The Week is Done!

Another short week has come to an end. Today, I finished up work on the 3 bedroom duplex and got a lease signed with the new tenant. That was a good way to finish the week and I can start my camping trip tomorrow without any unfinished work. I'm really looking forward to the camping trip and am expecting the weather to be excellent. We're going with 3 other couples from Church and I'm sure that we'll have a great time.


I've had a couple of people ask to see a picture of the painted floors in the duplex. Here it is! Please note that I had to sand this floor due to the delapidated 50+ year old carpet pad that was literally bonded to the floor. Due to time constraints (the tenants wanting to move in), I was only able to put one coat of floor paint on this floor. Normally one coat is plenty, however, in this case, a second coat would have been desireable. The floor looks OK, but it doesn't have the high gloss that another coat would have provided. Without further delay, here it is:

New Tenant!

Any day that you get a new tenant is a good day. Today, I got a new tenant for the 3-bedroom apartment that I have been working on, even though it won't be finished for a day or two. That just shows how tight the rental market is in our area! A good thing!

My actual work today consisted of painting the 3-bedroom apartment. I got the living room, dining room, one bedroom, and the stairway painted. Tomorrow, I've got 2 more bedrooms to paint, some touch-up painting to do in the kitchen, a ceiling light to install, and a little work to do in the bathroom.

Sad Day

Today started on a sad note, with the funeral for one of my tenants. I was honored by the family to be asked to be a pallbearer. I spent a significant part of the day at the funeral and the cemetary. This was a very untimely and unexpected death, with my 48 year old tenant suffering a sudden blood clot. The tenant and her long time roommate lived in the Pink Elephant, which is the apartment building that I have been working so hard to take back from the druggies, deadbeats, and criminals. In fact, this hard work is exactly why I was asked to be a pallbearer. The family told me that my tenant appreciated everything I have done to improve the neighborhood. Somehow, that makes all the hard work; all the struggles with the druggies; all the court hearings; all the renovation; and all the painting seem very worthwhile. I'm sorry that the tenant didn't live to see the completion of the renovation. The druggies, deadbeats, and criminals are mostly gone, but only about half of the cosmetic rehab is done.

After the funeral, I spent a couple of hours doing three minor projects. The first was to pour industrial strength drain cleaner down a slow drain at one apartment. Next, I sealed every nook and cranny I could find in another apartment that has had a bat problem. For some reason, here in our little corner of Ohio, the bat population has exploded this summer and many tenants have had bats in their rentals. Bats are good for keeping the mosquito population down, but having bats flying around the house can be a bit nerve-racking for the tenants! Finally, I did some painting in the three bedroom duplex I've been working on. I'm hoping to make a lot of progress on that unit tomorrow!

That was enough for one day and I'm looking forward to a happier day tomorrow.

Trouble Comes in Orange!

I spent Wednesday and Thursday removing what was left of an antique carpet pad from the floor in one of my three bedroom duplexes. This unit is half of a duplex that I purchased a couple of years ago. It came with a tenant and that tenant just moved out. The carpet on the ground floor was almost certainly from the 1950s (although still in good shape) and I wanted to replace it with a refinished wood floor (high gloss floor paint). I like the floor paint because it is MUCH easier to take care of in a rental and can be easily and cheaply refinished between tenants (simply roll on more floor paint)! Using the floor paint will make the floor look GREAT and save me thousands and thousands of dollars over the life of this rental.

Once I removed the vintage green carpet, I discovered an even older red carpet underneath. Under the red carpet was an hard orange surface that I originally thought was some sort of carpet cement. After doing some further investigation, I determined that the orange surface was actually an ancient carpet pad that had totally broken down and had adhered to the floor in a cement-like consistency. I tried scraping the old pad, but it wouldn't budge. I then decided to rent a floor sander with extremely coarse 20 grit paper and to sand the orange pad off. To make a long story short, it ended up taking TWO DAYS to get that orange gunk off the floor, and I'm not talking about my normal 3-4 hour days. On Wednesday, I spent SEVEN LONG HOURS working on it. Thursday, I spent 4 or 5 hours! I finally got it cleaned up, but it turned out to be a real project! Next, I'll paint the floor and do some other touch-up painting around the apartment, which should finish the rehab on this unit.

After working so hard on Wednesday and Thursday, I took Friday off. After a 3-day weekend, I'll be ready for work on Monday!

On a sad note, one of my apartments has had two ladies living it in for the past 25 years (well before I owned the building). I received a call from the tenant yesterday who let me know that her roommate died suddenly yesterday morning in the apartment from an apparent heart attack. That's the second tenant that I've had suddenly die in the last two months. The other tenant rented a garage from me which he used to rebuild motorcycles.

To the Dump!

Do you remember the Beverly Hillbillies T.V. show? If so, I'm sure that you remember the Beverly Hillbillies with their truck loaded sky high with all their furniture and belongings as they heading to Beverly Hills. Today, was my day to do my best Beverly Hillbillies impression. I loaded up the truck and trailer with furniture, an old console TV, carpet, and other big items from two units I'm rehabbing and I headed to the dump! At one of the units, I also pulled out a bunch of vines that were growning up the side of the house and I took them to the dump also.

After a short lunch break, I went down to the Pink Elephant and did a little bit of painting. I'm almost done with the bottom 10 feet of the Pink Elephant and will be bringing my scaffolding to the Pink Elephant for the next 10 feet.

I quit early today so that I could work on our Motorhome. We've been having a little problem with the 6.5 KV generator's output voltage being too high. It's a fairly complex electrical system with three sources of AC electrical power and two DC batteries. After some trouble shooting, I discovered that the coach battery had a dead cell, so I replaced that battery with a new battery. After running the generator and the engine, the voltage seems to be normal. So, I'll run it again on several occassions before our next camping trip on the 29th, to be sure that the problem is fixed (I'm not convinced yet).

Breakfast!

One of the simple pleasures that I enjoy in life is riding my bike. There is no better way to start the day than to take a nice bike ride along some quiet country roads or trails. This morning was our church's monthly breakfast ride, where we get together and ride to a nearby town for breakfast and fellowship. This morning's ride was a 14 mile trip on a paved bike path that was a railroad right of way in days gone by. It is a heavily wooded trail with a creek running along one side of the path. There were several bridges over the creek, almost all of them being old railroad bridges that have been renovated with new wooden decks. It was just a great morning all the way around.

After lunch, I was getting bored, so I decided to go work on one of my apartments. I ended up spending about 2 hours texturing the walls.

Tomorrow, I will be running the projection at church in the morning and then we will have our small group meeting in the evening. I may sneak in another bike ride in the afternoon.

What do Brooms and Pennies Have in Common?

Brooms and Pennies are two things that are ALWAYS left behind when a low income tenant moves out! Those of you who own rentals know exactly what I'm talking about and are probably laughing right now. I can't tell you how many rentals I've cleaned out and almost everyone had pennies strewn about and a lonely, unused broom sitting quietly in a corner. The apartment that I cleaned out today also had a lightly used Bissell vacuum cleaner and an older Hoover Vacuum. The Hoover was a bag type vacuum and I threw it away (I hate those bags). The Bissell, on the other hand, was nearly new and will make a fine addition to my collection. That's two nice vacuums that I've gotten in the last two rentals I've cleaned out. You can never have too many vacuums in this business.

I also found a nice bucket and a laptop computer. The laptop worked but appeared to have an older operating system and therefore I threw it away. The kitchen was also full of food. I often wonder why people leave the stuff they do. This person was not evicted and gave me an entire month's notice before leaving. He certainly had time to get his stuff, but just didn't do so. It took about 2 hours and 10 LARGE trash bags to clean out the place. It's looking good now and is almost ready to re-rent.

Tomorrow is our monthly men's bike ride and breakfast at church. We'll be riding about 12 miles starting at 8am tomorrow. Have a good weekend!

Fully Rested!

After a second day of my normal routine, I am now fully rested and fully recovered from last weekend's camping trip! Today was just a routine day of maintenance. My first project was to fix a couple of non-working electrical outlets in one of our apartments. The problem ended up being a blown fuse as a result of one of the electrical outlets being improperly wired. The tenant has just recently moved into this apartment and I don't believe that she would have done anything to the outlet. However, it is crystal clear that someone who knew absolutely nothing about electricity wired this outlet. It was wired in a dead short, which is why the fuse was blown. I've seen stranger things happen, but I'm always amazed when a tenant does unauthorized maintenance (or maybe attempted vandalism). While I was there, I also fixed a loose door hinge and replaced a smoke detector battery that was missing. The tenant claimed that she didn't know how the smoke detector battery became lost, but I'd bet $100 that she used the battery in something else. TENANTS ARE SOOOOOO STUPID!

After working on this apartment, I cleaned out the gutters at one of our duplexes. I also replaced a shutter on this building. The shutter had blown off a while back during a severe storm.

Last on the list was to replace the DVR for my surveillance system at the Pink Elephant. The ethernet port on the DVR failed and it will need to be sent back for replacement (under warranty).

I was home early today and went for a nice bike ride. I have really been seeing a LOT of deer on my rides lately. Tonight, I saw about two dozen in one field and five in another. It's a lot safer to ride through that area on a bike than to drive in a car. Hitting a deer in a car is bad news for both the car and the deer!

A Little This, A Little That

I was back to work today after our action packed 4-day weekend. After another day of work, I should be fully rested.

My morning started with a setout from my latest eviction. The setout went very smoothly, with the tenant carrying our her big screen TV as I arrived at the building. Fortunately, almost everything was out of the apartment and I retook possession without incident. Within a couple of hours, the tenant's friends had picked up all her belongings from the yard. I bagged up the few belongings that were left and carried them to the trash. After sweeping the apartment, I changed the locks and the setout was over - all in less than 30 minutes!

I then spent the next four hours doing some minor repairs and minor rehabbing to the apartment in preparation for the next tenant. This included doing some repairs to the door jam; replacing an old ceiling light in the living room with a brand new one from Lowes ($4.97); texturing one wall; and installing new miniblinds.

Tomorrow, I'll texture another wall in this apartment and I'm also planning to do some rain gutter work on a couple of other buildings. Nothing too exciting on tap for this week, just routine maintenance.

Barely Survived!

I am certainly glad to be back from another 4 day weekend of camping! I managed to survive the experience - barely. When most people think of camping, they probably think of sitting by the campfire and relaxing. When we go camping, we do just the opposite. I HATE TO SIT AROUND!

This 4 day weekend was particularly busy. As usual, we went camping with a group from Church. My mountain biking partner just had shoulder surgery and was out of action for the mountain biking course. So, to make up for the lack of mountain biking, I went on longer solo rides, exploring some horse trails and other areas (it's too dangerous to go mountain biking solo on the courses in our area).

Saturday was a particularly busy day. We went water skiing, knee-boarding, wake boarding, tubing, and jet skiing. I had ridden my bike 12 miles before that adventure, and by the end of the day, I was wiped out!!! In addition to riding my bike and the water action, we also rode my motorcycle; went swimming; played cards; had some great cookouts; and watched the Olympics by the campfire late into the night. The weather was picture perfect, with highs in the upper 70's and lows in the 50's!

Now that I'm back, I can get rested up for our next trip in a couple of weeks!

I know that this is supposed to be a real estate blog - so here it is (of course, my rental property business gives me the freedom to take all these 4 day weekends). Tomorrow, I have a setout for the last druggie in the pink elephant. Once that tenant is out at 10 am, I will be ready to start re-filling the building with better tenants. I've been waiting a long time for that moment and am excited to have reached this point.

Time is of the Essence

"Time is of the Essence", we've all heard that little saying. In fact, the phrase is so popular that it is incorporated into many legal documents, including my lease. One of my tenants discovered the harshest meaning of this phrase this morning in court. The eviction proceeding was scheduled for this tenant at 10 am this morning. I arrived at the courtroom at about 9:55 am, which was about 10 minutes later than I intended. My attorney's office is literally only 1/2 a block from the courthouse and she always makes me nervous by arriving at the last possible moment. She arrived at about 9:57 am. At exactly 10 am, the magistrate (judge) called the case for trial. The defendant (my tenant) was a no show. Literally, within 2 minutes, the case was over and I had won by default.

Immediately after the eviction trial was over, my lawyer and I proceeded downstairs to file for the writ of possession. This is the piece of paper that causes the tenant to be actually thrown out. That took longer than the trial. At 10:15, as I was walking out of the courthouse, I passed my tenant as she was walking INTO THE COURTHOUSE. I told her that it was all over and that she lost!!! Sleeping-in cost my tenant the chance to be heard in court. Although this was certainly lazy on her part; her late arrival didn't change the outcome of the eviction. Even if she had been there, she would surely have been evicted. In Ohio, if you don't pay - you don't stay!

A Little Behind on the Blog Posting

It seems that I just haven't had time to post much lately. We are having a very busy summer. I have gotten quite serious about getting into better shape and have been riding my bike nearly every day. Along with a friend from Church, I have been doing a lot of mountain biking and have been riding my bike on a hilly 7 mile course nearly every day. So far, I've lost about 11 pounds, which is a good thing!

In addition to mountain biking, we seem to be involved in a lot of social activities this summer. We've been out late many nights at different parties with our small group at church as well as other people we know. We've also been on several camping trips and will be taking another 4 day weekend next week!

I've also been dedicating a significant amount of time to my rentals this summer, trying to get the pink elephant rehabbed and stabilized. It's been a slow process. In fact, it's been the most challenging project I've undertaken to date. I must admit that I underestimated the tenacity of the druggies and deadbeats in the area. When I've taken over drug infested buildings in the past, I've generally been able to turn them around in about 2-3 months. I've now been working on the pink elephant for a solid 6 months and still have a little way to go before I can declare victory. The recently installed surveillance system has been a great asset. I'm at the point now where the druggies have just about been eradicated and I'm nearly ready to begin refilling the vacant units with new, and better, tenants.