sick. So, my father and I went up there yesterday to work on the car and try to get it running. After a long day of working on it, we finally did get it running. With a little more work, my nephew should be driving it very soon.

I'm taking the rest of the week off! Have a good weekend!

Maybe Socialism is Good After All

I am generally not in favor of the government being involved in business and I'm certainly not in favor of socialism. In fact, I'm 100% against it. However, my experience today has shown me that "sharing the wealth" can be a good thing - at least when the taxpayers are sharing their wealth with me!!!

I had a personal experience with socialism today, when the government paid for an expensive energy efficiency upgrade of one of my 2 bedroom houses. In fact, they not only paid for the upgrade, they provided the contractor, the materials, EVERYTHING! Cost to me? NOTHING!

I mistakenly wrote in yesterday's post that this "weatherization" was from the CHIP program. After talking to the crew today, I discovered that these improvements were being made under an Ohio Department of Development program called the "Home Weatherization Assistance Program".

The crew that came out did an excellent job. They blew in about 12 inches of insulation in the attic today and they will blow insulation in the walls on Monday. In addition, they wrapped the water heater in an insulating blanket, wrapped all the water lines with insulation, installed a GREAT insulation package around the doors, and did other work. I'm sure that all this work is worth more than a thousand dollars! THANK YOU TAXPAYERS. I am grateful!

After discovering what a great deal this was, I went to the office where this program is administered and asked for weatherization applications for my other tenants. The lady in the office asked how many applications I wanted and I responded that I would take as many as they had. They only had SIX. I took them and asked if they would mind if I made several dozen copies - one for each of my tenants!!!

If they will do this weatherization on all my properties, I'm sure that will add value in the six figures! Maybe this socialism isn't so bad after all! I guess I just didn't understand what socialism was. I thought it was taking from the rich to give to the lazy. Now I know that socialism is taking from the taxpayers and giving to ME!!!

Electric Heat Installed

I spent yesterday installing baseboard heat in the 2-bedroom house that I purchased a few months ago. The total cost of the project (excluding my labor) was $242 and it took about 5 hours. The CHIP program will be arriving this morning to begin insulating the house and doing other things to make the house energy efficient. On an interesting note, the contractor for the CHIP program looked at the house yesterday and then called to let me know that they weren't allowed to drill the holes in the exterior walls (to blow in the insulation) because it has asbestos siding. However, I am allowed to volunteer to drill the holes. I did volunteer and will meet them at the house later this morning. They will mark the spots where the holes need to be drilled and will even provide the drill bit/hole saw.

I feel good about getting some of my tax money back through the CHIP Program and I'm going to see if I can get my other tenants to request that their rentals be made more energy efficient. In fact, I'm planning to stop by the Chip office today and pick up some applications to give to my tenants.

You got it!

Several people commented on yesterday's blog entitled "New Scam" and everyone saw the same thing that I did. The tenant faked a gas leak and wanted me to hire her "uncle" to fix the leak. The purpose of this scam was to bill me for a non-existent gas leak and then she would use the money to have her gas turned back on (it was shut off for non-payment). The moral of this story is that you should NEVER trust anything a tenant says. I assume that everything a tenant says is suspect until proven otherwise and most of the time - I'm right!

Today, I had a meeting with the bank about renewing my line of credit. I had to take in a financial statement, rent roll, tax returns (both personal and business), and an updated business plan. The banker said that the line of credit should be renewed in the next couple of weeks.

After my meeting at the bank, I went to the Pink Elephant to install a new stainless steel sink. Very few projects ever go as planned, but this was one of them. Everything went smoothly! I guess there's a first time for everything.

Tomorrow, I'm installing electric baseboard heat in one of my two bedroom houses. The tenant applied for a grant to have the house made more energy efficient and that was approved. So, as soon as I install the electric baseboard heat, the local CHIP Program is going to insulate the house and do other things to make it more efficient. I had to sign a contract with this program that I would keep the property for 5 years and not raise the rent on the tenant because of the increased efficiency. DONE!!! What a deal!

You got it!

New Scam!

This evening, I received a call from one of my tenants. She told me that the gas company had shut the gas off at her house because she smelled gas. She said that they left her a note saying that a certified plumber needed to inspect and repair the gas before they would turn it back on.

I was somewhat annoyed that she called the gas company instead of calling me, but I told her that I would call my plumber tomorrow to come and look at the situation. She said that her uncle was a plumber and that she wanted her uncle to look at it. I told her that we had our own plumber and that she could NOT use her uncle.

About an hour later, I received a second call from this tenant. She said that she had found the problem which was a loose gas line going to the stove. She said that she no longer needed our plumber to come work on the gas. I responded that the gas company would not turn her gas back on until it had been cleared by a licensed gas provider (plumber).

After a short pause, she said that the gas had been turned off on October 14th!!! After questioning, she said that it was shut off for non-payment and that she had paid the bill today.

Have you figured out what's going on here? Think about it and I'll give you the answer in tomorrow's blog.

Great Weekend!

It was truly another great 4-day weekend! Once again, we went camping with friends from Church. During this trip, we went mountain biking at both Momba (near Dayton Ohio) and at John Bryan State Park near Yellow Springs, Ohio. For those of you that are mountain bikers, both courses are absolutely excellent. We rode 10 miles on Friday and 11 miles on Saturday. I especially enjoyed the ramps at John Bryan State Park!

While we were camping, I received 3 calls from tenants. The first call was from a tenant with a leaking shower. I will fix that today. The next call was from a tenant with a leaking sink. I'll fix that today also. The final call was from a tenant who wanted me to check her furnace and I'll also do that today. Three one-minute calls during my four day weekend - no big deal.

This was our last camping trip this year, so I'll be working a little more steadily on my rentals during the next six or seven weeks - until snowboarding season arrives!

The Weekend is Here!

Today was the last day of my workweek, because my wife and I are going camping tomorrow. I worked about 5 hours today and got a lot done. My mission for the day was to fix the recent storm damage to one of my nicest houses. The hurricane force winds of Ike here in Ohio blew the facia off the house, blew some of the siding from one end of the house, and damaged several shingles. I fixed all of that today and did some work on the sidewalk which consists of decorative 18 inch stones.

I also showed one of my vacant 2 bedroom apartments to a woman today. She was an attractive, well-dressed woman looking at one of my lowest rent apartments. She said that she will definitely take the apartment, but I don't have a good feeling about her. Something just doesn't add up with this woman and I'm betting that she'll turn out to be a druggie.

I'll be back Sunday evening and start posting again next week! Have a good weekend (in advance)!

Another Liar!

We had a great time Saturday riding mountain bikes at Momba, in Dayton. What a beautiful mountain biking course it is! The trails were almost perfectly maintained and well marked. All of the bridges were absolutely beautiful and several of the bridges were actually curved. It is by far the best course I've ridden yet. We rode every inch of the course and it was just a little over 10 miles.

Today, I ran an application on a potential tenant for my six bedroom house. This married couple looked good and said all the right things. However, after only about 30 seconds of screening, I discovered that they had been evicted in 2005, which they lied about. That ended the screening and I wrote REJECTED on the application.

I did work about 3 hours on a rental today. Nothing exciting, just routine maintenance, including fixing a broken shower handle. I also did a little stock trading today, selling a covered call (option) on the Ford Stock that I bought. I'm expecting that the stock market will be going lower in the very near future. I'm afraid that all we've seen is a bear market rally.

This is going to be another short week. I'm taking another 4-day weekend to go camping, probably for the last time this year. We'll be gone Thursday through Sunday and will be riding two or three different mountain biking courses. Should be a lot of fun.

The Coming Catastrophe and What to Do About It

Tonight, I would like talk about something very serious - the financial crisis. You probably think that I'm talking about the credit crunch or the housing crash or the subprime fiasco. However, I believe that those are simply symptoms of the real problem. What could possibly be a bigger problem than the current financial crisis? The answer is quite simple - both as citizens and as a government - WE'RE BROKE!

For the past several decades, the United States has gotten away from the things that made us great. We are no longer a country of tough pioneers who work hard; innovate; and have a "can-do" attitude. We no longer are a manufacturing power, that produces things here and ships them around the globe. We have become a socialist country with a large percentage of the population who are too lazy to work and who are a drag on our society - both from an economic standpoint and from a moral standpoint. The rest of the population has become addicted to credit and we have lived far beyond our means - all on borrowed money. That is literally the cause of the economic symptoms that we are STARTING to see.

Our country is now approaching the point of collapse. We have reached a tipping point with the government promising everything to everyone AT A HUGE COST and a workforce of taxpayers that will soon be dramatically shrinking. The baby boomers are starting to retire at the same time that we have an ever-increasing population of lazy deadbeats whose only mission in life is to avoid work. While it is certainly politically incorrect to say this, I see it first hand in my rental business on a daily basis. The other astounding thing about this group of deadbeats is that they are breeding at a phenomenal rate and their children are the next (larger) generation of deadbeats who feel entitled to a handout. This is literally destroying the country.

What WILL happen in the near future is that our country will literally collapse. An ever-shrinking number of taxpayers simply can not afford to pay for an ever-increasing number of deadbeats, let alone pay for the hard-working, honest people who have been promised social security and medicare. The bottom line is that the ponzi scheme being perpetrated by the US Government is coming to an end.

Now that I've discussed the actual CAUSE of the real problem, let me discuss what I expect to happen. We WILL have a depression which will be unprecedented in scope. We will have panic as inflation runs away, thanks to the government printing trillions of dollars from thin air. We will have the public lose confidence in the dollar and start to barter with things other than paper money. Unemployment will reach record highs (in excess of 25%). Our economy will collapse and essentially cease to exist. None of this is brain surgery - it's just common sense and the absolutely inevitable result of the mismanagement of our government. It has happened over and over throughout history and will soon happen to us.

What will be the fallout of this collapse? Our country will dramatically change. All of our socialized programs must be drastically cut or eliminated. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, and many other government programs will need to be drastically cut or eliminated. Many companies will fail and the retirements owed to their employees will disappear.

The point of all this is not to depress you. The point of this is to challenge you to think of ways to protect yourself. What I have predicted may not happen NOW, but it MUST happen in the near future - it's a mathematical certainty.

My first suggestion is to stock up on extra food and water. The goverment has spent millions of dollars over the past couple of years to try to spread this message. They have promoted this preparedness via commercials about terrorism, bird flu, and other issues but the advice is just as valid for times of economic collapse and civil unrest. In fact, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if they knew this was coming and were actually promoting preparedness for this emergency.

In addition to stocking up on needed supplies, I would argue that you might consider preparing for your own retirement. I don't believe that social security will be there for most Americans in the future and the same will almost surely be true of employer retirement plans and even 401K's. Also, you should realize by now that the advice to put your money in a diversified portfolio in the stock market for the long term has been nothing more than a marketing scam by the financial companies. If you invested in a diversified portfolio 10 years ago, your portfolio is now worth LESS than 10 years ago. SO MUCH FOR BUY AND HOLD in the stock market!

My solution to the problem has been to build a rental property business. People will always need a place to live and absent government stupidity, the rental property business SHOULD do well in (and after) the decline. However, this post is not an advertisement and I am not recommending that you start a rental property business. In fact, borrowing enough money to build a significant rental property business in today's market would be VERY CHALLENGING. It probably is too late for many people to start a rental property business at this point. What I am recommending it that you consider starting a business that will be needed in, and after, a collapse. Even if you only do this part time, at least you won't be completely dependent on the government or private industry to provide for your future. Essentially, what I'm saying is that you need to depend on YOURSELF, not a company and certainly not the government. My suggestion would be to consider what products and services are needed in any economy and consider starting a business to address that demand. As an alternative to starting your own business, certain types of employees will be needed in any economy and should be relatively crisis proof. Employees will always be needed in medicine, law enforcement, the food industry, and the clothing industry. In other words, people will always need to buy the basics of life - food, shelter, and medical care. It's your job to decide how you can fill a need in one of those areas.

I learned a valuable lesson while in the military that can be summed up as the 7 P's. Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. My suggestion is to PLAN NOW!

Carpets Cleaned

I spent yesterday morning watching the stock market and doing a little stock trading. I have traded stocks for over 10 years, as a hobby. I believe that we may get a short, but intense rally next week and therefore I bought some Ford stock at $2.10 with the intention of selling a covered call (option) on it. I got the stock, but the didn't get the option due to the incompetence of the options specialist that was handling this option. I wasn't happy about that, but couldn't do much about it. Ameritrade's phone lines were absolutely jammed and it was hard to talk to one of their people. It will probably work out fine anyway, because I'll just wait for the rally and then sell the covered call. By waiting for the rally, the I'll get a higher option premium for selling the call.

By 1pm, I was feeling guilty about not doing any real work, so I got in the truck and headed for town. I finished rehabbing the two bedroom apartment that I have been working on and moved my tools and equipment out. To finish the apartment, I put a second coat of paint on the cabinets and steam cleaned the carpet in the living room.

Next on the agenda was to steam clean the carpet in the living room and hallway at my six bedroom house. The water is off at that house, so I had to take 5 gallons of hot water with me.

Finally, I stopped at a 1 bedroom apartment to unclog a clogged tub drain. That consisted of pouring some Glug pellets in to the drain followed by a cup of hot water. That took less than 2 minutes.

I didn't want to miss the close of the stock market two days in a row, so I only worked about 2 hours yesterday. When I arrived home at about 3:30, the market was up by about 120 points. The fluctuations were wild and the market ended down another 120 points.

I'm up bright and early this morning to go mountain biking. A friend from Church is meeting me at 7:30 and we're going to Dayton to mountain bike at Momba. I always look forward to mountain biking at a new course. We're getting an early start so that we can be home for the 3:30 kickoff of the Ohio State vs. Purdue football game.

Have a good weekend!

Missed the Excitement!

They say that timing is everything. As of late, I have been absolutely fascinated by the wild stock market action and the attempts by the government to stabilize it. I've been trying to get home by 3pm each day, so that I can watch the final hour of stock market trading. I've been trading stocks on a small scale for over 10 years (for fun) and have been predicting a new short term low of 7,700 on the DOW for many months. As the market approaches that level, I will be SLOWLY buying.

My day started this morning with a trip to my accountant. There were a couple of last minute issues that she wanted to discuss as she was finishing up my tax returns for 2007. After clearing up these issues, I returned home to watch CNBC and fly my radio controlled helicopter. I stayed home through lunch and then headed into town to do a little work on my rentals. My first stop was at Lowes to buy carpet for 2 bedrooms and the hall at one of my apartments at the Pink Elephant. Within an hour after arriving at the apartment, I had both rooms of carpet installed. These were exceptionally easy rooms to carpet as they were relatively small and perfectly rectangular.

My next mission was to meet with a tenant at another apartment building. She moved in at the beginning of the month, but is handicapped. I initially signed the lease with her son because she couldn't be there when they moved in her belongings. So, today, I met with her and signed the lease with her so that the paperwork would be right.

Having gotten the paperwork straight, I moved on to the next apartment building where I needed to install a new lock on one of the doors. I completed that just prior to 3pm and started for home (to catch the last hour of the stock market). However, just as I was putting the truck in gear, the phone rang and my accountant said that she had my taxes done. Therefore, I drove to her office to pick up the taxes. We briefly discussed the various returns and also discussed the current economic crisis. She is just about as frustrated with our government officials as I am.

By the time I was on the way home, it was already 4pm. I heard on the radio in my pickup truck that the DOW was down over 600 points! Wow! That means that the DOW is down over 2,300 points in the last 7 days! That's a major drop. I don't know what I will do tomorrow yet, but I'm sure that something will come up.

Work, Work, Work!

The third time really is a charm and after having the last two days off, I got back to work on my rentals. In fact, I got a LOT done! I started out this morning making a couple of commercial loan payments and going to the post office for stamps. Next, I went to one of my apartments that has had a persistent roof leak, the idea being to check it during the rain. As luck would have it, even though it was raining, the roof wouldn't cooperate (and leak) while I was there.

My next project was to clean out the basement at one of my 2 bedroom houses that I just rented and wait for the gas company to show up to turn the gas on. The timing worked out great as I got the basement cleaned up just as the gas company tech arrived. The tech turned on the gas, but wouldn't light the furnace because he thought it needed to be inspected. He didn't red-tag it, but he just wouldn't light it. I am not a gas furnace expert, so I called the professional I use for HVAC and he arrived within a half-hour. He disassembled the burners, cleaned the unit, installed a new thermocouple, re-assembled everything, lit the furnace, and checked for carbon monoxide - all for $75! Money well spent.

The Pink Elephant was my next stop, where I painted both bedrooms; repaired and painted the kitchen cabinets; and measured the bedrooms for new carpet.

That was it for today! All in all, a very productive day.

I arrived home in time to watch the final hour of stock market trading, which once again ended down (189 points). Tomorrow's stock market should be interesting because the ban on short selling (of the financials) ends at midnight tonight! I think the market still has a long way to go and I'm hoping that the coming DEPRESSION will allow this country to reset the clock on capitalism. What no-one is talking about is that our entire country is broke. We've promised everything to everyone with all these silly entitlements and we simply can't afford it anymore. At some point, personal responsibility and sanity MUST return to our country and I'm hoping that the depression will allow that to occur. Housing is NOT a right. Healthcare is NOT a right. Success is NOT a right. Profitability is NOT a right. Once we realize this, maybe this country can get back on the right track. Freedom is a right - the freedom to succeed or fail based on how hard and smart you work!

Still No Work

For the second day in a row, I had every intention today of doing a little work on my rentals. For the second day in a row, that didn't happen. My excuse today was that I needed to fix the motorhome after discovering last night that all the DC electric was inoperative. This is an issue that first occurred on our last camping trip. After that trip, I discovered that a DC Buss Bar had gotten hot and melted the plastic insulating material where the supply was connected. As a temporary fix, I jumped the supply wire to another post. It had apparently worked fine every since.

After our last trip, I contacted the manufacturer, Holiday Rambler, to get a replacement part. Unfortunately, the part is no longer in production and they didn't have a good idea for an alternate part. Motorhomes are basically built individually as they are ordered and no two are exactly the same. I hadn't gotten around to searching for another supplier of a similar part.

At any rate, this was a self-inflicted problem. When I started working on the unit today, I discovered that the battery was completely dead. My initial thought was that the converter had died, but as it turned out, it was still unplugged from where I worked on the problem last time. So, I recharged the battery and while that was occurring, I decided to fix the Buss Bar problem. I disassembled the buss bar and found that each individual terminal was contained in a separate fuse unit. Therefore, I moved the fuse unit that was at the damaged spot on the Buss Bar to another spot and reassembled the unit. Everything worked fine.

Next on my agenda was to make a trip to the bank and post office. I then returned home and watched CNBC as the market was crashing yet again. What could be more dramatic than watching the country heading into the 21st century version of the great depression? While watching the market tank, I paid a few bills.

After the stock market closed, I went for my daily bike ride. That was it for today and I'm looking forward to watching the Presidential debate tonight.

Now that I've been lazy the last two days, I am absolutely committed to doing some work on the rentals tomorrow. You know what they say - the third time's a charm!

The Best Intentions

I had every intention of working today. Unfortunately, no-one told the dishwasher about that. Our dishwasher (at home) broke down yesterday and my wife "encouraged" me (threatened me) to get it fixed today. So, I dug out the manual for the 9 year old machine and read through the troubleshooting section, which was no help. I could not find an electrical schematic for the machine, so I took it apart anyway, looking for anything that may be a problem. When it became obvious that I couldn't track down the problem without a wiring diagram and considering that I don't know much about dishwashers, I called the used appliance store where I buy all the stoves and refrigerators for my rentals. They have a good serviceman there and I asked him to come out to the house and look at the dishwasher. Within an hour, he was at our house and within another hour, he had fixed the machine. That was the best $50 I have spent in a long time and my wife is happy that the diswasher is back in action, which makes me happy!

Since I was home, I decided to fix a light on my motorcycle, which had become loose during last weekend's cross country trip to the Tail of the Dragon. By the time I got that fixed, the stock market was down more than 500 points, and I became interested in watching that.

Next, my accountant called and said that she had a few last minute questions about my personal return. So, I drove to her office to discuss these matters with her. Needless to say, my taxes are on an extension and I've got to send them in by October 15th.

Finally, I went on my daily bike ride. Today, I decided to ride my bike to a nearby state park and to ride up and down a bunch of large hills.

Tomorrow, I am once again planning to do some work related to my rental business. We'll see what happens!

So Far, So Good

Unless you've been lost on a desert island, you know that our country is in the early stages of an economic crisis which could easily become a depression. Approximately a trillion dollars have been spent on bailouts to date and the economy is still deteriorating. Big Wall Street firms are bankrupt and the state of California has just announced that it can not make its payroll! Things do not look good.

Fortunately, the rental property business is still doing quite well. In fact, we are at record occupancy and are renting things just about as fast as they become available. My biggest concern is that job losses and high heating costs will result in a rash of evictions in the near future. To my relief, I only have one late rent this month, so this month won't be the start of a rash of evictions. In fact, I'll post the 3-day eviction notice tomorrow for the tenant that hasn't paid and I'm still hopeful that they will pay during the 3 day period with the $50 late fee!

Tomorrow, I have to run projection at church, so that will keep me busy until early afternoon. Then, I will spend a couple of minutes posting that 3-day notice and I may show my 6 bedroom house to a prospective tenant.

Business and Pleasure

It was a beautiful fall day in Ohio today and I decided to start the day by mixing a little business and pleasure. To that end, I decided to ride my bicycle to the bank this morning to deposit the rents that I collected yesterday. It was little more than a 12 mile ride, up and down several hills and I was getting tired by the time I got home. During my ride, I got three calls from tenants who were ready for me to pick up their rent.

After a quick lunch, I headed to town to get started collecting rents and to get a little work done. Between collecting rents, I installed a new dusk-to-dawn security light at the back of the pink elephant and went to Lowes to pick up a few supplies for tomorrow. I also handed out the letters to each tenant regarding the high utility prices this winter (see last night's post to read the letter).

Tomorrow will be more rent collecting and maybe another bike ride.

3 New Tenants

Today was a good day in the rental property business. I got 3 new tenants today and have a couple of other prospects. I am now out of 1 bedroom apartments and houses; out of two bedroom houses; and out of three bedroom apartments and houses. All I have left is two 2-bedroom apartments and a 6 bedroom house! I'm still hopeful that I will fill at least one of the apartments. All in all, not bad.

I also had a very good day collecting rents. I got an unusual number of payments today and am happy to have made good progress. While picking up the rents, I was also passing out a letter discussing the extremely high heating costs that will occur this winter. Here is a copy of the letter I sent:

Dear Valued Tenant,

If you’ve been following the news lately, you know that our country is in a dire situation. Many large banks have failed; the insurance industry is in trouble; the airline industry is failing; the auto industry is failing; and the economy may be on the verge of a depression. Unfortunately, that grim news may not be the worst to affect us this winter. Fuel, food, and energy prices are at record levels and this winter promises to be the most expensive in history. Natural gas prices are up 60% since just last February! Electric rates are also up and AEP has requested a 45% increase. It is imperative that each of us prepare for extreme prices this winter before the cold weather arrives. Here is a list of things YOU CAN DO to keep your costs down and ensure a safe and happy winter:

Insulate your windows with plastic. The most effective, least costly method is to purchase the type of plastic that you seal with a hair dryer. This is available at Lowes, K-mart, Walmart, and many other local stores.

If your house or apartment has a furnace, be sure to change the filter monthly. Filters cost
less than a cup of coffee and can save you a BUNCH of money if changed monthly.

Turn your thermostat down. Simply turning the thermostat down a few degrees will save
you a significant amount of money this winter. I am setting the thermostat at my house at
65 degrees this winter.

Adjust your thermostat for periods when you will be out of the house and at night. You will
save money if you set your thermostat at 60 degrees while at work and while sleeping. It’s
much cheaper to add a blanket than to pay for unnecessary heat.

When it gets really cold (less than 10 degrees), let each sink drip. This will help prevent
your pipes from freezing.

Plan for MUCH higher than normal heating bills. You can save money by cutting down on non-essentials such as eating out, un-necessary trips in the car, overspending on Christmas presents, etc.

Many people are eligible for assistance on their heating bills. You can apply for many of these assistance programs by calling one number 1-800-282-0880. This is the number for HEAP (Home Energy Assistance Program), EHEAP (Emergency Home Energy Assistance Program), PIPP (Percentage of Income Payment Plan), and HWAP (Home Weatherization Assistance Program). You can also apply for these programs online at:
www.odod.state.oh.us/cdd/ocs/heap.htm
Even if you have been turned down for assistance in the past, you should apply again.
CALL TODAY WHILE FUNDS ARE STILL AVAILABLE! You may also want to call
the local agencies if you are having problems. The Salvation Army, Job and Family Services, Community Action, and various church groups often provide help for people in
need.

Please remember that the company requires the rent to be paid on time. Unfortunately, the company is not able to accept high fuel prices, a cold winter, or buying Christmas presents as excuses for failing to pay the rent. Also, please remember that it will cost more in late fees if the rent is not paid on time. Obviously, there is no better use of your money that having a place to live and heat to keep you warm. IT IS ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL THAT YOU PAY THE RENT FIRST.

That was the letter I handed out to the tenants. My hope is that they will keep the thermostat down and keep paying the rent. I am concerned that there could be a high number of evictions this winter.

I'll be collecting more rents tomorrow.

Always Unpredictable

I was back to work today with my rental property business. As always, things were very unpredictable. Although I'm currently at a very high occupancy rate, I did have a few rentals available including one 1-bedroom apartment; two 2-bedroom apartments; one 2-bedroom house; and one 5-6 bedroom house. I had already shown all these units several times and believed that I would receive the money for most of them today. Of course, nothing went as planned. The Section 8 tenant for the 2 bedroom house bailed out at the last minute. I think the reason is that she couldn't afford to have the gas turned on. Another Section 8 tenant bailed out of the 5-6 bedroom house, because she couldn't come up with the deposit and her portion of the rent.

I did get the deposit on the 1-bedroom apartment and I have another tenant that will supposedly have the money for one of the 2-bedroom apartments tomorrow. Another couple looked at the 2-bedroom house and claims they will take it tomorrow and a young pregnant woman looked at the other 2-bedroom apartment and claims to want that.

I did a little finish work on my 2 bedroom house today and I am within a hour or two of finishing it so that someone can move in. Tomorrow, I'm going to steam clean the carpet and do a couple of finish items and hopefully get it rented.

I also picked up the bikes from the bike shop today. I was shocked that the bill was only $93 for both bikes. I guess there are still a few things that are a good value.

Living the Dream!

I just got back from another 3 day trip. This trip was the fullfillment of one of my goals for this summer: to take a longer cross-country motorcycle trip. So, off we went Saturday morning on our trip from Ohio to the Tennessee/North Carolina border to ride the Tail of the Dragon. The Tail of the Dragon is an 11 mile stretch of Highway 129 that has 318 curves. Many of the curves are VERY SHARP and have a lot of vertical change. Throw in the occassional RV that is taking up most of the road and a bunch of crotch-rocket drivers that are going around the corner so fast that they're skidding on one knee, and you've got an exciting 11 miles!!! This was quite a trip for a first time cross-country rider and gave me a lot of valuable experience.

Tomorrow, I will get back to the rental business and I'll try to post about whatever happens (I've got no idea right now, but something will come up).

Working on the Two Bedroom House

I spent some time yesterday and today working on my 2 bedroom house that is being inspected by Section 8 tomorrow (Friday). The work included replacing the carpet in the kitchen; replacing missing outlet and switch covers; painting the wood floor in the utility room; installing an overflow tube on the water heater; replacing light bulbs; doing some general cleaning; etc. Nothing major, just the routine work that is required to get a property ready for an inspection. The inspection is between 3pm and 5pm tomorrow and I still have a little work to do tomorrow, including replacing two broken windows, installing a few miniblinds, cleaning the carpet, fixing an exhaust fan; and installing one smoke detector.

I also need to pick up my bike and my friend's bike tomorrow at the bike shop. My friend's bike got a new rear derailler bracket. My bike got a tune-up; new pedals; a new yoke for the handlebars; the rear wheel straightened or replaced; and a new mirror.

This two bedroom house that I have been working on has been a little bit of an anomaly for me. Because my wife and I have been gone so many days lately (at a seminar, then camping, and then on a motorcycle trip this weekend), I decided to hire someone to paint the interior of this house. I have had a college student that has been pestering me for a job and so I hired him to do the painting. As usual, I was NOT happy with the experience. He did an acceptable job of painting, but he called me several times during the job for silly things. More significantly, I asked him to be sure to lock the door when he wasn't on the jobsite, and he couldn't even accomplish this simple task. On the day after he finished the job, I went by to check the result and found the door UNLOCKED! This is EXACTLY why I don't like to hire people. I'd rather do it myself and do it right and without the hassle!!!