Nothing too exciting to report today. In fact, it was just a typical day in the rental property business. It was quite cold today, so I didn't leave for work until about 11am. No sooner than I got in the truck, I received a call from a potential tenant that wanted to look at my 2 bedroom house. So, I went to show that house before I started working on the rental. When I finally arrived at the rental, I started by removing the old, nasty carpet. This was quite a job because someone in the past had nailed part of it down, even though there were tack strips in-place. After I removed all the carpet and took it to the truck, I removed the old vertical blinds and headed to the dump with an entire truck load of carpet, blinds, and other trash. After dumping the trash, I made my daily trip to Lowes and bought miniblinds for the windows and carpet for the living room and stairs. Back at the rental, I installed the new mini-blinds. By then, it was after 3pm and I decided to head home. Tomorrow, I plan to install all the carpet and have the apartment just about finished.

The true beauty of having a rental property business will rapidly present itself in the form of WINTER! When the weather turns a little colder, my rental property business will allow me to spend many days snowboarding, while others are working their 9-5. That's what I love about the rental property business - the freedom to do what I want, when I want to do it!!!

Way back on November 10th, one of the topics on my blog concerned a low-income female tenant of mine who allowed a man to shack up with her (against the lease). She started having a bad feeling about the guy and when I helped her do a criminal background check on him, she discovered that he was a convicted felon. His background included trafficking in illegal drugs and carrying a concealed weapon under disability. He is a bad dude!!!

The tenant kicked the guy out on the 10th and I changed the locks for her (she was dumb enough to give him a key). Well, things have gone downhill since then. He has made several threats against her and is apparently trying to carry them out. He started out by slashing her tires TWICE! Then, he found her sitting in her car in town and threw a brick at her windshield. He also harassed her on the telephone until she changed her phone number. The tenant has called the police each time, but so far the police haven't done anything, although they are supposedly looking for him after the brick incident.

This morning, he called me. He accused me of stealing his SS# or driver's license number in order to do the criminal background check. I informed him that criminal records are public information and that you don't need a SS# or driver's license number to check a person's criminal background. Fortunately, I have an unlisted home phone number and NEVER tell anyone where I live. Therefore, he hasn't tried to do anything to me yet, but I am religiously carrying my handgun as always - just to be safe. When you are a landlord, you make a lot of enemies with people you evict; people you decline for a rental; and drug addicts/dealers you turn into the police.

Just part of the daily drama of dealing with low income tenants!

Winter is typically a difficult time to find new tenants. Fortunately, I am very nearly full this winter. I currently only have 3 units left: a two bedroom apartment; a two bedroom house; and a three bedroom house (my most recent eviction). I would certainly like to have these properties rented for the winter! However, I learned long ago that it is infinitely preferable to wish you had a tenant than to have a tenant and wish you didn't!!!

It takes a lot of discipline to turn down applicants when you have vacancies. It is even harder when you turn down several potential tenants in a row. Such has been the case this last week for me. If my count is correct, I have now turned down 6 of the last 7 applicants. This is after screening them on the phone (before I agree to show the property to them) and screening them again before I give them an application.

Antuane was my latest applicant to be turned down. Antuane called me about a week ago looking for a 3 bedroom house to rent. He was well-spoken and said that he was looking for a rental for his family, which consisted of Antuane, his wife, and two children. I described the house to Antuane on the telephone and explained our screening criteria to him. Antuane then drove by the property and called me back to say that he was interested in seeing the interior of the house. I met Antuane at the property and was surprised that his wife wasn't there also. Everyone that is married knows that a husband would NOT dare to rent a house without his wife approving of the property (I know I wouldn't).

Antuane was a clean cut young man that was well dressed and with no inappropriate tattoos (so far, so good). He only spent about 2 minutes looking at the interior of the house and then asked for an application. I found that quite odd. I have shown rentals to hundreds of people and usually people spend more time looking around and then have several questions. I was beginning to become a little suspicious. I gave Antuane the application and again explained our screening criteria to him. He assured me that he would pass the screening without a problem.

A couple of days later (yesterday), I received a call from Antuane who said that he left the application in the mailbox at the rental. I told him that I would look at it and that he should call me in the evening. While I was in town, I picked up the application and last evening I began to screen it. I always start with the criminal background check because a bad criminal record is the number one reason that we decline applicants. Sure enough, Antuane was lying to me. He had a lengthy criminal record including possession of cocaine. He also had a recent eviction. That was enough for me! I only spent two minutes on the screening and had already found 3 pages of criminal history and an eviction. That was enough for me!

This morning I received a call from Antuane. He asked if I had reviewed his application. I responded, "as you are well aware, you did not pass." Antuane acted like he was surprised. "What did you find, he asked". I responded, "you have three full pages of criminal activity including possession of cocaine! You also have a recent eviction." He again sounded surprised, at which point I said "YOU KNOW VERY WELL THAT YOU'RE A CRIMINAL, SO THERE IS NO REASON TO PRETEND OTHERWISE. The company does not allow me to rent to criminals. Goodbye." With that, our conversation was over.

It never fails to amaze me that these criminals think everyone else is stupid. I guess that is why we must screen our potential applicants.

Thanksgiving is over and most Americans have been stuffed with turkey, dressing, and pumpkin pie! We take this one day each year to be thankful and that is well justified. As a nation, we are truly blessed and have a lot to be thankful for. One of the things that I am most thankful for is the freedom that we have in this nation to be anything we can dream of (and are willing to work for).

For me, that means owning a rental property that allows me to be semi-retired at a relatively young age. In my opinion, this is truly the best business in the world. I make a nice income and only work 3-4 hours per day, 3-4 days per week (12-16 hours per week). I also have the freedom to set my own schedule, which is everything to me.

I write this blog to give new investors a look at the REAL WORLD of owning a rental property business (as opposed to all the silly guru hype out there). Therefore, I am constantly writing about what I'm doing. That means talking about evictions and terrible tenants. That means talking about stolen copper water lines. That means talking about fixing leaky toilets and damage caused by angry tenants. All of that IS the reality of my daily adventure in the rental property business. However, that is not the entire story.

I guess that I should set the record straight. When I talk about the tenant from hell, that's because there isn't anything to say about the 90% of tenants who are absolutely no trouble. When I talk repairing a leaky toilet, that's because there is nothing to say about the dozens of toilets that are not leaking. Yes, there are challenges in the rental property business (and in all other businesses), but when all is said and done, this is a GREAT business!

So, on this last day of the Thanksgiving weekend, I'd just like to set the record straight. Most tenants are good tenants. Most of my buildings require no maintenance at any given time. Most of the week, I'm not working thanks to my rental property business. I never need to set an alarm clock or ask a boss for anything. Starting in the next couple of weeks, there will probably be a lot of weekdays when I don't do any work on my rentals. While the rest of America will be at their 9-5 job, I'll be working hard on my snowboarding technique.

I am thankful for my rental property business!

My recent eviction resulted in a house that needed a typical carpet and paint rehab. In this case, the carpet looked TERRIBLE, but was less than a year old. I spent most of yesterday steam cleaning the carpet; removing all the stickers that the tenant put on the walls; filling nail holes and small holes in the walls; and painting the living room. It is starting to look good again.

I will still need to steam clean the living room again (once it's dry) and paint most of the walls in the house. One thing I do is to always paint all the interiors the same color (Berkshire White). It is therefore very easy to touch up bad spots. Just use a semi-wet brush with Berkshire White and ugly spots are fixed.

Today, I'm going to get back to working on the doublewide project. I'll be installing another leaching line today and should only have 3 more days left on this project. Nothing too exciting this week as we'll be celebrating Thanksgiving on Wednesday and Thursday.

Today was mighty fine! The first thing that made today a great day was that I found a home for the kitten that my deadbeat tenant abandoned. It's ironic, but finding a home for an abandoned holds a good lesson about finding great deals for houses. How did I find a house for my kitten? I found that kitten a home exactly like I find great real estate deals - personal contacts (lots of them). Beginning Thursday afternoon, I began telling everyone the story of my orphaned cat. I told my wife, who told everyone she knew. I told several tenants that I came into contact with. I told everyone at my local REIA meeting. I told my parents. In each case, I asked them to tell everyone they came in contact with about my homeless kitten. By the end of Thursday, I had probably talked to more than 40 people about my kitten. Who knows how many more people they told. I did the same thing Friday. At about 3:30 on Friday afternoon, my mother called to say that she found someone to take the cat. Almost as if this was destined to happen, my mother called one of her friends who is a pet lover. About an hour before my mother called, this woman's cat had died and she had literally just finished burying it. The woman was distraught about the death of her cat and immediately told my mother that she would take the kitten!!!

This is very similar to the way I find great real estate deals. Hundreds of people know that I buy houses (and I'm telling new people all the time). From that huge network of people, I receive a LOT of calls from people who have a friend that needs to get rid of their property. Contrast that to so many newbies who contact me saying that they can't find properties that will cash flow. When I ask them what they have done to find deals, they usually say something like "I've talked to a realtor". If I had only told one person about my kitten, it would still be homeless! Telling dozens of people who in turn told their friends gave me a huge network of people trying to find that kitten a home!

The other thing that made today a GREAT DAY was Ohio State's vistory over Michigan. GO BUCKS! Will the last one out of Michigan please turn out the lights!

I have been called a "slumlord" so many times that I can't possibly remember them all. After all, that is the standard refrain from tenants when they screw up and must be evicted. In my experience, tenants rarely accept responsibility for their actions and therefore will almost always blame the landlord for their shortcomings.

However, today something new happened. I was cleaning out one of our apartments when a van drove by and the woman shouted "you Son of a B****! I immediately recognized it as the woman that I evicted last week. In fact, her setout is coming up this Thursday at 10 am and I haven't seen any evidence that they are moving out yet. I don't know how she knew where I was or if she just happened to be driving by, but this apartment is several blocks from her rental.

As I exited the apartment again a few minutes later, the woman was now walking on the sidewalk outside the apartment building and talking about me on the phone to someone. I heard her say "yes, he's here", as she looked straight at me. That was just a little bit spooky and I was very cautious the rest of the day. You never know when one of these tenants will snap and do something stupid. I always carry my handgun for protection. Fortunately, nothing bad happened today and I'll continue to be extra vigilant for the next couple of weeks.

I'm hoping the tenants will be out of the house before the setout on Thursday, but I doubt it. I have had setouts in the past that required the police to be there the entire day to keep the tenant from becoming violent.

THE RENTAL BUSINESS IS NEVER DULL!

THE GOOD:

I finally finished the blocks for my doublewide project today. YEAH!


THE BAD:

Just before I was planning to leave the house yesterday to go work on the blocks for my doublewide project, I received a call from the tenant who was moving into our 3 bedroom duplex. Apparently, when the water company tried to turn the water on, they discovered that the copper piping had been stolen from the basement. So instead of getting to work on the blocks, I had the pleasure of spending a couple of hours replacing the copper water lines that had been stolen with PEX (plastic water line). Fortunately, installing the PEX is a very fast and easy repair and the tenant now has water!


THE UGLY!

A few days ago, I got a call from one of my female tenants. She allowed a new shack-up boyfriend to move in and was calling to tell me that she didn't feel safe with him. I reminded her that no-one was allowed to live with her without our written permission. I then suggested that we do a criminal background check on him and I discovered that he had three felony convictions for trafficking in illegal drugs; another felony for carrying a concealed weapon under disability; a misdemeanor for domestic violence, and several other misdemeanors.

Yesterday, I received a call from her. Her felon boyfriend would be out of town for a couple of hours and she was throwing all his belongings out on the curb while he was gone. She wanted to know if I would change the locks before he got back. Since I didn't want a felon in my property and I wanted to protect my tenant, I changed the locks for her. When the felon got back, he was NOT HAPPY to find all his belongings sitting on the street. He called me to complain that "my tenant" had illegally evicted him. I told him that she was not allowed to have other people live there without my permission and as far as I was concerned he had never lived there (he was simply visiting - that's what all the tenants say when they allow someone to move in). He threatened to sue her and me for illegally evicting him, at which point I said "go ahead".

The good news is that he's gone. Even if he does sue me, he won't win. I certainly couldn't evict someone who never lived there!

I'm now officially out of one-bedroom, three-bedroom, and four-bedroom apartments and houses. I rented my last three-bedroom duplex yesterday. YEAH! I still have 3 two-bedroom rentals left, but only 1 two-bedroom house is rent ready. I'm very happy that we're almost full again! It certainly would be nice to have a good occupancy during the winter.

I received a call from the Bailiff yesterday. The setout for the tenant I evicted the other day is on the 15th. I am not happy about that! That is 9 days after the eviction hearing. Ohio law requires the deadbeats to be setout within 10 days, so this is the next to last day! This is a VERY NICE 2-3 bedroom house and I'd like to get it re-rented. Unfortunately, there is nothing I can do about it (other than vent my frustration here). UGH!

Today, I will be heading out to the double-wide to continue with the block laying. My goal is to finish the blockwork this week and the rest of the project next week. Then, I can refi to get my money back and I'll be ready to buy the next four.

It is starting to get chilly here in Ohio, so I probably won't go to work today until noon. During nicer weather, I usually work 11am to 2pm, but in the colder weather I think noon to 3pm will be warmer (especially for laying blocks). Also, during the winter, I usually work fewer days than during the summer. During the summer, there are outdoor projects to do and it's easy to work 3-4 days each week. During the winter, there is not as much to do and I'll probably cut back to two or three 3-hour days per week. Besides the lower volume of work, snowboarding season will be starting in about one month. I like to snowboard during the week while most other people are working and the kids are in school. It's almost like having the "mountain" to yourself. With the kids in school, I can also get a lot of practice in the terrain park (and I need it).

My day started with a trip to municipal court for an eviction. I had a tenant that decided October was his month not to pay and I promptly filed for eviction. Unfortunately, it takes 4-5 weeks in Ohio to get a hearing and today was my day to get rid of this deadbeat and his family. The deadbeat and his deadbeat wife (I don't like deadbeats) arrived at court just in time for the hearing. They didn't have a lawyer, but of course I did.

My lawyer presented our side of the case first, which was basically that we had a lease with the deadbeats and they didn't pay. The magistrate then asked the deadbeats if they had a defense. Their first defense was that I was rude to them when I came to post the 3 day eviction notice (I was - I don't like deadbeats). Their next defense was that there were a variety of things wrong with the house. This was simply perjury. This is one of my nicest houses and is absolutely beautiful! There is absolutely nothing wrong with the house, but what else were the deadbeats going to say to the magistrate? If they told the truth, they would have said that they were lazy losers who don't pay their bills, but you'll never hear that kind of truth in court. They went on and on and on and on. I thought they would never shut up. Finally, the magistrate heard enough and shut them up.

She then explained to them that the only thing that mattered in an eviction hearing was the fact that they didn't pay the rent. Nothing else would be considered. She then ruled in my favor, followed by explaining the set-out procedure to the tenants. Finally, she asked me if I would give them a few days before filing for the setout. I replied ABSOLUTELY NOT! The tenant loudly protested that this wasn't fair (kind of ironic coming from someone who doesn't pay their rent). "We have children", she protested. I remained silent but was thinking that maybe they should have paid the rent if they cared about their children! They also complained that they couldn't find another place to rent because they had this eviction filing on their record. Maybe they should have thought about that also before they decided not to pay the rent. Good riddance to bad rubbish - that's what I say.

Tenants have the upperhand in our twisted legal system. There is no doubt about that! Unfortunately, debtors prisons are a thing of the past and people no longer are required to be responsible for their actions. Landlords see this injustice every day. A tenant can stop paying the rent and completely trash their rental without significant reprisals. Yes, the landlord can evict them, but this typically takes well over a month, even in Ohio. Yes, the landlord can sue the tenant for damages and will almost always win. However, the landlord will almost never be able to collect.

Last week, I found myself once again in court. This time wasn't for an eviction case, but rather to testify for another landlord (a friend) about the damage an ex-tenant caused. The landlord made a big mistake by renting a duplex that needed repair. She rented the apartment as-is and with discounted rent and it was agreed that the tenant would do the repairs. Please note that this is illegal in most states. The landlord is legally responsible for providing the tenant with a habitable property and this responsibility can NOT be transferred to the tenant. This was a BIG mistake on the part of the landlord.

This arrangement went bad from the very beginning. No only did the tenant NEVER pay any rent, but in fact the tenant slowly disassembled the interior of the property and sold it. Everything that contained any metal was stolen and sold as scrap. The furnace was stolen. The water lines were stolen. The furnace ducts were removed and stolen. Then, after the metal was gone, the tenant started destroying the enterior of the property. He even stole all the kitchen cabinets! Quite honestly, I've seen a lot of things, but I've never seen anything quite like this. In my opinion, this scumbag tenant should be spending the next 50 years in prison at hard labor. However, in our wacked out judicial system, he wasn't even charged with a crime.

Anyway, the tenant got a FREE lower-than-a-snake, scumbag legal aid lawyer (no, I don't like them). My friend hired a lawyer at $125 per hous. The scumbag legal aid lawyer REQUESTED A JURY TRIAL for the eviction. This was an attempt to stall and it worked. About three months later, the tenant was evicted. My friend contacted the police about everything that was stolen. They would not prosecute or charge the tenant with any crime. They said it was a civil matter. Therefore, my friend sued the tenant for damages. The tenant countersued, which was a little ridiculous considering he had lived free for 8 months and stolen just about everything except the sidewalk. The case finally went to court and the tenant (with his scumbag legal-aid lawyer) agree to a consent decree in which the tenant would pay the landlord for damages by a certain date. That never happened. So, the landlord was back in court this week and I was asked to be a witness to the damage. This never happened either. The tenant didn't show up and the free scumbag legal aid lawyer had pulled some technical trickery that my friend hadn't understood. To make a long story short, after about an hour of meetings between the judge, my friend, and the free scumbag legal aid lawyer, the case was concluded with another consent decree with my friend being awarded a whopping $500. Did I mention that our legal system is a big joke?

So, where does that leave us as landlords? We can evict bad tenants and we can spend money to get worthless judgements. However, every now and then there is a hint of justice. This week, I received a letter from my local metropolitan housing office regarding one of my ex-tenants that didn't pay her portion of the Section 8 payment for her final month. In addition, she didn't pay her final water bill either. When she left (a couple of years ago), I contacted my local Section 8 office and they terminated her from the Section 8 program for failing to pay her portion of the rent.

This weeks letter from Metropolitan Housing was a landlord reference form designed to determine whether the tenant would be eligible to live in a free public housing project. With the referral I sent to Metropolitan Housing, she won't get in. I reported every incident that I had with this tenant. I included a copy of the letter I received from Section 8 stating that she was being dropped from the Section 8 program for failing to pay her portion of the last month's rent. I included a copy of the unpaid water bill and finally I looked up her criminal record on the local court web site and sent that too (she was arrested several times after she left)! So, while I will probably never collect the rent she didn't pay ($58) and her water bill ($123), I got a lot of satisfaction in knowing that the taxpayers won't be paying to house this deadbeat! Maybe, that's a little justice after all!!!

I now officially have two spare tongues. Hold on, before you jump to the conclusion that you have reached some sort of weird body parts auction site, the tongues I'm talking about are steel tongues from my doublewide project. I finally got back to work on the doublewide project and finally got both of the tongues cut off. Normally, the tongues are bolted on to the frame, but this house didn't have any tongues when I bought the house. The mobile home mover found some tongues but they didn't line up with the bolt holes on the house. So, the mobile home mover welded the tongues onto the house. It was my job to cut them back off.

When I first tried to work on them the other day, one of the torch gauge sets was broken. I bought another gauge set and started cutting the tongues off with the torch. However, I decided that the risk of fire was great enough that I wanted to try cutting the welds off with an angle grinder. I started doing that, but needed another cutting wheel. So, yesterday I finally got the new cutting wheel and was able to successfully remove both tongues.

Yesterday was also inspection day for one of my Section 8 rentals. On the day of the inspection, I usually go the the unit about two hours before the inspection to make sure everything is up to Section 8 standards. This includes checking the smoke detectors, fire extinguisher, paint (especially around the windows), electrical outlets, glass in the windows, plumbing for leaks, etc. I have a 5-gallon bucket that I call my Section 8 bucket. It contains everything necessary to repair most Section 8 issues. For example, one item in the bucket is smoke detector batteries (9 volt batteries) . It is typical to find smoke detectors without batteries. Low income tenants often remove the batteries to use in their CD players and other appliances. Yes, they're just plain stupid for doing so, but that is the reality. When I checked the 3 smoke detectors in the rental unit yesterday, one was missing the battery and one had the battery disconnected so that it wouldn't function. Those would have both been failure items during the Section 8 inspection.

When the Section 8 inspector arrived, it was an inspector I had never met. He explained that the regular inspector was sick and that he was filling in. He also said that he was the trainer for all the Section 8 inspectors in the area. Wonderful! That's all I need - the inspector that trains the other inspectors! As it turned out, the regular inspector had told the trainer inspector that I was one of the better landlords in town, which was nice. I did pass the inspection and the inspector told me that this unit was only the second to pass all day! I felt good about that.

Next up for the doublewide project is to finish the blocks on the end of the house. I am planning to do that on Monday. I'm taking the weekend off. Everything comes to a halt in Ohio when the Buckeyes are playing football. Kickoff today is high noon! Go Bucks!