My Day in Court!

Who spends more time in court than the judge? In the past, I would frequently joke that I did! That's because, in the past, I was in court an average of at least once a month - usually evicting an inherited deadbeat tenant. Now that I'm making good progress getting my buildings stabilized and most of the tenants are mine, my eviction rate has really dropped. As I was building my business, my monthly eviction rate was 1% per month. Now that things are more stabilized, my monthly eviction rate is about 1/4 of one percent, which means that I only evict .25% of my tenants each month. I believe that March has been the 6th straight month in a row that I haven't had a single eviction, which is a record for me. The lack of evictions for 6 months is not because I have suddenly become a rental property genius, but rather it's just a statistical anomaly. I'll probably pay for that with 2 or 3 evictions in a single month sometime in the future.

Even though I haven't been to court for evictions lately, I have still been in court for other things. You may recall that I recently posted about going to court to testify against a criminal who attempted to break into 6 of our apartments and then set an arson fire at a neighboring building. Subsequent to that hearing, I got a temporary restraining order for that criminal who continually comes back to that property and has in-fact basically stalked me, possibly because I have kicked him off the property and have had him arrested several times. This guy has a wrap sheet of more than 200 criminal offenses, including a couple of felonies.

Anyway, today was the court proceeding for a permanent restraining order, based on him stalking me. Needless to say, the judge already knew who this criminal is. I testified about the contacts that I have had with the criminal and the threats he has made toward me. I also explained that I am a concealed carry holder (I carry a handgun) and that I thought the situation was very dangerous. The judge did grant a permant restraining order against this criminal for a full five years. I was surprised that a restraining order would last that long. In addition, the judge not only ordered the criminal to stay 300 feet away from me, but also 300 feet from my apartment buildings. That will be a very valuable tool for me as I can have the criminal arrested if he even comes within 300 feet of my buildings. I'm hoping that once the criminal understands that he's going to be arrested everytime that he gets within 300 feet of my building that he may finally give up and stay away.

Furthermore, a felony arson charge and possibly attempted murder charge is still pending and awaiting evidence from the state crime lab. I'm a witness in that case as my surveillance system caught all the action! So, if I can keep him in jail for the next few months, he should eventually be tried on the felony arson and attempted murder charges and should do a long stretch in prison.

After court, I did some work at the Pink Elephant (one of my apartment buildings). I'm getting ready to rehab the final unit in that building and as part of that preparation, I replaced 3 windows and a door today.

The weather in Ohio was cold today, so I didn't go for a bike ride.