I was called by the girls in the newly renovated apartment, and they said the shower wouldn't turn off. I knew exactly what that was. I should have made sure that the new washers were in place, note to all, when you remodel a place and put in new shower fixtures, always replace all the washers. I replaced 2 out of 3, and as a result I had to drive into Berkeley after work, around 8:30pm and do the change. all is ok now.
I also have to finish the walls downstairs from the waterheater disaster two weeks ago. these guys are great guys but the often don't pay rent til a month and a half later. irritating.
I also have an issue with the side of the house where skinny people are getting into the backyard and doing whatever in the backyard. I need to build something that will keep them out.
I am going to try and start keeping trrack of all the crap I have to do and things I have to deal with.
Like at Olive, the wife has called me and said that she cannot live there if she cannot have bars on the windows. so I was set to put bars on the windows, but then the husband called and told me that she is not happy living in east Oakland, and she wants to leave, but as he grew up there he is quite happy and loves the place and he is not going to move, he went on to tell me that they may get divorced over this. do I need this drama? And on several occasions I have gotten calls from their number but then it hangs up, so I am stressed that they are going to leave or ask for bars or whatever any minute. I would rather they just remain and be happy for the next 4 years.
I have an issue with the boys upstairs in Henry, they are total careless, disrespectful slobs, that play music and party at all hours, the people below complain and have in the past, these guys do pay the rent, but the last time I went in that unit I was appalled at the mess and the damage to walls etc, funny the reason I went there was for the same reason I went into the girls place last night, bad washer in the valve.
Also have the two princesses fighting, and they both want to change the lease to get the other off so they can be in total control. It is not something I care to be a part of, however, now they are paying me staggering amounts of rent, and not paying all of it. I mean one day I get $500, and the next I get $435 and a week later I get $450 and then I get another $475, this irks me, i want one check at one time, and then the princesses can chase down the others at their leisure.
I have a long time tenant in Berkeley, she has been getting a massively reduced rent due to being friends and my sympathy for her situation. but now with the economy and her recent meltdown at work which resulted in her being fired, she is struggling to pay the rent. I have sympathy for her, but this is the kind of thing that eventually just hurts me. I always take care of some folks and trust that they will work it out, but then they never do and I end up losing out in the long run. so with my new 'zero tolerance" policy I am really putting pressure on her to pay. she had also told me years ago that when her son graduated high school, she was going to move to Calaveras. But now she does not appear to be moving, nor is the recent graduate. I have been very generous, years ago I gave her 2 years free rent, she was broke nearly homeless and had a 5 year old, so I took her in. I told her she can just start paying rent when she gets back on her feet. UM ... I didn't expect it to take 2 years. But she did get a job as an office manager for a construction company and over the many years she slowly replaced the kitchen floors, and cabinates, she sanded all wood floors and painted the place, and refinished the old brass knobs, she did a lot of work with donations from her work. so I feel we are even. However, I would love to re-rent that place as I could get alot more in rent now.
anyways drama everywhere that is shoved down my gullet .......
Thursday, August 15, 2013
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Economic tsunami
Well, I cannot believe it has been a year since I last posted. Wow. Well, there have been some great changes. first I have hung in there and kept fighting for the potential of my properties. I have spent so much of my money on these props to keep the ship afloat, and it is starting to pay off. So here is what has happened,
I have rid myself of loser tenants, I have evicted a few and now only rent to good people. Hard working, considerate, appreciative people. People that understand the culture of respect and paying for what you use, and honoring contracts. I do not rent to anyone who does not understand or subscribe to this montra.
I have had so many tenant changes in the last year. I read that I was just on the verge of renting to a roommate that wanted to stay even though the others wanted to leave. Well, they turned out great. they decided to rent out both units in the duplex all on the same day, so I had the lady upstairs move-out the same day the roommates downstairs moved out. Just turned out that way, and the remaining roommate said she had tons of friends that she could give housing to, so she rented out both places and has been renting out rooms ever since and I have been getting my rent no problem. So that has worked out great, and some really great girls living there.
I also saw that Jeff had just moved in because of the tow-truck guy moving out, well that has changed again as he had a roommate Cass, and Cass decided she wanted to keep it as Jeff wanted out, and it looks like the reason was because Cass had a new boyfriend and he was always there. Not a great roommate situation. But now she has him living there and not on the lease, I am not happy about that. Also, she never read the lease and has gotten two cats, I do not want pets, as they ruin properties, And already all my blinds are destroyed, the cats jump up on the window sill and in so doing they bend back the edges of the blinds, now all the sides of all the blinds are bent up and tweaked!!! also cats pee and the acidic smell never goes away, i may end up having to replace the carpets! So I don't know if I am going to evict, or just keep the deposit. ALSO, she did something with paint in the apartment, and walked out on the front area of her door and left painted foot prints all over the front cement!! WTF!! This has defaced the fuckin property, and she doesn't seem to think it means anything, it will take a ton of time and effort to scrub that shit off, does she think this is the kind of shit i want to do in my spare time?? jesus people are so inconsiderate.
another one I read about was the lady with 8 kids, I evicted her. she is gone, and now I have a nice older AA couple that really appreciates the place and they were homeowners and lost their home then couldn't get a rental because of their now bad credit. Well, I have sympathy for homeowners, it wasn't them that fucked up it is the banks and this fucked up economy. they had good credit and they showed great financial commitment by owning that house. So I rented to them and they are grateful and have not missed a single payment. Love them.
the other one that did not make the post was the Mother Daughter tenants, they just stopped paying and it was said that the mother would take over for the two of them, well the mother didn't pay, but she was the greatest con artist of all time, She made elaborate scenarios as to where her money was coming from and this made me think the money had at least an 80% chance of coming, well 10 months later and 3-4 elaborate schemes later I had to evict them. fuck them. so I lost $15k in rent AGAIN!!! Note to future landlords, DO NOT TRUST tenants. If they don't pay, spend the fuckin money to evict and get them the fuck out. So I found a great tenant to move into this one, and she is so great and enthusiastic that I really love her excitement. She is so excited about the house that her perspective gives me new enthusiasm with my work on the houses. It is such an unappreciated art, and all my work mostly is shit on at best by tenants. So her enthusiasm is greatly appreciated. She also wants to rent the place in the back, and use it to rent out to her friends as well.
Another great tenant is the one where the two lady's were with 5 kids, I had to get her out and she was not paying and the hot one moved out. I went to the house and knocked on the door, I looked at her in the eye and I told her she needs to get out asap, or I start the eviction and go after her money. She moved out the next day. I went in and remodeled it AGAIN!! I added tile for the whole shower. It looked nice. So Carrie came and she had some roommates and she rented it. I was so pleased to rent to her, she has completely changed the place, she has gotten really good people around her and they have planted, and they have really dressed the place up so nice. Love them all.
The other thing that happened is the greatest tenant of all time moved to Texas! I was very unhappy to have him move, it was very difficult to see them go, they left the place so clean, the carpets looked new. I had to paint and clean a bit, but very little, AND he got me a colleague to move-in. No work to find a person. So I only miss a month of rent.
So the biggest change of all, I cannot believe this day finally came, but i am so excited to report that the old lady finally moved out!!! this took so long and the fuckin kids were such careless assholes. But here's how it went down. They never respond to my letters! They wouldn't give me a phone number, or an email address. I only had their mailing address so to communicate with them I either had to run into them at the apt or send a letter. Anyways here's what happened. on 10-11-12 the old lady flooded the apartment. I got a call from the downstairs chick who was livid, she said the roof was bubbling and water was everywhere downstairs and "What are you going to do about it!!" So I had to drive in and see WTF was going on. I tried to get her to turn the water off but she kept telling me that she is not qualified to make those decisions, I kept telling her, I am asking you to go out and turn the water off. But she wouldn't. It was so fuckin lame. So I called another tenant to go over and check things out. the other tenant turned the water off and went into both units to see what's up. this other tenant by the way was from ANOTHER building! Anyways it was determined that the old lady had flooded the place upstairs because she saw fire rising from the living room. There was NO FIRE!! it was all in her fuckin head, so she turned the faucet on in the kitchen and blocked the sink with a cookie sheet, and plugged the toilet and kept flushing it over and over so all the water would go into the living room and extinguish the imaginary fire! errrrrr! Can you believe the shit people do?!?!? Anyways I called my insurance company and they sent out a crew to mop up and dry out and assess. They came out and they told her that everything that was wet needed to come out, all the sheetrock in the bathroom, kitchen, living room, bedroom, and the ceilings and all the carpet, and there will need to be mold experts and all this fuckin bullshit. My advice to any of you future landlords, tell the insurance co to shut the fuck up and DO NOT talk to tenants period!!! Shut the fuck up! So after the insurance people looked at the damage and assessed the situation they decide that they would not cover this as it was not a broken pipe or natural disaster situation it was caused by the actions of a tenant and I did not have that stipulation covered under the policy. ... WHAT?!?!?! WTF?! are they talking about! I pay fuckin insurance in case shit like this happens! I was blown away. I tried to fight it and it fell on deaf ears, and no sooner did they decide this , the crew was removed asap without even a goodbye hug!! So they left the place with all their fans and water vacs and stupid comments in an instant. So now the tenant expects to see me rip out everything and start over. And get her another place to stay while I renovate. HA!! not gonna happen, there was one bubble and some water damage, as soon as it all dries out we can scrape and paint. So that is all I did and replaced the bedroom carpet. She was angry and she called the city inspectors. What a fuckin asshole! so the city looked into the situation and forced me to fill out a bunch of forms and pay fees for the inspection and it all came out to $400. WTF!!!?!? this all was due to the fact that the fuckin insurance people filled her fuckin head with all this horseshit. And no matter what I told her she didn't believe me. so the inspector came out and I was expecting him to rip me a new one and fine me for a million stupid codes because that's what they have to do in order to justify their existence. But to my surprise I got an inspector that was a longtime contractor and a landlord ...... nice ....someone who understands, and guess what, he told her the exact same thing I told her and that nothing was in danger and the integrity of the walls were fine and there would be no violations. All a big huge waste of my time and money. After I have given her a break for 6 years on the rent because of some stupid deal. People don't seek out what they should be appreciative for, they won't ever see it as something you are doing for them. So I sent her a notice to tell her how much back rent she has not had to pay and that from now on I want the full amount or I will evict. She pays it all now. So 3 days after the first flood, guess what, the old lady did it AGAIN!?!?!?!?!? flooded the fuckin place AGAIN!!?!?! unfuckinbelievable! So I called mental health, which had been done many times before, but this time I sent a letter along with the call that explained the crazy ass shit the old lady was doing and how everyone is in jeopardy at that apt because of her including herself, i spelled out dates and personal accounts from other tenants, etc and this time they sent out a Doctor instead of a flunky orderly. And as a result she was removed to a hospital asap. Now this has several repercussions , first it gets her the fuck out and to the help she has been neglected by her family. second it starts the process of getting her kids to admit that she should not in any way shape or form be living alone in my apt. So I sent a rash of nasty letters to them. No reply. See this unit was under rent control so in order for me to ask for market rent I need a voluntary move-out by the family. Well being removed for mental reasons QUALIFIES as a voluntary move-out. so I just need them to move her out and say they are out. Well, they do nothing for months and ignore me. I am getting more pissed. I talk to my lawyer, he said take pics and move her shit out, well not in those exact words. So after 5 months of waiting and no responses from the at all, I went in and changed the locks. the next day I got a call from the daughter and she went all up in my face about how she was going to have things moved out that weekend but I messed it all up and now she didn't know when she would be able to do it. So I told her, well, since you just gave me a verbal move out date, that is the day for which you legally indicated to me that you were moving out. So since that is the day you moved out, I am only legally obligated to keep your crap for 30 days, then I will take it all to the dumps. Well, she then slowly but surely moved all her mother's shit out, except for a ton of big furniture and mattresses and all the garbage. So as I promised I moved all the stuff out into storage and gutted the place. did a total remodel, new bath, new cabs, new tile, carpet, counters, stove fridge etc. total rebuild. And best of all I advertised it for $400 over what the others were getting, thought the market has jumped significantly. and I got 30 calls for the place. I found two great girls who are very excited about it and have gone ahead and accepted the lease. This was basically 9 years in the making. I knew when I bought the place that the old lady and rent control would go away at some point, I had no idea it would take this long and have so much crap along the way. But I out lasted them, and I got $0 rent, (long story don't ask, couldn't evict) for nearly 3 years, and now I gave myself a $1600 bump in income. Now I want to get rid of the other as well.
whew! long time coming!
also, my job has hired me permanently and I now know I have financial security until the day I want to leave. Very happy about it. So now i don't need to rely so much on tenant rental income and not be afraid of the massive costs to evict, often it costs me more to NOT evict, but I have barely been surviving over the last 4-5 years and I just didn't have the money to evict, so I opted to work with people hoping they would come through, and most don't, when people stop paying it is for a reason. It is a big red flag. now I won't have to put up with anyones shit anymore.
so as of today, Aug 1 2013, all units are rented and I expect all will pay as they have not given me any reason to suspect that they wouldn't. I have two potential vacancies coming up both section-8s and i hate section-8's don't get me started on that shit.
I'll keep ya posted
I have rid myself of loser tenants, I have evicted a few and now only rent to good people. Hard working, considerate, appreciative people. People that understand the culture of respect and paying for what you use, and honoring contracts. I do not rent to anyone who does not understand or subscribe to this montra.
I have had so many tenant changes in the last year. I read that I was just on the verge of renting to a roommate that wanted to stay even though the others wanted to leave. Well, they turned out great. they decided to rent out both units in the duplex all on the same day, so I had the lady upstairs move-out the same day the roommates downstairs moved out. Just turned out that way, and the remaining roommate said she had tons of friends that she could give housing to, so she rented out both places and has been renting out rooms ever since and I have been getting my rent no problem. So that has worked out great, and some really great girls living there.
I also saw that Jeff had just moved in because of the tow-truck guy moving out, well that has changed again as he had a roommate Cass, and Cass decided she wanted to keep it as Jeff wanted out, and it looks like the reason was because Cass had a new boyfriend and he was always there. Not a great roommate situation. But now she has him living there and not on the lease, I am not happy about that. Also, she never read the lease and has gotten two cats, I do not want pets, as they ruin properties, And already all my blinds are destroyed, the cats jump up on the window sill and in so doing they bend back the edges of the blinds, now all the sides of all the blinds are bent up and tweaked!!! also cats pee and the acidic smell never goes away, i may end up having to replace the carpets! So I don't know if I am going to evict, or just keep the deposit. ALSO, she did something with paint in the apartment, and walked out on the front area of her door and left painted foot prints all over the front cement!! WTF!! This has defaced the fuckin property, and she doesn't seem to think it means anything, it will take a ton of time and effort to scrub that shit off, does she think this is the kind of shit i want to do in my spare time?? jesus people are so inconsiderate.
another one I read about was the lady with 8 kids, I evicted her. she is gone, and now I have a nice older AA couple that really appreciates the place and they were homeowners and lost their home then couldn't get a rental because of their now bad credit. Well, I have sympathy for homeowners, it wasn't them that fucked up it is the banks and this fucked up economy. they had good credit and they showed great financial commitment by owning that house. So I rented to them and they are grateful and have not missed a single payment. Love them.
the other one that did not make the post was the Mother Daughter tenants, they just stopped paying and it was said that the mother would take over for the two of them, well the mother didn't pay, but she was the greatest con artist of all time, She made elaborate scenarios as to where her money was coming from and this made me think the money had at least an 80% chance of coming, well 10 months later and 3-4 elaborate schemes later I had to evict them. fuck them. so I lost $15k in rent AGAIN!!! Note to future landlords, DO NOT TRUST tenants. If they don't pay, spend the fuckin money to evict and get them the fuck out. So I found a great tenant to move into this one, and she is so great and enthusiastic that I really love her excitement. She is so excited about the house that her perspective gives me new enthusiasm with my work on the houses. It is such an unappreciated art, and all my work mostly is shit on at best by tenants. So her enthusiasm is greatly appreciated. She also wants to rent the place in the back, and use it to rent out to her friends as well.
Another great tenant is the one where the two lady's were with 5 kids, I had to get her out and she was not paying and the hot one moved out. I went to the house and knocked on the door, I looked at her in the eye and I told her she needs to get out asap, or I start the eviction and go after her money. She moved out the next day. I went in and remodeled it AGAIN!! I added tile for the whole shower. It looked nice. So Carrie came and she had some roommates and she rented it. I was so pleased to rent to her, she has completely changed the place, she has gotten really good people around her and they have planted, and they have really dressed the place up so nice. Love them all.
The other thing that happened is the greatest tenant of all time moved to Texas! I was very unhappy to have him move, it was very difficult to see them go, they left the place so clean, the carpets looked new. I had to paint and clean a bit, but very little, AND he got me a colleague to move-in. No work to find a person. So I only miss a month of rent.
So the biggest change of all, I cannot believe this day finally came, but i am so excited to report that the old lady finally moved out!!! this took so long and the fuckin kids were such careless assholes. But here's how it went down. They never respond to my letters! They wouldn't give me a phone number, or an email address. I only had their mailing address so to communicate with them I either had to run into them at the apt or send a letter. Anyways here's what happened. on 10-11-12 the old lady flooded the apartment. I got a call from the downstairs chick who was livid, she said the roof was bubbling and water was everywhere downstairs and "What are you going to do about it!!" So I had to drive in and see WTF was going on. I tried to get her to turn the water off but she kept telling me that she is not qualified to make those decisions, I kept telling her, I am asking you to go out and turn the water off. But she wouldn't. It was so fuckin lame. So I called another tenant to go over and check things out. the other tenant turned the water off and went into both units to see what's up. this other tenant by the way was from ANOTHER building! Anyways it was determined that the old lady had flooded the place upstairs because she saw fire rising from the living room. There was NO FIRE!! it was all in her fuckin head, so she turned the faucet on in the kitchen and blocked the sink with a cookie sheet, and plugged the toilet and kept flushing it over and over so all the water would go into the living room and extinguish the imaginary fire! errrrrr! Can you believe the shit people do?!?!? Anyways I called my insurance company and they sent out a crew to mop up and dry out and assess. They came out and they told her that everything that was wet needed to come out, all the sheetrock in the bathroom, kitchen, living room, bedroom, and the ceilings and all the carpet, and there will need to be mold experts and all this fuckin bullshit. My advice to any of you future landlords, tell the insurance co to shut the fuck up and DO NOT talk to tenants period!!! Shut the fuck up! So after the insurance people looked at the damage and assessed the situation they decide that they would not cover this as it was not a broken pipe or natural disaster situation it was caused by the actions of a tenant and I did not have that stipulation covered under the policy. ... WHAT?!?!?! WTF?! are they talking about! I pay fuckin insurance in case shit like this happens! I was blown away. I tried to fight it and it fell on deaf ears, and no sooner did they decide this , the crew was removed asap without even a goodbye hug!! So they left the place with all their fans and water vacs and stupid comments in an instant. So now the tenant expects to see me rip out everything and start over. And get her another place to stay while I renovate. HA!! not gonna happen, there was one bubble and some water damage, as soon as it all dries out we can scrape and paint. So that is all I did and replaced the bedroom carpet. She was angry and she called the city inspectors. What a fuckin asshole! so the city looked into the situation and forced me to fill out a bunch of forms and pay fees for the inspection and it all came out to $400. WTF!!!?!? this all was due to the fact that the fuckin insurance people filled her fuckin head with all this horseshit. And no matter what I told her she didn't believe me. so the inspector came out and I was expecting him to rip me a new one and fine me for a million stupid codes because that's what they have to do in order to justify their existence. But to my surprise I got an inspector that was a longtime contractor and a landlord ...... nice ....someone who understands, and guess what, he told her the exact same thing I told her and that nothing was in danger and the integrity of the walls were fine and there would be no violations. All a big huge waste of my time and money. After I have given her a break for 6 years on the rent because of some stupid deal. People don't seek out what they should be appreciative for, they won't ever see it as something you are doing for them. So I sent her a notice to tell her how much back rent she has not had to pay and that from now on I want the full amount or I will evict. She pays it all now. So 3 days after the first flood, guess what, the old lady did it AGAIN!?!?!?!?!? flooded the fuckin place AGAIN!!?!?! unfuckinbelievable! So I called mental health, which had been done many times before, but this time I sent a letter along with the call that explained the crazy ass shit the old lady was doing and how everyone is in jeopardy at that apt because of her including herself, i spelled out dates and personal accounts from other tenants, etc and this time they sent out a Doctor instead of a flunky orderly. And as a result she was removed to a hospital asap. Now this has several repercussions , first it gets her the fuck out and to the help she has been neglected by her family. second it starts the process of getting her kids to admit that she should not in any way shape or form be living alone in my apt. So I sent a rash of nasty letters to them. No reply. See this unit was under rent control so in order for me to ask for market rent I need a voluntary move-out by the family. Well being removed for mental reasons QUALIFIES as a voluntary move-out. so I just need them to move her out and say they are out. Well, they do nothing for months and ignore me. I am getting more pissed. I talk to my lawyer, he said take pics and move her shit out, well not in those exact words. So after 5 months of waiting and no responses from the at all, I went in and changed the locks. the next day I got a call from the daughter and she went all up in my face about how she was going to have things moved out that weekend but I messed it all up and now she didn't know when she would be able to do it. So I told her, well, since you just gave me a verbal move out date, that is the day for which you legally indicated to me that you were moving out. So since that is the day you moved out, I am only legally obligated to keep your crap for 30 days, then I will take it all to the dumps. Well, she then slowly but surely moved all her mother's shit out, except for a ton of big furniture and mattresses and all the garbage. So as I promised I moved all the stuff out into storage and gutted the place. did a total remodel, new bath, new cabs, new tile, carpet, counters, stove fridge etc. total rebuild. And best of all I advertised it for $400 over what the others were getting, thought the market has jumped significantly. and I got 30 calls for the place. I found two great girls who are very excited about it and have gone ahead and accepted the lease. This was basically 9 years in the making. I knew when I bought the place that the old lady and rent control would go away at some point, I had no idea it would take this long and have so much crap along the way. But I out lasted them, and I got $0 rent, (long story don't ask, couldn't evict) for nearly 3 years, and now I gave myself a $1600 bump in income. Now I want to get rid of the other as well.
whew! long time coming!
also, my job has hired me permanently and I now know I have financial security until the day I want to leave. Very happy about it. So now i don't need to rely so much on tenant rental income and not be afraid of the massive costs to evict, often it costs me more to NOT evict, but I have barely been surviving over the last 4-5 years and I just didn't have the money to evict, so I opted to work with people hoping they would come through, and most don't, when people stop paying it is for a reason. It is a big red flag. now I won't have to put up with anyones shit anymore.
so as of today, Aug 1 2013, all units are rented and I expect all will pay as they have not given me any reason to suspect that they wouldn't. I have two potential vacancies coming up both section-8s and i hate section-8's don't get me started on that shit.
I'll keep ya posted
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