Being Proactive

I have now started the process of evicting the deadbeats from the Rat's Nest (my new 7 unit apartment building). As with all druggie rats, they are playing their silly games right down to the last minute. When I stopped by the building yesterday for a quick check, I found a known drug addict going into one of the apartments. She was an absolute mess. She looked HORRIBLE - with two black eyes and obviously high as a kite. I told her that we did not allow druggies on the property and insisted that she leave immediately. About that time, one of the tenants who is being evicted came out of his apartment as was quite agitated. He was yelling and screaming that I was going to be in big trouble. He said that he was going to call his lawyer. I said "go ahead". He then said that he was going to call the building inspector and again I said "go ahead"! However, his second statement caused me a little concern. Most of the time, tenants will threaten things and then not follow through. However, on the rare occassion that they do follow through, it can mean trouble. The very last thing any landlord needs is a building inspector walking through the building with an angry tenant.

I have discovered through experience that the best defense is a good offense. Since I considered it possible that the tenant would contact the building inspector, I thought I better get there first. Fortunately, I had a big advantage over the deadbeat tenant - TIME! I knew that I could take my time this morning and still get to the building inspector's office before the deadbeat. Why? Because low income druggie tenants are up partying all night and sleep in until late in the day!!!

Therefore, I got up this morning and went into town to talk to the building inspector. I told him that we were taking over the Rat's Nest (my nickname for my ugly apartment building) and that we were in the process of cleaning it up. I let him know that I was evicting the druggies and that the druggies were very unhappy about that! I told him that I had already met with the police and talked to the nuisance board and that we were all working together to get this eyesore of a building turned around. The inspector is familiar with this property and with the work I have done on other crack houses and said that he would not respond to any calls from the druggies, since he knows that we are working on the situation!

Being proactive is very important when you're trying to turn around problem properties and it makes everybody's job easier! The best defense is a good offense!