The End of a Busy Week!

It's finally Friday and the end of a very busy week. Yesterday, I described the very frustrating beginning of the week and although today wasn't frustrating, it continued to be very busy. I guess I was owed a busy week after taking almost all of last week off.

I got up very early this morning after my wife heard the plop, plop, plop of water dripping from the ceiling (through the smoke detector) in the upstairs hall. It seems that the storm damage was more severe than I anticipated and last night's one-inch rain allowed the roof to leak. I had tarped the damaged area of the garage and that was dry. However, I didn't have a tall enough ladder to reach the roof over our house and the contractor thought the roofing felt would be sufficient to prevent leaks. There really wasn't any damage to the ceiling, other than perhaps the smoke detector. I will need to repaint the now water-stained ceiling, but that should be it. If it is going to rain again before the roof is replaced next week, that high portion of the roof must be tarped.

I started my work day by declining to accept a tenant that lied about a previous eviction on her application. She and her boyfriend had applied to rent one of my one-bedroom apartments. They already had a local government agency that was going to pay their first month's rent and their security deposit, and I had confirmation of that agency's committment to pay. Unfortunately, when I checked the application, I discovered that she and her husband had been evicted in 2007. Worse yet, the landlord that evicted her was her mother! What kind of scumbag makes her own mother take her to court? I don't want to find out!

Next on the agenda was signing the lease for one of the two 1-bedroom apartments that I had left. The screening results for this woman were very good and she paid two months rent up front. Gotta like that!

I then showed my last available 1-bedroom apartment to another prospective tenant. He liked it and said he will call at the beginning of the week to sign the lease. We'll see.

Then, it was time to collect rents - TWO DAYS EARLY! Because the first day of March arrives on a Sunday, many people got their government checks today and still others got their direct deposits yesterday. So, I ended up picking up about 8 rents today, even though official rent collection doesn't start until the 1st!

Between picking up rents, I received not one, but two calls from tenants that were having problems with their faucets. The first tenant had a kitchen faucet that was making a very loud whistling sound. I thought that the strainer was partial obstructed and took it off and cleaned it. After re-installing it, it still whistled. I took it off and discovered that the faucet was whistling even without the strainer installed. I'll install a new faucet there next week.

The next faucet problem was a little more serious. This faucet would not shut off, even though both knobs felt like they were working properly. I made a quick trip to Lowes to pick up a faucet and installed it. No leaks!

I also stopped by one of my 2-bedroom house that some of my neighboring tenants reported might have experienced a move-out. Sure enough, the tenants who were about 6 months into a one-year lease were gone. There was a significant amount of trash in the house, but I didn't see any damage. If I have any spare time this weekend, I may go trash it out. I don't think it will take much longer than an hour.

I got home in time to make up some quick deposits and run to the bank before it closed. Quite a busy week and I'm glad it's over.

Have a good weekend!