Slow Week - the Holidays are Here

I'm already in holiday mode. The fact is that in the rental business, not much happens between Thanksgiving and Christmas. People are busy scurrying around shopping for Christmas presents. The weather is cold in Ohio. People certainly aren't moving if they don't have to. Therefore, I typically go into slow motion and take a lot of time off during the Christmas season. This week has been the perfect example.

On Monday, I worked for about 2 hours doing a little maintenance. I checked the winterization status of the couple of vacant rentals I have; fixed a minor electrical problem; and patched some drywall. For December, Monday was a beautiful day with temperatures in the mid-50's. So, after my 2 hours of work, I decided to go to the gun club and do some shooting. I got a lot of practice in and had a good time.

On Tuesday, my new Lionfish arrived (via overnight shipping) for my 220 gallon aquarium. I decided that was a good reason to take the day off and that was exactly what I did. I spent about 3 hours acclimating my new fish to my aquarium and then practiced some timed shooting at the makeshift airsoft shooting range in my basement. I find the airsoft shooting to be very valuable training as it builds speed and accuracy; and the gun I use for the airsoft shooting is almost identical to my Glock.

Today, I was in court for the final hearing on a judgment I won against the last tenant I evicted. That only lasted about 1/2 hour and then I took the rest of the day off.

I am planning to do a little work tomorrow if I can get motivated. However, if anything more interesting comes up, I may take tomorrow off also.

Never Talk to Strangers!

When I was a child, my mother used to say "never talk to strangers." I guess I never was very good at taking instruction! Today was a good example. I was driving to one of my houses to do a little maintenance work. On the way, I drove by the only house that I now have vacant. As I glanced at the house, I noticed a stranger leaning up against the front of the house, fiddling with something in his hands. The guy looked a little "iffy" and I decided to stop and see what he was doing.

I got out of the truck and asked the guy if I could help him. He said "no, I'm waiting for someone". I responded that was fine, but he couldn't wait on our property (I never say "my" property, because I want to portray that I'm just the manager). The guy said that he was waiting for the person that lived in the house and said that he had just been talking to them a few minutes before. Since the house is vacant, I knew that he was lying. I asked him for the names of the occupants of the house and he said that he didn't know, but it was a Mexican and a woman. There aren't many Mexicans in this part of Ohio and almost every Mexican male that I have seen would be working during the day (as I was doing). I told the guy that there was no Mexican that lived at the house.

I asked the liar again what he was doing at the house and he said that his friends were working in the back of the house. I followed the guy around to the back, keeping a safe distance behind him. There was no-one at the back of the house and I told the guy to get off the property and stay off or I would have him arrested! He left the property and started walking down the street.

My next concern was that someone might have indeed broken into the house. I used my key to enter the house and carefully searched it. There was no-one in the house and no evidence that anyone had been in there.

As I exited the house, I saw a couple of guys that lived in the neighborhood. I asked them if they knew who the stranger was and they said that he had been slinking around their truck and camper a little while earlier. Obviously, this guy was up to no good. Clearly, mother knew what she was talking about - this stranger was definitely trouble. I asked the two neighborhood guys to call me if they saw him again and they said the would do so, as well as calling the police.

I'll try to keep an eye on the property for the next couple of days.

EEEKS!

The economy is bad - I guess that's not a great revelation. One of the issues that has arisen due to the bad economy is that I'm seeing more tenants paying late (during the 3 day eviction notice period and with a late fee). This month was no different, and I had one tenant that paid me yesterday. When I was in town to pick up the rent, another tenant called to tell me that there was a bat in her house. I told her that I was already in town and that I would be happy to stop and remove the bat for her.

I'm an animal lover. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a wacko, leftist, PETA type animal lover that doesn't eat meat or wear leather, but an animal lover nonetheless. I can't say the same thing about tenants, but that's another story. Anyway, many tenants are afraid of bats and will kill them unless I go get them. So, I always like to go rescue the bats from the less-than-lovable tenants.

When I arrived at the house, I found the bat hanging from the living room curtains. That's a frequent occurrance in this part of the country. Bats that are hanging upside down normally won't fly or cause any other problems and can be easily moved into a box. Once I located the bat, I went back to my truck to find a box. As it turned out, the only box I had was a beaten up box that contained contractor size trash bags. It had been underneath some of my tool bags and was in bad condition. I taped the corners of the box back together and took it into the house to retrieve the bat. I placed the open box against the curtain just below the bat and used a small piece of cardboard to scrape the bat off the curtain and into the box.

As usual, the bat seemed perfectly content to be in the box. He didn't move or attempt to fly. I closed the lid and put the box on the floor in the front seat of my truck, because it was quite cold outside and I didn't want to freeze the little bat before I released him.

Since the bat had already found a way into the tenant's house, I didn't want to release him close to her house. I decided to release the bat at the state park, which is located very close to my house. My business in town being completed, the bat and I headed for home. About half way home, the bat apparently started to wake up (it was getting close to dark) and he started scratching at the inside of the box. I felt sorry for the little bat being trapped in the box, but we only had another few minutes remaining before we would reach the state park.

Just before I reached the Park, the bat finally stopped scratching and I assumed that he was settling down. Then, suddenly, just as I turned into the Park, I thought I saw something fly by my head. After thinking about for a second, I convinced myself that it was just one of the floaters I've had in my eye since my recent retina tear. This isn't the first time that I thought I saw something that wasn't there due to these floaters. So, I just kept driving as I was only another minute or so from the spot where I intended to release the bat. I'm sure that you can guess where this is headed. The bat had somehow gotten out of the box and was loose in the truck with me. At this point the bat flew right by my ear and landed on the seat beside me.

Although I love animals, I certainly don't have any desire to be locked in a pickup truck cab with a bat. I immediately stopped the truck and got out. I walked around to the passenger door and as I opened the door, out flew the bat. I'm sure that he was very happy to be free and I was equally happy that he would out of my truck.

I'm Back!

After a two month hiatus, I'm back to blogging. For all of you who have sent e-mails wishing me well, let me say a hearty Thank You! I appreciate your concern.

My break from blogging started one evening, about two months ago, as I was cleaning the swimming pool. As I glanced into the water, it suddenly looked like a thousand gnats were swimming in the water. Obviously, gnats don't live in water. I looked away from the water and discovered that the "gnats" were still there. Within a few more seconds, the swarm of gnats had expanded to fill the entire field of vision in my left eye, only now there weren't a thousand gnats - now there were THOUSANDS OF GNATS. I was puzzled as to what could cause such a malady, so I decided to make my way back to the house. Within a very short period of time, things got much worse and there was a sudden influx of thick black liquid swirling around in my left eye. To top it all off, there were sudden flashes of light that looked like little lightning bolts. At that point, I decided that a trip to the emergency room was in order. That is how my adventure began.

After sitting for several hours in the emergency room, it was decided that I probably had a torn retina. Being a Saturday night, there was no opthamologist on duty, but the ER physician called one that was on-call and he scheduled an appointment to meet me at his office the next afternoon. After a detailed exam, the opthamologist determined that I had a retina that was torn in two places and that I had experienced a hemmorage as the retina tore (that was the thick black liquid floating around in my eye).

I felt sorry for the opthamologist who was wasting his Sunday afternoon to work on my eye (although I appreciated his sacrifice). It reminded me of the occassional times that I have had to fix some tenant problem on a weekend. As it turned out, about 2 1/2 hours of his Sunday afternoon would be spent examining my eye and then performing emergency laser surgery to "tack up" my retina - enough to get me through until the next day at which time I would see a retinal specialist. As I understand it, the surgery basically consists of using a laser to burn the retina, causing it to form scar tissue and thereby welding it to the rods and cones at the back of the eye. This prevents the vitreous humor, which is the liquid in the eye, from leaking behind the retina and causing a retinal detachment, which is a very serious problem that can cause blindness.

The following day, I met with the retinal specialist and had more surgery. While the first surgery on Sunday was relatively painless, the surgery on Monday was excruciating! I think the issue was that Monday's surgery included re-burning the previous day's burns to my retina and let me tell you - IT HURT! Within a few minutes of the surgery being completed, the pain was nearly unbearable. I took everything I could think of to lessen the pain and put an ice pack on my eye for a couple of hours. Although painful - it was certainly better than being blind - so I really didn't have anything to complain about.

The retinal specialist recommended that I not do much reading for the next 60 days, therefore I stopped blogging and all but stopped reading anything on the internet. Gradually, the sight in my left eye improved as the thousands of "gnats" slowly faded. The bigger problem was the thick black liquid (from the hemmorrhage) which was very slow to re-absorb into my eye and in fact is still not completely gone even today. At any rate, the danger of further retinal tears is now largely over and I can get back to participating on the internet and blogging.

Obviously, my rental business didn't stop just because of my eye problem. I really wasn't under any restriction during this period (other than limiting my reading) and I have continued to work on my rental business about 12-16 hours per week as usual.

During my break, I have also taken up competition shooting, which has been a lot of fun. I am now participating in various defensive type shooting sports including IDPA (International Defensive Pistol Association) and USPSA (Unites States Practial Shooting Association), both of which are very good practice for anyone that carries a concealed handgun. My goal is to practice a lot over the winter and to be competitive in matches starting in the spring.

That's about it. I'll be back to blogging about the rental property business with my next post.

Back From Vacation and Younger Than Ever!

I just got back from a very relaxing vacation on Topsail Island in North Carolina. For those of you that have never been to Topsail Island, it is a very quiet island with beautiful beaches. It is just about as far from being a tourist destination as a beach can be. There is no amusement park; no tourist type shows; and very few tourist shops. It was very relaxing, and except for a trip to visit the Battleship North Carolina, we didn't do any tourist activities.

However, little did I realize just how relaxing it was. Today as I returned to work on my rental business, I discovered that not only did I get a lot of relaxation on vacation, I actually got younger - A LOT YOUNGER! In fact, one rental applicant that I talked to today apparently thought I was born YESTERDAY! Talk about finding the fountain of youth! LOL!

Here's what happened. A woman called today wanting to see one of my two bedroom apartments. As always, I asked her who would be living there. She said it would be her mother; her mother's boyfriend; and she would occassionally stay there too, when she was in town. I was thinking "B.S."!!! Obviously, if the mother was actually going to live there, then she would have come to look at the apartment. So, I asked the woman why her mother wasn't here to look at it and she replied that her mother had C.O.P.D., which is a lung disease that makes breathing difficult. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out that a woman with severe breathing problems would not be able to climb a LONG flight of stairs to a second story apartment. Even though my vacation had been relaxing, I clearly wasn't born YESTERDAY!

Just for fun, I played along with the charade. I told the woman that I would need her to take an application to her mother and have her mother fill it out. And by the way, I would need a copy of all their driver's licenses in order to do their screening. We walked out to my truck and I gave the woman an application. She left.

Within 5 minutes, she was back. She asked if SHE could fill out the application and now claimed that she would be paying the rent for her mother. The crap was getting pretty deep and I didn't have my hip waders! Even so, I managed to keep a straight face. I told the woman that she could indeed fill out the application, but that I would still need the info for her mother and her mother's boyfriend, including their driver's licenses. With that she left again.

I quit work today about 1 pm and headed home. As I pulled into the driveway, the woman called me. She said that she had the application complete and wanted to meet me to give me the application. I asked her if she had copies of the driver's licenses for her mother and her mother's driver's licenses. She said that her mother and the boyfriend wouldn't be living there now - they had changed their mind! At this point even hip waders couldn't stay above the b.s. and I ended the game. I told the woman that I would not rent to her, her mother, or her mother's boyfriend and then I said goodbye!

As Paul Harvey used to say - 'and now the rest of the story'. When the woman came to look at the apartment, she brought 2 men with her. She looked iffy. Her boyfriend had tattooes all over his body and I judged him to be a druggie. The other man looked even worse - like a FREAK! From experience, I immediately knew that these were the scumbags that wanted to rent the apartment, probably with the mother and the mother's boyfriend. The woman claimed to have all the money with her to rent the apartment on the spot. That was additional confirmation that I did NOT want to rent to them. My theory is that these scumbags were being setout after being evicted. I'd bet good money that their current apartment is in the mother's name and if I had screened her, she would have an eviction on her record. I would also bet that the boyfriend had an extensive criminal record. Therefore, the only one left with a relatively clean record was the woman who came to look at the apartment. NO THANKS! I don't need any scumbags renting my apartment!

Criminal Busted!

My morning started bright and early. Shortly after I woke up this morning, I sat down to watch the news and check my e-mail. My security camera views are always up in the background on my laptop and as I picked up my computer I noticed a convicted felon walk onto the property at one of my apartment buildings. This criminal is nothing but trouble and is barred from the property. I called the police and reported that the felon was trespassing (criminal trespassing) on my property and asked that an officer meet me at the building. I met the officer and gave a report. The criminal was about 2 buildings down and the officer gave him a citation for the criminal trespass charge. The officer also requested that I get a copy of the security camera video to him and I did so.

After this incident, since I was already in town, I decided to lay another room of carpet at one of my 3 bedroom houses. I got that done and then moved onto mowing grass. I mowed grass at 3 buildings and then called it quits for the day.

Appliance Day and Armed Robbers

I had a very busy day today. It started with a trip to drop off my final 2008 tax information to my accountant (it's on extension). Next was a trip to the bank and post office. I moved in a new tenant yesterday, so I had to take the money to the bank.

After these preliminary tasks, I got started on applicance day, which consisted of putting appliances in two rentals. I know this sounds like a minor task that should have only taken a few minutes - but that wasn't the case.

The story all started a couple of weeks ago with the annual Section 8 inspection of a two bedroom apartment. As usual, the apartment passed the Section 8 inspection with flying colors. The problem started when the apartment was picked for a "quality control inspection", which is when Section 8 re-inspects the apartment to basically inspect the inspector. I've been picked for a lot of these quality control inspections and have always passed them. However, this time things took a turn for the worse. The unit failed the second inspection for two reasons: 1. the inspector said the oven didn't work and 2) the kitchen had a non-working refrigerator (which ended up being true). As it turned out, there was nothing wrong with the oven, except that the tenant had unplugged it. However, the stove was very old and ugly. I decided to just replace it, with a used stove from the used-appliance store ($65). This tenant had 2 refrigerators and a freezer in her apartment and has had this arrangement for several years. It is not my business how many appliances she has and I never questioned it (and don't honestly care). As it turns out, the refrigerator in the kitchen stopped working at some time in the past, leaving the tenant with a refrigerator in the bedroom and a deep freezer in the living room. The Section 8 inspector apparently questioned the tenant about the 2 refrigerators and freezer and found that one was inop.

The tenant is not in good shape and isn't capable of much physical activity. I had to move a bunch of furniture to get the old stove and refrigerator out and then move the new in. Of course, after doing that, I had to move all the furniture back. All in all, a 5 minute job ended up taking over an hour.

Next on the agenda was to put a (used) stove and refrigerator in the 3 bedroom house I'm finishing. Unlike the previous job, this literally took 5 minutes.

There was an armed bank robbery a couple of days ago in the area. The police released a description of the suspect and the get-away car today and I think I know who did it, so I called and talked to the police captain about my suspicions. To make a long story short, there is a convicted felon in the neighborhood near the pink elephant. The felon is on parole for robbery and he is associated with another scumbag that drives a car that matches the description of the get-away car. I offered to look at the bank's security camera system and the captain said that he would pass the info to the detective in charge of the case.

Enough for one day. More tomorrow.

Another Deadbeat Evicted!

Today was yet another day in court. The purpose of today's court appearance was to evict another deadbeat. The deadbeat in question is a 21 year old girl who only moved in one month ago. At the time of her move-in, she had no history of evictions and no criminal record. Now, she has both. Almost immediately after she moved in, she began hanging around with a convicted felon, who is out on parole and who lives down the street. In that short month, she's been arrested for disorderly conduct and has been involved in numerous thefts and fights. I did everything right on the screening and yet I still got this scumbag! UGH!

The eviction hearing was at 9am this morning and predictably, the scumbag didn't appear. It is almost impossible for scumbags to drag their butts out of bed to be in court by 9am! So, she was evicted and I immediately filed for the writ of possession. My guess is that I'll be throwing her stuff out by next Tuesday!

In addition to the eviction, I layed another room of carpet in one of my 3 bedroom houses and replaced a broken bathtub drain. All in all, not a bad day!

Getting Ready!

I'm back to work again, after taking a few days off last week. Today was all about getting my 3 bedroom house ready to rent. I'd like to have it ready to go for September 1st and I'm getting a lot of calls about it. The big project for today was to install carpet. I got the living room and spare room done today. In addition, I installed a fire extinguisher; 2 smoke detectors; and bought a bunch of miniblinds to be installed later.

Not Too Bright

With dozens of rentals, there is always something to fix. Today's project was a clogged drain line that occurred because the low income tenants weren't smart enough to scrape off their plates before trying to wash them. The drain line was BADLY plugged and it took a significant amount of effort and a significant mess to fix it. I ended up cutting the drain line and installing a new cleanout in the line so that I could run a snake through the line.

After finishing the repair, I gave the tenants a lecture about scraping the food from their plates BEFORE washing their dishes. I also promised them that I wouldn't repair another tenant-caused clog without charging them!

While we're talking about tenants that aren't too bright, one of my tenants reported to me today that a fellow tenant stole cigarettes from her. The tenant that stole the cigarettes is already being evicted for non-payment and has had several police contacts in the 6 weeks she has lived in the apartment. All the tenants, including the victim KNEW that this person was a scumbag and a thief. Even so, my tenant allowed the tenant into her apartment to use the phone and therefore became the victim of the theft. Not too bright.

BTW, the thief (my tenant) had a clean criminal background check when I accepted her. She is young and was probably a criminal all along, but obviously previous juvenile records are sealed making it impossible to discover the truth about young applicants! UGH!

Homicide and Suicide

I took the day off today, at least as far as the rental property business is concerned. However, I did still have a personal real estate project to do. To make a long story short, my wife's family is selling a house they inherited and somehow I got picked to do a few maintenance items at the house. To accomplish that job, I needed to pick up a few things from my storage room at the Pink Elephant. I got the things out I needed and started to cut a 2 X 6 right there on the sidewalk. I'm always aware of my surroundings when I work in low income areas (and everywhere else for that matter) and therefore I certainly took notice when a very rough looking man approached me. He had a cast on his left arm and his right forearm had MANY noticable cuts. I stopped working and asked him what I could do for him. His answer was unique to say the least. He said he wanted me to call someone to pick him up. That's not too uncommon in low income areas. Many times in the past, homeless people have asked me to call someone for them because they don't have a phone. I'm normally willing to make a quick call for them, provided I have the time. I thought that was what he wanted and I asked who he wanted me to call. His answer was that he was "thinking of committing homicide and suicide" and he wanted me to call the police. Well, that definitely got my attention! I didn't see a gun or knife and he hadn't threatened me directly, but I felt like I needed to have a few feet of separation from this guy and I definitely needed to keep him in front of me for tactical reasons. I directed him to sit down on the porch and told him that I would call the police. As soon as he sat down, I dialed the police and explained the situation to them. The said they would send an officer.

As we waited, I talked to the guy. As it turns out he was a mental health patient who is homeless and hasn't taken his medication for about 2 months. He apparently got into a fight with someone who accused him of stealing drugs and that person broke his arm. That occurred recently, although he told me different stories about when. He claimed that his wife cut his other arm, but from the shear number of cuts and the look of them, I'd bet that these were self-inflicted razor blade wounds.

About 10 minutes later, the police arrived. They talked to the man for a few minutes and it seemed like they were just going to leave. The man told them that he thought he might kill someone and burn down the guy's house that broke his arm. I wasn't too keen on him being released without getting some help. I pushed the idea of taking the guy to the hospital for a mental health evaluation and after radioing the station for permission, the police decided to do that. They searched the guy for drugs and weapons and put him in the cruiser to take him to the hospital.

Very strange encounter for a day off and just one more reason to always be armed!

My Own Brush with Euthanasia

I spent a couple hours this morning finishing the taxes for one of my companies. I'll take the info to my accountant in the morning.

My projects in town today were to fix a toilet that kept running; fix a sink that had very low flow of hot water; and to replace a broken refrigerator. Just after I finished changing the refrigerator, the tenant came out complaining about hearing a kitten crying. I helped the tenant look around and just outside her house was a nearly newborn kitten that was laying beside a propane bottle. The kitten was FILTHY; obviously alone; and crying. There was no mother or other kittens to be found, but some MORON had placed a food and water bowl near the kitten, as if a newly born kitten could eat cat food! As I was cleaning the kitten up, I was alarmed to see that it's eyes and ears were covered with tiny maggots.

I didn't know how to properly take care of this issue, so I decided to take the kitten to the vet to see if anything could be done. I thought the vet might be able to remove the maggots and then I could hand nurse the kitten. The vet looked at the cat and determined that it couldn't be saved. In addition to the maggots, it had damage to it's skin and intestinal tract, and the vet recommeded euthanizing it. I offered to pay the vet, but he wouldn't take any money. He took care of it and I came home, feeling sorry for the little abandoned kitten.

That's one of the sad things I see in the city. Tenants are VERY IRRESPONSIBLE with their pets and there are many ferile cats. It's a shame!

Financial Reports - What They Really Tell Us

I spent a little time today working on my 2008 taxes. OK, I admit that I've procrastinated a little in getting them done. Anyway, something really impressed me as I was working on one of my rental property businesses. This particular business has about 10 rentals in it and I was entering the data into Quickbooks Pro. As I entered all the income and expense data, it became rapidly apparent that my expenses for this business were very low. I had very low maintenance; hardly any vacancies; no lawsuits; no legal expenses; no evictions; etc. Although I haven't quite completed entering the data and I don't have the exact numbers yet, I'll certainly have expenses WELL below 50% of the gross rents.

The big question is what does that tell us? Am I a genius at the rental property business? Have I discovered some secret to success? Am I smarter than other landlords? Do I live in the best rental market on the planet? The answer is that this data tells me NOTHING! It's completely insignificant and irrelevant. I'm not a genius. I haven't discovered the secret to success. I'm not smarter than other successful landlords. I don't live in the best rental market on the planet.

A sample size of 10 rentals over one year is statistically insignificant. The data tells me absolutely nothing about my long term operating expenses. It doesn't even tell me about the operating expenses in my local area over the past year. Trying to conclude anything from this data would be foolish at best and financial suicide at worst (if I were to assume those expenses were correct for the purpose of evaluating future deals).

Once I finish the taxes on all my companies and print out the financial reports, I'll post the results on my blog. We'll see if there is any useful information that can be derived from my several dozen rentals.

One of the things that is significant is the paydown of principal over time. As I was entering the data this morning, I noticed that I'm paying down about $1,000 per month on principal on one of the loans. Picking up $12,000 per year in equity on just that one loan is significant! I'm looking forward to seeing what the principal paydown is on all my loans! I can't eat that equity, but it sure does feel good to watch it build up.

After doing the paperwork, I felt like getting out of the house, so I went down to the Pink Elephant to do some painting. I actually got quite a lot done in a short period of time.

Back to the Painting!

I finally got back to painting the Pink Elephant today. It was a beautiful day, although blazing hot, and I spent about 3 1/2 hours doing some painting. In addition to the painting, I had to stop by the insurance agency to sign paperwork for a renewal of one of my rental policies. I also fixed a leaking sink trap.

That was about it - all in all a pretty routine day.

Guns and Ammo for the Weekend!

This weekend was another 3 day weekend! I did work about 2 hours Friday morning in order to completely catch up with the last maintenance tasks on my list. Those projects included fixing a leaking toilet (replacing the flapper valve and tightening the hold-down bolts), spraying weeds, and taking mouse traps to a tenant (and giving her a lecture about cleanliness).

After my two hours of work, I took the rest of the day off. My wife and I spent some time having fun and doing some things around the house.

On Saturday, we went to the gun show at Vets Memorial in Columbus. I didn't buy any more guns, but I did get some ammo. As most people know, thanks to our President, ammo is in very short supply. I have a compact .32 cal auto handgun that I carry when I need a small gun - like riding my bike. Ammo for it is nearly impossible to find. I've searched all the gun shops and no-one has had any for months. I found some (that was manufactured in the former communist block) at the gun show and bought several hundred rounds. I also found some 7.62 X 39 mm ammo that was made in Russia and bought half a case. Finally, I found some JHP (Jacketed Hollow Point) self-defense ammo for my Beretta carry gun and bought some of that! A very successful journey.

With the way the country is rapidly deteriorating, I consider ammo to be as vital as an emergency food and water supply. Our economy is on the brink of disaster with debt that is crushing the country and ANY spark could easily throw us into chaos. It's happened many times throughout history and it's smart to be prepared. By the way, this isn't just crazy talk, the United States government has spent millions of dollars to tell YOU to be prepared. Here's a link to the government website: http://www.ready.gov/america/npm09/getakit.html Guns and ammo are not politically correct and are therefore not on the list.

After the gun show, we went to the shooting range for a little practice and fun. My wife got a chance to shoot my .40 Beretta, which was fun. She's a very good shot, but the kick almost lifted her off the ground, which was entertaining.

Of course, I took today off also and we had some family over to swim in the pool! It was a beautiful day - perfect for swimming. We followed that up with a cookout. All in all - a very good weekend.

Court, Section 8 Inspections and more!

If you are wondering what happened to yesterday's blog, my wife and I went out with friends for an afternoon and evening of fun and I didn't get home until late - too late to post my blog. So, let's catch up now!

Yesterday started at about 9 am with the posting of an eviction notice for a tenant at the Pink Elephant. My next stop was in municipal court at 9:30. This was my "second cause of action" (lawsuit) against the tenant I evicted last month. She really pissed me off, so I sued her for everything I could possibly think of! All together, I am claiming about $2,000 in damages which includes lost rent, late fees, physical damage, etc. In reality, I have already won the lawsuit via a default judgment because the tenant didn't respond to my lawsuit in the designated time (idiot). However, a hearing before the magistrate is still required to justify the amount of the judgment. The tenant didn't show up at this hearing, which was all the better for me!

You may recall from my original post on this eviction, that I have a new lawyer. She is inexperienced in evictions, but did a very nice job at the original eviction hearing. Unfortunately, there was a little paperwork snafu at the hearing yesterday, when my lawyer hadn't filed the proper amendment to the complaint, which should have included the final amount of damages we are seeking. This amendment required a proper service on the tenant and obviously that hadn't happened. The result of this mistake was that the magistrate could only award me a little over $700 in damages yesterday. So, we elected to continue the case for another 30 days so that my lawyer could amend the paperwork. When we go back to court, I can be awarded the entire amount of the damages. No big deal!

Next on the agenda were two Section 8 inspections. The first one was at about 11:30 and I passed it with flying colors. The next one happened at about 1:30 and it also easily passed! It doesn't get better than that!

As soon as the second inspection was complete, I was ready to quit for the day and I headed home. My wife and I decided to have some fun and we met another couple for an afternoon and evening out on the town!

My projects today included repairing the ceiling in an apartment and replacing a defective ceiling light. That took about 3 hours and that was enough for today. I had a few things I wanted to do around my home today, so I spent most of the day doing personal (non-work) stuff. I'll be mowing grass tomorrow and am thinking about going shooting.

New Rail

I started out the day with 17 rents to collect. With the exception of one iffy tenant and a couple of chronic late payers (bless them for the late fees every month), I got all the rents I was expecting today.

My project today was to rebuild the rail for the deck that I rebuilt yesterday. That turned out to be a bigger job than I anticipated as the untreated wood that was used for the rail was in bad shape. So, I rebuilt the entire rail with treated lumber.

I also inspected one of the apartments that will be inspected by Section 8 tomorrow. It was generally in good shape. I had to plug in the exhaust fan in the bathroom, as a working exhaust fan (or a window) is required for the Section 8 inspection. However, this tenant doesn't like the noise that the exhaust fan makes, so she has me unplug it right after the inspector leaves every year.

To my dismay, I also had to put a battery in the smoke detector. You'll notice that I didn't say "replace" the battery, I said put a battery in the smoke detector BECAUSE THE TENANT TOOK THE BATTERY OUT OF IT!!! I am continually shocked at the number of tenants that remove their smoke detector batteries to use them in some other gizmo, like toys and various electrical appliances. I wasn't able to coordinate with the tenant of the other house that will be inspected tomorrow, but she said the only thing she could think of that needed to be done for her inspection was to find her smoke detector!!! She apparently hasn't only taken the battery out of her detector - SHE'S LOST IT!!!

It's a good thing that fires are relatively rare, because otherwise every tenant on the planet would burn to death! I just can't believe that people are so dumb as to remove the smoke detector batteries or remove the entire detector!

Before the inspections tomorrow, I will be in court for the conclusion of my lawsuit against the tenant I evicted last month. We have a default judgment against the tenant who didn't respond and tomorrow's hearing will be to get the amount of the judgment finalized. This idiot tenant is the manager at the local Dollar General and it should be easy to garnish her wages!

Getting Ready for Inspection

I spent today getting ready for a pair of Section 8 inspections on Wednesday. My primary focus was to rehab a second floor deck for one of my apartments. Some previous landlord had overlayed the original deck floor with particle board - UGH! Obviously, particle board is NOT intended to be an exterior material and certainly isn't meant to be an exterior floor decking. Over the years, moisture has caused the particle board to get VERY soft and it was becoming unsafe. So, I removed it and the original decking underneath and replaced it with pressure treated 5/4 inch deck boards. It was a big job, but I got it done. Tomorrow, I will replace the top rail which is also rotted.

Mixed in with working on the deck was day three of rent collection. With August 1st and 2nd being on Saturday and Sunday, I collected a BUNCH of rents today. I would normally have made a mid-day trip to the bank if I collected that much money, but I was just too busy working today. So, by the time the end of the day came, I had a BIG pocket full of cash. I'll take that to the bank in the morning before I do anything else.

The other thing I did today was inspect a 3 bedroom house that I just got back. I received a call from the long term tenant (6 years with me, 9 years in this house) last night, informing me that they had moved. No notice! The good news is that they took almost all their stuff and they cleaned up the house. It will need new carpet, but not much else. This is the first house I've had available in 3 or 4 months, so it should rent quickly. With this kind of demand, I'll be raising the rent also!

Splitting Headache!

You've probably never heard of a Cluster Headache. I've had them on and off since I was a kid and they are brutal. According to the doctors, they are the worst headache (pain wise) that you can have. They're called Cluster Headaches because they occur in clusters, often every day for months. Cluster headaches come on VERY fast. From the first feel of tightening in the head or neck to excruciating pain can take as little as 5 or 10 minutes. I never go anywhere without having medication close by (in my truck, backtop bag, snowboarding bag, bike bag, etc). At the first sign of a cluster headache, I take 4 Ibuprofen and 3 extra strength Excederin. Then, if the pain doesn't ease up within 30 minutes, I take a Flexeril . Flexeril is a nasty drug. It's supposed to be a muscle relaxor and they do a good job of stopping Cluster Headaches, but they make me drowsy and mean. The medicine in combination with the cluster headaches makes me very sensitive to light and especially sound. It's very hard to listen to anyone talk when you have one of these headaches.

I had a VERY bad headache yesterday that didn't want to go away, and I took almost the entire day off (except for a quick trip to sign some papers for "free" government weatherization of one of my apartment buildings). Today, I had one of the worst headaches I've had in years and the first round of drugs Ibuprofen, Excederin, and Flexeril didn't stop it. I had to wait til noon to take the second round. Finally, by 2pm, my headache started to improve and I was able to go into town to do a little work.

What does this story of my headache have to do with the rental property business? EVERYTHING! One of the best things about owning a rental property business is that I can set my own schedule. When I felt bad yesterday, I didn't have to go to work. When I felt bad again today, I didn't have to go to work. I could take off without calling a boss or asking for permission. As they say in those credit card commercials: The freedom to set your own schedule - PRICELESS!

When I did recover this afternoon, I went into town to work on a 1 bedroom apartment that I rented for August 1st. The previous tenant broke the commode and I needed to repair the floor and replace the toilet with a new one. In addition, I had to replace the smoke detector, which the tenant stole and replace the bathroom mirror. I did the smoke detector and mirror first, since they were minor jobs. Then, I removed the old commode and cut out the water damaged section of floor. I used the cardboard from the box for the new commode to make a pattern for the new subfloor, which I will make out of 3/4 inch treated plywood. Due to the late start, that is all I did for today!

Eight, Count'Em, Eight More Lawsuits

They say that when it rains, it pours. If that's true, then today must have been a real storm. I started my work today with a trip to the bank and post office. When I picked up the mail, I had EIGHT letters via certified mail. As a rule, certified mail is generally not a good thing. That was especially true today as they were all lawsuits! UGH!

I posted the story of the first lawsuit about two weeks ago (7/16/09). As you may recall, the city has decided to attempt to collect past due water bills from the landlord, even though the tenant subscribed to the water service. They don't even try to collect from the tenant - they just go after the "RICH" landlord!!! Needless to say, that is COMPLETELY IMMORAL. Although we're headed straight into socialism and the government wants to 'share the wealth' through taxation, it is RIDICULOUS to think that I should pay the tenant's bill for them. What's next? Should I buy their clothes? Should I buy them a car? GIVE ME A BREAK!

If you've read much of my story, then you know that I'm a real jackass when I think I've been wronged. I will NOT give in and pay these bastards! Instead, I will do whatever it takes to fight these frivilous lawsuits. Along with a few other local investors and our REIA, I am trying to organize a lawsuit against the city. We have a big-time, out-of-town attorney coming to the next REIA meeting and we will be organizing as many landlords as possible to be party to the lawsuit. I will be writing a scathing Letter to the Editor and will meet with the news department of the newspaper to have a news article done on this story. As far as I'm concerned, it's going to be war against the morons running the city! They're up for election in November and our REIA already has two members running for city council!

Beyond that bit of cheery news to start my day, I did actually get some work done. I trashed out a vacant 2 bedroom apartment; collected 2 rents; and started working on rehabbing a deck in preparation for a Section 8 inspection next week. I also repaired a broken screen door lock.

New Tenant

After not working much last week, I did get a little work done today. To start, I had a tenant that reported that her kitchen light had gone out. I always suspect that the bulb(s) are burned out when a tenant reports that a light is out, but in this case the tenant swore that the switch didn't feel the same as it felt yesterday (she thought it felt much weaker than yesterday). I have seen switches break on occassion and that is often how they feel. This particular light fixture had four flourescent tubes and the tenant reported that they all were on yesterday. It seemed highly unlikely that all four bulbs burned out at once. So, I removed the switch cover and tested the switch with a meter. The switch was fine. I should have gone with my next inclination. So, I changed the bulbs and the light worked fine. I suspect that three of the bulbs had burned out over time and the last bulb finally burned out yesterday. Obviously, the tenant hadn't realized that only one bulb was working until yesterday and the tenant just imagined that the feel of the switch had changed. No big deal!

My next project was to mow the grass at 2 apartment buildings and then spray weeds. Both of these buildings have small yards and that only took about an hour.

Finally, I was scheduled to meet a woman who was interested in one of my apartments. She is significantly disabled and this is a downstairs apartment. Moreover, her son lived right across the street and he would be able to come over and help her with her daily activities. She liked the apartment and put down a non-refundable deposit so that I would hold the apartment for her. One more apartment rented!

Water Torture!

We've all heard that some of the 911 masterminds were subjected to waterboarding in an effort to get critical information from them. By all accounts this water torture was quite successful, yielding critical intelligence. I too have experienced water torture and the bad thing is that I'm not even a terrorist!

Here's what happened. I had some tenants move into a 2-bedroom apartment on Saturday. The downstairs apartment just below this apartment has had an intermittent leak in the ceiling below the bathroom in that upstairs apartment. The downstairs tenant reported that the leak only occurred when the previous upstairs tenant took a shower. So, before the new tenant moved in, I wanted to ensure that the water leak was fixed. To that end, on Friday, I took at look at the bathroom in the upstairs apartment in search of possible sources of leaks.

This bathroom has an old claw foot tub that has a shower enclosure around it. Two curtains enclose the tub. On my inspection, I noticed that the shower curtains didn't quite close on the end of the tub opposite the shower head. If the tenant was taking a shower without the curtains completely closed, that could certainly explain the leak. So, to fix the problem, I added a third curtain to that end of the shower so that it was securely covered. I then ran the shower for a solid 20 minutes and checked the downstairs apartment for leaks. The result was that there was no leak and I believed that I had solved the problem. By running the shower for 20 minutes, I had not only eliminated the possibility that water was getting through the curtain, but I had also eliminated a leak in the drain line. Furthermore, a leak in the water lines was also eliminated because the water lines had been continuously pressurized, even while the apartment was vacant.

On Saturday, the tenant began moving in. Shortly after the tenant began moving, I received a call from the downstairs tenant that her ceiling was leaking. This was particularly puzzling because the tenants weren't even in the apartment yet and certainly hadn't taken a shower. I decided to go take a look at the situation even though it was a weekend, even though the leak was only slowly dripping and the repair could certainly have waited until Monday.

Sure enough, the ceiling in the ground floor apartment was leaking with a slow drip. I checked the bathroom in the upstairs apartment again and didn't find any evidence of a leak. Somewhat frustrated, I decided to cut open the ceiling in the downstairs apartment to see where the leak was coming from. To my absolute amazement, there was a pin-hole leak in one of the hot side waterlines. That certainly was illogical, but that was definitely causing the leak. Why it leaked only intermittently I can not explain. The water line was continuously pressurized and one would think that it would leak continuously!

At any rate, since it was Saturday, I decided to do a temporary repair by installing a stainless steel band clamp designed to repair just such a leak. The water line was very close to the bottom of the floor of the upstairs apartment. To get the clamp to seal correctly, I needed to rotate it slightly by tapping it with a hammer. I didn't tap it very hard, but at that point the water torture began anyway. As I tapped it with a hammer, there was a sudden gush of water. No, the clamp hadn't failed, the torrent of water was coming from several inches above and to the right of the clamp. I ran outside and shut off the water to the entire building. I then went back to the upstairs apartment and the tenant reported that he heard a sound coming from the wall. I touched the wall and it was HOT! The old galvanized water line had broken inside the kitchen wall.

As I began exploring the extent of the issue, it became apparent that all the old galvanized water lines in the apartment were in bad shape. I found several spots that were badly corroded. Worse yet, the pipes all ran under the floor and in the walls. This would be a major project!!! UGH!

So, I started ripping open the walls and floor. Water lines ran behind the built-in kitchen cabinets and I had to demolish them also. It was a huge project!

To make a long story short, I ended up replacing all the water lines, from the basement to and through the second floor apartment. By the time I quit on Saturday afternoon, I had all the water lines (PEX) installed and the water back on to the building.

On Monday, I installed new kitchen cabinets; a new countertop; and new sink. I also did a lot of patching of the walls (where I had ripped out the old water lines). What started out as a minor slow drip rapidly turned into full blown water torture! The good news is that I survived the incident and the new tenants are thrilled to have a brand new kitchen!

Today, I only worked about 2 1/2 hours. I mowed grass at two apartment buildings; sprayed weeds at 3 buildings; and removed several small trees that were a nuisance.

Lawsuit and Paint

I know it's hard to imagine that a landlord would be sued. Well...yes, I am being sued again. This time, I'm being sued by the city for a tenant's water bill. Yes, I said a TENANT'S WATER BILL! It seems that in this socialist world we live in, tenants are not responsible for their own debts. If the deadbeats don't pay their water bill, the city thinks that the landlord should pay it for them. This is happening all over Ohio and is an outrage. All I can say to that is HELL NO! I am not paying someone else's bills! To that end, I spent about an hour this morning putting together information for the attorney that my lawyer (our REIA's water bill lawyer) will need for my case and sending it off to him.

My other project for the day was to do some painting at the Pink Elephant. So, I got out the scaffolding and did some painting. I'm making progress!

Tomorrow, I have another move-in and am planning to do some work (although I don't know what). I'll think of something.

All Plugged Up!

I planned on just doing a little work today. To that end, I didn't leave the house until about noon. My plan was to coat a small section of roof that was leaking; repair one window; and put a few weeds out of their misery. One of my tenants had different ideas. She called as I was on the way to town and reported that her commode and bathtub was plugged up. I asked her about the bathroom sink drain and the kitchen sink drain and she said that they were fine.

Upon arrival at the house, I did a little troubleshooting. The commode was indeed plugged as was the bathtub. The kitchen sink appeared to be open as did the bathroom sink. My initial diagnosis was that the sewer line was plugged somewhere just below the commode (and obviously below where the tub line "Y's" into the main sewer line. I tried plunging the toilet to no avail. I tried a toilet snake - again to no avail. At that point, I tried running the bathroom sink again and discovered that water was coming up into the tub as the sink was running. That signaled a more serious blockage and I called the plumber. The plumber arrived about 30 minutes later and had to cut out a BUNCH of tree roots from the main sewer line.

My next project was to coat the leaking roof, which only took about 20 minutes. I then fixed the window, which again only took a few minutes.

Finally, I had to work on one of my security camera systems. Everything was working except the "remote view" feature, which allows me to view the security cameras from home. I thought I had it fixed, but it's still not working. I'll have to call tech support tomorrow and get a little help.

All Plugged Up!

I planned on just doing a little work today. To that end, I didn't leave the house until about noon. My plan was to coat a small section of roof that was leaking; repair one window; and put a few weeds out of their misery. One of my tenants had different ideas. She called as I was on the way to town and reported that her commode and bathtub was plugged up. I asked her about the bathroom sink drain and the kitchen sink drain and she said that they were fine.

Upon arrival at the house, I did a little troubleshooting. The commode was indeed plugged as was the bathtub. The kitchen sink appeared to be open as did the bathroom sink. My initial diagnosis was that the sewer line was plugged somewhere just below the commode (and obviously below where the tub line "Y's" into the main sewer line. I tried plunging the toilet to no avail. I tried a toilet snake - again to no avail. At that point, I tried running the bathroom sink again and discovered that water was coming up into the tub as the sink was running. That signaled a more serious blockage and I called the plumber. The plumber arrived about 30 minutes later and had to cut out a BUNCH of tree roots from the main sewer line.

My next project was to coat the leaking roof, which only took about 20 minutes. I then fixed the window, which again only took a few minutes. Finally, I had to work on one of my security camera systems. Everything was working except the "remote view" feature, which allows me to view the security cameras from home. I thought I had it fixed, but it's still not working. I'll have to call tech support tomorrow and get a little help.

Very Good Day!

I had a very good day today - at least from the standpoint of getting a lot done. My objective for today was to finish making the 2 bedroom house, that was involved in my recent nasty eviction, ready for the new tenants. That involved doing several things: laying carpet; replacing a window pane; installing light bulbs and globes; some cleaning; mowing the overgrown yard; fixing the plugged toilet; etc. Things went VERY SMOOTHLY and I got it all done and the new tenants moved in.

I also received a letter today from the Nuisance Board regarding one of my properties. It seems the tenant put a couch out by the street and hasn't mowed her grass. I called the tenant and explained that she MUST take care of this stuff pronto. This is a long time tenant and I'm confident that she'll take care of it.

To end the afternoon, I got a call from one of my tenants who reported that her grand-daughter, who is a convicted felon, was harrassing her. I met her at the apartment building; called the police; and had her grand-daughter officially barred from the property.

To top off the day, I even got my lawn mowed at home and took a nice walk with my wife!

Tenant Likes to Fight!

I finally got back my final two units today - the ones that were potential evictions. It's been a roller coaster ride as I started the month thinking I would have 3 evictions this month. Two said that they were voluntarily leaving and actually started moving. I wrote about the 3rd one in Wednesday's blog. The first of the 3 moved out immediately and left the apartment clean, although there were still a couple of pieces of furniture in the apartment. The second started moving out immediately, but were slow in getting everything out. I could have filed the eviction in court yesterday, but gave them until this morning to be completely out. When I arrived at the building this morning, they had indeed completely moved out and the apartment was relatively clean.

I had a water heater to fix this morning and as I was working on that, I got a call from the grandmother of the 3rd tenant's pregnant shack-up girlfriend. She said that they were completely out and wanted me to come pick-up the keys. I suggested that she leave the keys on the counter and lock the door. She wasn't having any part of that and wanted me to come inspect the apartment and pick up the keys. I told her that I was busy but that I would come over in a little while, when I was done with the job I was working on.

When I arrived, the deadbeat tenant and his deadbeat girlfriend were sitting on the front step. The grandmother was nowhere to be found. The tenant said his uncle had gone to the hardware store and had the keys to the apartment. He would be back shortly. The "uncle", who wasn't his uncle at all, had repaired about 20 holes that the tenant put in the walls during fits of rage. The grandmother of the girlfriend and the "uncle" had cleaned the apartment and done a pretty good job. The uncle also left a new bathroom mirror for me to install - the tenant destroyed the mirror.

The reason that they did all this - repaired all the holes; cleaned the apartment; and removed their junk - is that they expected to get their deposit back. WRONG! I've lost rent for this month; I'll still have to paint the patched walls; and they broke the commode (actually broke it during one of their violent rages). So, they won't get a penny. When I told the tenant that, he wanted to fight. Obviously, I can't be in a fist fight while I'm carrying a handgun, so I simply didn't participate in his childish nonsense. Fortunately, within a few minutes, the "uncle" returned; gave me the keys; and hauled the deadbeats away. Before he left, I briefly talked with the uncle and discovered that the deadbeats had been living with the grandmother and had destroyed her house. He wasn't very happy with them! I don't recall the grandmother mentioning that when she brought the little angels to rent my apartment!

The good news is that I got all my property back without an eviction this month and without any significant damage.

In addition to this nonsense, I replaced four glass panes in an apartment and did a little work on my security camera systems.

Really Pissed!

The setout for my latest (June) eviction went bad almost immediately this morning. The setout was scheduled at 10 am and when I arrived at 10 am, I immediately suspected that things were not going to be good. There was a lot of trash and debris on the front porch; sidewalk; and front lawn. F_ _ _ YOU was spray painted on the porch facade. The door was open as was one of the front windows. As I pushed the door open, I could see that there was trash all over the place. The carpet that was exactly one year old was ruined. The tenant had shut the refrigerator off and left ice cream in the door, so there was a big pool of melted ice cream on the floor and ice cream drip out from the slightly open door. One window was broken out. Seven mini-blinds had been destroyed. The commode was plugged (probably intentionally). It was a mess. As if this weren't bad enough, the real shock occurred when I opened one of the bedroom doors. There was a very thin cat in the room with absolutely no food and no water with her newly born 8 kittens!!!

That was it - I was now officially REALLY PISSED! I called the police and met an officer at the house to report the animal cruelty. The tenant had a BEAUTIFUL Dodge Charger with custom wheels that was still parked in MY PARKING LOT. I asked the court officer what I could do to get rid of the car. He went to talk to the judge and in a little while returned and informed me that it could be towed to a private impound lot. I immediately called a tow truck and they towed her car away. In Ohio, if the car isn't claimed in 14 days, the impound company can get the title to the car!!!

The really STUPID thing about this tenant is that she is the MANAGER at Dollar General. She has a good job and I filed for a "second cause of action" (i.e. money damages) with the original eviction suit. I will sue her for the damage and I will collect by garnishing her wages. She'll lose 25% of her take-home pay until I get paid off.

This was all unnecessary. She could have paid the rent and avoided this entire situation. She could have voluntarily moved out and cleaned up the house. She could have at least not spray painted grafitti on the stone facade to the porch. She could have done the right thing. Instead, she made me evict her and then set her out; she abandoned a cat with her new kittens without so much as a saucer of water; she left her beautiful car in the parking lot. All of that was enough to piss me off and caused me to press charges for cruelty to animals; have her car towed to the impound lot; and sue her for damages! Yep, SHE'S A MORON!

New Streak Still Alive

It was a great run while it lasted. I had 9 months without a single eviction. It was quite a streak! That all ended in June when I evicted a tenant, who told the magistrate that the eviction was just a misunderstanding. The setout for this tenant is tomorrow at 10 am!

I was hoping to start a new eviction free streak beginning with July, but that dream appeared to be shot down before it even started when it looked like I might have THREE evictions this month. I got lucky and two of the tenants decided to move out voluntarily instead of being evicted. That left me with one set of idiot tenants that looked like a certain eviction. One of my first projects this morning was to take the paperwork for this eviction to my new lawyer. I decided to drive by the apartment involved in this eviction on the way to the lawyer's office and to my total surprise, the tenants were loading their stuff into a pickup truck. I stopped and told the tenant that I was on my way to the attorney's office to file the eviction. They said that they would be out today and have everything cleaned up by tomorrow. As a result, I decided to wait one more day before taking the paperwork to the lawyer. I don't want to spend money on the lawyer and the court filing fee if I don't have to.

It was a beautiful, sunny day here in Ohio and I was looking forward to finally getting back to painting the Pink Elephant. I got out my scaffolding and got to work. Everything went well and I was happy with the work I got done.

I quit about 3pm because I wanted to take the paperwork to Community Action, which is the agency in charge of the weatherization program.

After dinner, I went for a nice bike ride and then my wife and I went for a walk. All in all, a very good day!

Insteresting Day!

My day started with paperwork - specifically paying bills and paying my property taxes (YUK). Talk about something that gives you that sick feeling, that's exactly how I feel every six months when I write checks (in the 5 digits) for property taxes.

As I was finishing up my taxes, I got a call from The Sprint Store telling me that my Palm Pre had just arrived and I could come pick it up. So, as soon as I finished the taxes, I went to the Sprint Store and picked up my new phone.

I had a Moto Razor before, so moving up to the Palm Pre was quite a move up. The Pre is a very sophistocated machine - more like a small laptop than a phone. I'm still learning to use the phone/handheld computer, but I really like it so far. It uses an operating system that lets you view websites exactly like you would on a computer! Very cool.

After getting the Pre home and putting it on charge, I did the paperwork to take to the lawyer for the eviction I have going. As you may recall from my previous posts, I have a brand new lawyer doing my evictions. With the paperwork complete, I made a trip to the bank; the post office; and my lawyer's office to drop off the eviction paperwork. I intended to just hand the paperwork to my lawyer's secretary, but when I did the secretary said the lawyer wanted to talk to me. To my surprise, she informed me that she was moving to another city and wouldn't be able to do my eviction. RATS!

I need the evictions filed on Thursday, so I needed to find another lawyer fast! I went into town and stopped at another lawyer's office that I know. He's done some work for me in the past, so I knew he would be good. Fortunately, he was in the office and agreed to do my evictions.

Next stop was the police station. I needed to get the police reports for the last 2 months for the Pink Elephant. The reason that I needed the reports is that I've had 3 criminals barred from my property by the police and I needed copies of those reports. With copies of those reports, it's much easier to have a barred person arrested for criminal trespass.

I received a call from one of my friends who is involved in the government. She wanted to tell me that one of the local agencies had taken a BUNCH of stimulus money that they had used to hire summer workers (mostly students). They didn't have enough work to keep these workers busy and wanted to know if I had any work they could do - like painting low income houses or yard work at low income houses. My answer - YES!!! So, I made a list of rentals that I would like to have work done. We'll see what happens!

That was about it for today. I'm going to try again tomorrow to work on painting the Pink Elephant.

Eviction Paybacks

It's been quite an unusual year in my rental business - at least as far as my evictions go. I went an entire 9 months without a single eviction, which was absolutely astounding. It got to be kind of a game for me - seeing how long this would go before I finally had an eviction. I was secretly hoping for an entire year, but I knew that was highly unlikely.

As each month went by without an eviction, I felt like a guy riding one of those mechanical bulls. The longer the ride lasted, the more it was going to hurt when it ended. That wild ride finally ended in June with one eviction. This month started with three imminent evictions, but it looks like two of those tenants will move out before the 3 day eviction notice expires. If so, I'll only have one eviction again this month.

My rental property work today included fixing a leaking shower stall; showing an apartment to a potential tenant; getting the lease signed for a new tenant; and paying some bills.

Tomorrow, I'm planning to take the eviction paperwork to the lawyer; replace a couple of cracked windows; and start painting at the pink elephant.

Tea Anyone?

Today was the final day of rent collection. However, because it was also a holiday, I had already collected most of the rents and therefore only had a few to pick up this morning.

My real agenda for today was to attend a local tea party, protesting the socialist agenda; reckless spending; and impending radical increases in taxes that are occurring in the US. I was a little disappointed in the turnout at today's tea party, but the weather here in Ohio was rainy and it was a holiday. I'm sure that many people had family plans and therefore couldn't attend. However, at a time when the government is intent on taxing the vast majority of the middle class out of existence and taking away our way of life, I would hope that people could be a little more focused.

It is becoming increasingly clear to me that the American Public is incapable of acting proactively. Just as has happened throughout history in other countries, the vast majority of the public will allow all their freedoms to be taken away and will not utter so much as a whisper in opposition. It's disappointing.

The Rents are Rolling In!

With the fourth being a holiday and being on a Saturday, I've received an unusually large number of rents on the first three days of the month. I collected so much cash today that I was a little leery of carrying it all around.

Rental demand also remains very high. I had an eviction this month in one of my SFHs (single family houses) and the tenant will be setout next Thursday. That is the only SFH that I've had available in four months and I already have it rented, with the new tenant to move in as soon as the old tenant is gone. I also rented my last two one-bedroom apartments today.

My project for the day was to finish installing the carpet and doing a little plumbing work in one of the one-bedroom apartment that I rented today.

I also had took care of a little management issue, when I had a guy that I recently had barred from my apartment buildings, charged with criminal trespass.

That was it for today. I'm going to a tea party tomorrow to protest our out-of-control government.

Misunderstanding Causes Eviction

..or NOT!!! That was my tenant's best defense this morning in my 1st eviction in 9 months. She claimed that it was all a misunderstanding. The magistrate asked the tenant if she contacted me to clear up the misunderstanding. The answer was no. The magistrate asked the tenant if she paid June's rent - again the answer was no. The bottom line was that the eviction was short and sweet and the tenant was EVICTED!

What was the misunderstanding? There wasn't one, but I guess that was the only thing the tenant could think of.

This eviction was a little unique for me because I had a new lawyer, after my previous lawyer was indicted on a felony prescription drug charge a few months ago. It was also a little more interesting because I haven't had an eviction in 9 months (I felt a little rusty). My new lawyer is young and has virtually no experience actually doing an eviction, but she did fine today and this was actually a very good first eviction for her.

I have collected several rents so far today and will be collecting more later this afternoon. I didn't have any maintenance to do today, so that is about it for today.

Advanced Pistol Training

Yesterday, I spent the day at an advanced pistol training course near Dayton. With all that has been going on lately (with the felon that has threatened me), I thought an advanced pistol training course would be a good idea. I was not disappointed. The course included a lot of close quarters gunfighting techniques; shooting from behind baracades; and shooting while moving. It was a very good advanced course taught by a couple of very experienced self-defense instructors. One of the instructors just got back from IRAQ where he was working as a security contractor.

While at the training yesterday, I got a call from one of my tenants who reported that someone had damaged the door frame when they tried to break-in to the house. I also got a call from the police who wanted to discuss the incident. This is a SFH house that is located in a blue-collar neighborhood. There typically isn't a lot of crime in this area, but there have been several home invasions recently throughout the city. The really troubling thing about the incident was that it occurred between 11am and 1pm on Sunday, right in the middle of the day. These home invasions have been quite serious, with the perpetrators brandishing guns and in some cases injuring the inhabitants of the homes. Fortunately, in this case, no one was home and no one was injured.

As a result of the attempted break-in, I spent a few minutes today repairing the door jam. Fortunately, the door itself wasn't badly damaged, so the repair wasn't a big deal. I also had a discussion with the tenant about safety and security issues, so hopefully they can prevent a repeat of this incident.

In addition to repairing the door, I also bought and installed a new blade for the push-mower that I use to mow the lawns at the apartment buildings. I'm planning to do some mowing tomorrow.

An Absolute Miracle!

Many of you have been wondering why I haven't posted to my blog in the last week. I've been extremely busy this week with my family and have really debated whether I wanted to discuss what happened with my family this week on my blog.

When I last posted, I was about to leave on a 3 day camping weekend. We went to Deer Creek State Park this weekend and had a great time camping with friends from Church. We had a wonderful weekend and a great start to the week.

That suddenly changed Tuesday evening. My wife and I were sitting at home. I was watching some stupid movie and my wife was checking her e-mail. I made a comment about how stupid the movie was and my wife didn't respond. I glanced over at her and noticed that the laptop had slipped off her lap and was laying at an odd angle. She also had an odd look on her face. I asked her if everything was alright, and she responded in a slurred speech that she was 'having trouble thinking'. She stood up and it was immediately obvious that she was having trouble standing and balancing. As a former paramedic, the altered level of consicousness and difficulty speaking immediately made me think that she was having a stroke. She was trying to walk to the bathroom and I assisted her in doing so. As soon as we arrived at the bathroom, she began vomiting. I grabbed a trash bag and immediately put my wife in the car.

Within a few short minutes, we were at the hospital. My wife was still vomiting and could no longer walk. I found a wheelchair and rushed her to the emergency room. I told the triage nurse that I believed my wife was having a stroke and she immediately signed her in and cleared an ER bed for her. By this time, my wife could no longer talk and appeared to be quite confused. The staff immediately began to work on her, starting an IV; putting her on a heart monitor; starting oxygen; drawing blood; and checking her sugar level (which was normal). A couple of minutes later, an ER doctor came into the room and evaluated her. It had only been 25 minutes from my wife's first symptom occurring, but at this point she had lost the ability to speak and couldn't move her arms or legs. I was trying to think of what could cause paralysis in all four limbs (other than an injury) and the only thing I could think of was a stroke near the brain stem. The ER doctor immediately ordered a stroke protocol and they took her for a Cat Scan. The result of the Cat Scan was negative for bleeding in the brain, but the neurologist thought he saw something in the lower part of the back of the brain. He consulted with another neurologist at Riverside Hospital and decided that the only reasonable explanation was a blood clot in the lower part of her brain. He started TPA (a clot busting drug) and ordered a medical helicopter to transfer my wife to Riverside. Needless to say, this entire episode was very scary!

The helicopter flew my wife to Riverside and I began driving. By the time I arrived at the Riverside emergency room, my wife could talk and her level of consciousness had improved, although she still couldn't move her arms or legs. Over the next several hours, she slowly regained movement in all her extremities and over the next 18 hours, she basically returned to normal. The hospital performed 3 more cat scans; an MRI and numerous other tests. All the tests pointed to a stroke that had been repaired by the prompt application of TPA. She was in intensive care until Thursday, when she was released.

As the title of my post indicates, I believe that a miracle was certainly present in this incident. The sequence of events that led to a successful outcome was astounding. First, I was with my wife at the time of her stroke and immediately recognized what was happening. Next, the right people were on duty at our local hospital to rapidly evaluate my wife. The doctor that was on duty aggressively treated my wife with TPA even though her relative young age (40's) and complete paralysis were not a typical presentation for a stroke victim. If the neurologist had hesitated on the treatment to be 100% sure on the diagnosis, the outcome would likely have been quite different. TPA can only be administered within 3 hours of the initial onset of symtpoms. Moreover, the TPA (clot busting drug) worked perfectly and my wife regained complete movement. It was apparent from my interaction witht the hospital staff at Riverside that this is the exception as opposed to the rule. In fact, the ICU nurse said that she had only ever seen one other patient released directly from the ICU.

If there is any lesson to be learned from this incident, that lesson is to know the symptoms of a stroke and immediately get the victim to the hospital. My wife is living proof that rapid treatment can make all the difference! I am very thankful that my wife is back home and healthy!!!

Feeling Guilty

After feeling guilty all week (or not) about not working, I did work about 2 hours yesterday. My project for the day was to repair a soft spot in a floor where the previous owner of the building had covered an old stairwell with some particle board that was too thin. Fortunately, there was access to the underneath side of the floor from the basement, so the repair was quite easy. While in town, I also showed an apartment to a couple who were....well.... LIARS! As it turned out, he was a violent criminal and she was a deadbeat who doesn't pay her bills. Application DENIED!

While I was home yesterday, I glanced at the computer, which had my security cameras up at the Pink Elephant and noticed that there were many people on the sidewalk all looking across the street. I knew that something was going on, so I called one of the tenants and asked what was happening. There was a fight occurring across the street and one person pulled a knife. Five or six people were involved in the fight (all young punks) and another person broke it up before anyone was stabbed. There was some blood from the fight, but no one was seriously injured. Fortunately, none of this occurred on my property (probably due to the criminals knowing about my security cameras). I'm seeing a major increase in violence this summer and am not sure what the cause is. It could be the lack of summer jobs for kids or it could just be a general deterioration of our society. Low income people are breeding at an alarming rate and it's inevitable that society will fall apart as all these lazy kids grow up feeling entitled. Most of these kids are growing up to be worse than their parents. They are lazy. They are criminals. They are on drugs. They have absolutely no intention of ever getting a job. It's a mess!

Since there is nothing I can do to correct the world's problems, I'm taking a 3 day weekend to go camping!!! Have a good weekend.

Another Day Off

I took another day off today. I didn't really have anything pressing to do in the rental property business, so I did some things around the house and then went to the city to pick up a part for my wife's car. While in town, I went to 3 Walmarts and then the largest gunshop in the city looking for handgun ammo. All 3 Walmarts were out. The gunshop didn't have any self-defense ammo, but they did have some target ammo. I bought 3 boxes, which is the limit due to the ammo shortage. I'm trying to buy ammo because I need at least 750 rounds for the two trainings I'm going to - one in June and one in July.

It seems like it rains every single day anymore and today was no exception. However, today's rain occurred this morning and we had a break in the weather this evening. So, I got my mountain bike ride in, without incident!

I finally got the court date for my eviction and it is July 1st. The delay in getting the court date was because the court is so far behind due to the shear number of evictions in the area. Fortunately, I only have one eviction going this month!

That's about it for today. Tomorrow, I'm planning to do a little work and then I'll be taking a 3-day weekend to go camping.

Update

I wish that I could give you an interesting update regarding my rental business, but I just haven't done much the last week or so. Late last week, I did work a couple of hours building shelves in my storage unit. I was off all weekend and then mowed grass for a couple hours yesterday. I took the entire day off today.

The rental business isn't 24 hour excitement. In fact, there can be relatively long periods of time when there really isn't much to do at all. I currently don't have any current maintenance to do. There are a few projects I could do (such as trimming some trees or doing some painting), but I don't have any pressing projects. So, instead of inventing work, I've just been taking a lot of time off.

The big excitement of the weekend all revolved around birds. I bought an "upside down finch feeder" which is a really cool cylindrical bird feeder that finches hang on upside down while they feed. I put it up late one evening and by the early the next morning, there were 3 finches hanging upside down feeding. It was absolutely amazing to me that these birds found this feeder so quickly.

I also bought a bird feeder, which sits on top of the pole from which the upside down finch feeder hangs. I sealed the feeder with spar varnish over the weekend and then installed it today. In no time, there were a bunch of birds feeding. Most interesting to me was the number of doves that decided to sit on the ground right under the bird feeder. They didn't seem to have any interest in feeding, just sitting on the ground. That was quite interesting to me.

My wife and I finally got the swimming pool open over the weekend and we had some relatives come to swim almost as quickly as we finished. The temperature has been averaging about 12 degrees below normal this spring (despite global warming), so the water was quite cool. We haven't run the pool heater yet, so they must have wanted to swim pretty badly to brave that cool water!

My wife and I went to the shooting range on Saturday and I got the chance to run some ammo through my new handgun. You could really tell that a LOT of new people have been buying guns, because the people on both sides of me had bullets all over their targets (and I'm sure many missed the targets). I wanted to buy some more self-defense ammo while we were out, but neither the range nor the gunshop we went to had what I wanted. Ammo is still in very short supply, thanks to the increased number of people buying guns and people concerned that Obama wants to take their guns and ammo. I went to Walmart and Dunham Sports tonight and neither of them had any .40 Smith and Wesson ammo either. If that's not a sign of the times, I don't know what is!

That's it - we're up to date.

Heathens!

I keep thinking I've seen it all in the rental property business. Then, I realized again today that I had not.

In yesterday's blog, I described how many low income tenants act crazy during the summer. When June arrives, so does STUPID! After an incident last evening, I decided to go to the police station today to pick up the recent police reports for two of my low income apartment buildings. I was pleased to find out that there have been VERY few incidents - only 5 in the past 2 months and most of those incidents didn't even involve my tenants. However, one of the reports illustrates what a freak show low income tenants can become when the weather warms up!

CAUTION: If you are easily offended, don't read the rest of this blog.

The following is the EXACT text from the police report: (these are two of my tenants) "Steven and Jessica were arguing with each other because Steven wanted Jessica to "perform oral sex on him" and she would not do it. Steven told Jessica he "would find someone that would do it", and Jessica got mad at him for saying that and they argued. Nothing physical, all verbal. Steven is legally blind so he called a friend to pick him up to leave for the night. All calm on Ofc departure".

comment: I didn't even know that having a girfriend (or wife) refuse sex was a criminal offense. I guess that men can now call 911 if their wife/girfriend says no!!! lol!

I don't know what else to say - UNBELIEVABLE!!! It's a freak show out there!!!

The Streak is Over!

After eight months of not having an eviction, it looks like I'm not going to be so lucky this month. One of my tenants, who always pays a couple of days late (during the 3 day notice period), announced on the last day that she was moving. I explained to her that she still owed June rent and she wanted me to use her deposit as her last month's rent - which I absolutely will not do. I told her that if she didn't pay immediately, she would be evicted. She hasn't paid and she is being evicted.

Believe it or not, the attorney that I've used for my evictions these past 6 years was indicted by the grand jury on felony drug charges, so I now have a new attorney. My new attorney is a young lawyer who has very little court experience, but I think she'll be fine. I had a phone conversation with her this morning about the eviction and then took the paperwork to her this afternoon.

Once again, I didn't do any maintenance today. However, I did spend a couple of hours trying to make paperwork disappear (by paying bills, filing, etc).

This evening, the police were at the Pink Elephant for at least the 3rd time in the past few weeks. This is what happens when you have low income rentals and the weather gets hot. Tensions run high and trouble erupts. The same thing happens every year and in my experience, it takes a firm hand to get it stopped before problems set in for the entire summer. So, I drove down to the Pink Elephant to take care of business. I had the police legally bar 2 scumbag neighbors from the property (one is a convicted felon who is on parole) and the police are looking for another convicted felon (also on parole). These two guys were the same ones I wrote about a few months ago. The terms of their parole don't allow convicted felons to associate with each other, but their parole officer won't do anything about it. I will be talking to the police captain about the issue tomorrow and will try to exert some more political pressure to get the situation resolved. These criminals were on my property this evening visiting some of my tenants. I had a stern conversation with my tenants, letting them know that if they invited this scum onto my property again, their month-to-month leases would be terminated. They've seen me evict many other people and they know that I'm not bluffing!

Another Lazy Day

I just couldn't get motivated to do much work today. I don't have any deferred maintenance to do and I don't have a lot of other tasks that need to be accomplished. So, I took the morning off. It was an absolutely beautiful day and I decided to do a little work around the yard, including cleaning the hummingbird feeder and making some new hummingbird nectar for it. It wasn't long until two hummingbirds were literally fighting over the feeder. For those of you that don't know about hummingbirds, they are not good at sharing!

I also worked on the swimming pool some this morning. It is nearly full of water and I did a little more work toward getting it clean.

By early afternoon, I was thinking about taking a bike ride - so I did. After the bike ride, I did accomplish some work, when I mowed the grass at one of my buildings. I also stopped by the Pink Elephant to see if anyone had any news about the convicted felon that has been stalking me. None of the tenants had seen him and one tenant heard that he was in jail. I'll try to follow up on that tomorrow.

That was it for today. I might try to get more done tomorrow, if I can remember what I was thinking about doing. I can't think of it right now (it's getting late).

And the Verdict Is...

NOT GUILTY! That's right, the convicted felon that has been stalking me was found not guilty at the conclusion of a trial by the court (judge without jury). Ironically, the facts were not in dispute and the prosecutor and defense stipulated that the felon did indeed come within 20 feet of me in direct violation of the restraining order. There were 3 witnesses for the prosecution and the entire incident was on our security camera system, so there simply could be no denying of the facts. The not guilty finding came as the result of a legal technicality. It seems that when the defendant was served by the sheriff's deputy, he was in jail. Testimony showed that the deputy knew that the felon had a difficult time reading (nearly illiterate) and that the deputy didn't read the contents of the restraining order to the felon. So, the defense attorney argued that the felon was not "recklessly negligent" in violating the order. There was a lot of legal mumbo-jumbo about the definition of "recklessly negligent" as opposed to simple "negligence". The judge even read the exact definitions of these terms out of a law book. The judge ruled that the felon was simply "negligent" and therefore he was not guilty of violating the restraining order. The gist of this is that the felon claimed that he didn't know what the restraining order said and the judge found that to be the case (even though everyone in the room knew that wasn't the truth).

After finding the felon not guilty, the judge read the entire restraining order word by word to the felon and after each sentence asked him if he understood. He did that so that it is on the record that the felon now knows exactly what the terms of the restraining order are and won't be able to use this defense next time.

The other twist on the situation is that while the felon was in jail, the grand jury handed down felony drug charges against him for a drug incident that occurred in December. He went before a judge in common pleas court (felony court) in the last few days and he may continue to be held in jail on that charge. I looked at the court records myself and my interpretation is that his bond was revoked, but I'm not sure which bond that is talking about and what the implications of today's verdict will be on that situation. I discussed that with the assistant prosecutor, but she wasn't able to definitively say whether he would be held or not.

If he's released, he will almost certainly be stalking me again tomorrow and I will need to exercise extra caution while working. I bought a magazine pouch so that I can carry an extra clip for my handgun, just to be on the safe side. Apparently, the courts simply can not keep this felon in jail even though they know that he is a serious threat to me; to the police; and to the public in general. You might have heard the old saying: "when seconds count, the police are only minutes away"!!! So true.

The good thing about this situation is that it is allowing me to assess my defensive situation. I've upgraded my carry handgun from a .32 caliber to my .40 caliber. I bought the magazine pouch so that I can carry an extra clip. Finally, I signed up for an advanced tactical shooting class later in the month. Hopefully, I won't need any of this to deal with this felon, but at least I'll be prepared.

The court hearing screwed up my day, because it was scheduled in the middle of the afternoon. I did collect a couple of late rents; did a minor floor repair at an apartment, and mowed the grass at one apartment building.

My wife and I also finally got our pool opened up.

That's it for today. I'm planning to do a little mowing tomorrow.

Justice, or Lack Thereof

In my experience, there is very little justice in this country. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that our criminal justice system is completely broken! Today was my latest contact with the criminal justice system and I'll have to wait until Friday to judge the outcome. My mission today was to attend the pre-trial hearing for a violent convicted felon whose latest crime was to violate the restraining order I have against him (I received a subpeona for both the pre-trial and trial). To make a long story short, he was staying in the Pink Elephant when I took it over and I promptly kicked him out. He's been homeless every since and certainly blames me for that situation. In addition, I have had him arrested several times for criminal tresspass and I'm the main witness in a felony arson/attempted murder case that is pending. He has been stalking me every time he gets out of jail and has made numerous threats.

The last time this criminal got out of jail was about 60 days ago. At that time, he had spent the previous 48 days in jail for attempting to break into several apartments in two of my buildings. I had the entire thing on our security cameras and that got him convicted of the crime. On the same day that he got out of jail, he came looking for me. My restraining order prohibits him from being within 300 feet of me or my two apartment buildings that were involved with the attempted breaking and entering conviction. He certainly violated that when he came onto my property and got within a few feet of me. There were several witnesses and the entire thing is on the security camera footage. I called the police and he was arrested. He's been in jail on that charge since that incident 2 months ago. Today was the pre-trial hearing. I spoke with the assistant prosecutor before the case and reminded her how dangerous this felon is. I reminded her that he had been arrested more than 200 times. I reminded her that he had a conviction for assaulting a police officer (breaking his leg). I reminded her that he attempted to kill several people in January by setting their apartment on fire while they were sleeping. I also reminded her that it is very dangerous when he is out of jail. He stalks me and threatens me and I carry a handgun and am fully prepared to defend myself if I feel an immediate threat of serious bodily harm or death. I told her that she needed to do her job to prevent a serious situation from developing. I reminded her that I am doing everything I can possibly do to prevent a tragedy from occurring and I need the court system to do their part!

With my very low opinion of our criminal justice system, I was expecting him to be released for time served, but was pleasantly surprised when the prosecutor did not plea bargain the case (although every other case in court this morning was plead out). The trial is scheduled for Friday at 3pm! So, we'll see what happens. In a perfect world, he'll get 6 months and before he is released from that sentence, he'll be tried on the arson/attempted murder charge. At this point, I'm cautiously optimistic. I'll let you know what happens.

In more cheery news, today was day three of rent collection. I collected a bunch of rents today during the time that I wasn't in court. I also managed to change the electrical receptical (for a stove) that was burned after a lightning strike last evening, and also installed a new gas stove in another apartment.

Catching Up!

It's time for me to get caught up with my blog. There's not a lot of real estate stuff to talk about, because I just haven't been working very much. After taking 5 days off for Memorial Day, last week was an extremely short week. I basically worked 3 days, then took another 3 day weekend off. I have already posted through last Thursday, so I'll start today's post with Friday.

Friday morning started with a knock on the door. We rarely have people unexpectedly knock on the door, especially early in the morning. As I approached the door, I could see the Sheriff's car in the driveway. A deputy had come to serve me with a subpoena for the criminal trial of the convicted felon who has been stalking me. This convicted felon is currently in jail awaiting trial for violating the restraining order I have against him. That was about as exciting as the weekend got!

To be quite honest, I don't really remember what I did on Friday. I just basically took it easy (although I did mow the grass at my home). The one good thing for Friday was that the weather was finally good enough for a bicycle ride.

Saturday, my wife wanted to go shopping for new table and chairs for our deck. You might think that we could have found these at just about any store, but we wanted an all-metal table and all-metal chairs. That turned out to be a difficult task and we ended up going to stores in three different cities before we found what we were looking for! I'm not much for shopping, but the good thing for me is that I was finally able to find several boxes of .40 cal S & W (Smith and Wesson) Ammo. If you weren't aware of it, there is a severe shortage of ammo in this country because people believe that socialism will be very bad for gun rights and people are stockpiling guns and ammo. It is very difficult to find ammo. Even gun stores are low on guns and frequently completely out of ammo!

Sunday was my day to run projection at Church and that kept me busy til after noon. Then, my wife and I just took it easy - doing just about nothing. We watched a movie and then I did get in a good bike ride.

My main project for today was to take care of paperwork. I started by going to the post office to pickup my Section 8 rent checks. I then checked the money off the rent roll and made up deposit tickets for the bank. In addition, I attempted to make as much paperwork disappear as possible, by paying bills; filing receipts away; putting check stubs into the respective checkbooks; calling to straighten out a couple of bills that were incorrect, etc.

About 1pm, I was finished with the paperwork and went to the bank. Then, I collected several more rents from tenants and even spent a little time cutting up a small tree that had fallen during a storm.

Tomorrow, I'll be working on some rentals. I have the court trial on Wednesday and Thursday, but hopefully that won't last all day.

Water Works

As usual, nothing goes as planned. I had planned on working on the carpet in the basement of a 3 bedroom house today. The new tenant had the water turned on at the property this morning, in anticipation of his move-in. So, upon my arrival at the house, I decided to check the water. As I checked under the kitchen sink, I discovered that the left side of the sink was leaking and that the cause was a leak around the sink strainer basket. After I saw this leak, I decided that I probably should check the rest of the water in the house, and I discovered that the chain was missing from the flapper valve in the toilet. So, to check the water to the toilet, I stuck my hand in the toilet tank and actuated the flapper with my hand. That was when I noticed that water was running out from the bottom of the toilet. Obviously, the toilet wax ring needed to be replaced. Next, I checked the tub/shower and discovered that the side of the fiberglass tub had been damaged by the previous tenants and that they had attempted to patch it (without success).

So, at this point, I realized that my plan for today needed to change. I made a list and headed for the plumbing store. A few minutes later, I was back at the house. The most pressing problem was the toilet leak, so I started there. I replaced the toilet flapper and checked it's operation. So far, so good. Next, I flushed and drained the toilet and removed it from the toilet flange. I installed the new wax ring and re-installed the toilet. To my amazement, there were no leaks!

The next priority was to repair the kitchen sink leak. That consisted of removing the old basket; tailpiece, and cross piece; and replacing them with new. Again, I was astonished when there were no leaks. That was two plumbing repairs in a row with no leaks - A NEW RECORD!

While I was on a roll, I decided to undertake the fiberglass repair in the tub. That went pretty well and I moved on to change the flourescent bulbs in the kitchen.

By this time, the grass was dry and the sun was out. I decided to mow some grass. It looked like it was going to be a great afternoon and evening - the weather was looking great for a change. So after mowing grass, I headed home for a bike ride. Right on cue, the skies darkened and the rain poured from the sky. No bike ride today. As I said earlier, nothing ever goes as planned!