My epic battle with the mold house is over and I'm pleased to report that I was victorious. It was a tough fight, with the black death being stronger than I anticipated. I washed the walls with a mixture of Joy detergent and water. However, there were still many mold spots on the walls that I couldn't remove even with moderate scrubbing. I needed an ALLY! Jomax came to the rescue. Fortunately, Jomax is one strong ALLY and was easily able to overpower the black death. I sprayed the Jomax directly onto the remaining mold spots, waited about 5 minutes and the mold was DEAD. At that point the mold and the battle were won.

In the future, anytime I have a mold issue, I will simply use Jomax right from the beginning. It is an excellent product; relatively inexpensive; and available at Lowes.

Today I will be locked in mortal combat with the BLACK DEATH (black mold, that is). If there are no further posts by me, you'll know that I lost.

I know what you must be thinking. I must be the bravest person in the history of the earth to battle the BLACK DEATH. Not since the days of David vs. Goliath has an underdog done battle against such a formidable foe. Like David, I will be doing battle without armor (no space suit; no help from the EPA or other fatherly government agency). I will be battling the BLACK DEATH alone!

Here's the whole story.

About 4 months ago, I had a tenant move into one of my nicest 2 bedroom houses. She had a good job; no criminal history; and no eviction history. By all measures, she looked like she would be an excellent tenant. Unfortunately, we didn't give her the ink blot test and I missed the small detail that she was a FREAK! Unfortunately, it didn't take long to find this out.

Within days of moving in, she complained that she was cold. I went over to the house and the temperature was 72 degrees. She complained of drafts from the windows and around the doors. I didn't find any excessive leaks around any of the windows or the doors, but the house IS about 100 years old. She absolutely insisted that I install plastic over all the windows and insulate around the doors. At this point, I still didn't realize that she was a freak and therefore I agreed to install the plastic and insulate the doors. After doing these projects, the house was practically air tight!

Next, I got a call from her about the bathroom. The bathroom has a claw-foot tub and she wanted a shower. I again agreed and installed one of those shower conversion kits for claw foot tubs.

Next, she called to complain that the ceiling in the kitchen was leaking. I went over to the house and discovered that the temperature was 85 degrees! There was no leak in the kitchen (it hadn't rained for several days), but she had the temperature so high that a very thin film of old grease film had congealed and there were a few drops or grease on the ceiling. I cleaned the ceiling and left. I also told her that she shouldn't keep the heat that high and that her electric bill would probably be outrageous.

A couple of weeks later, she called to say that her electric bill was $178. DUH! I told her that I thought that was very low for an all-electric house and that it would be even lower if she turned down the temperature. By now, I was realizing that I rented my house to a FREAK.

We then had the coldest weather of the winter during the next few days, with temperatures below zero. I received another call from the tenant saying that she was freezing. I went to her apartment to find that the temperature was about 76 degrees. She said that she was cold. I had a spare gas heater and asked her if she wanted me to install it. She did. This is one of those small gas heaters (similar to an unvented gas fireplace). I installed the heater and she appeared to be happy. Those gas heaters REALLY pump out the heat. The next day, the guy from the gas company came over to turn on the gas. The tenant SAID that the gas company employee told her that the heater should be cleaned or it could cause carbon monoxide poisoning. The heater was nearly new and was already clean, but I agreed to clean it. The next day I cleaned the unit and even installed a carbon monoxide monitor, because at this point I knew she was a freak. Her mind would undoubtedly imagine that the deadly carbon monoxide gas was all around.

A week or so later, she called again to complain that the old furnace vents were cold and that she was losing heat. Obviously, the old furnace vents would be cold as the ducting is in the unheated basement. At any rate, I went over to install insulation in the floor vents. With that, the house was so tight that taking a breath would cause the walls to move in and out (OK, I might be exaggerating a bit).

Finally, about a week ago, the tenant called to say that the house was full of mold and that she was leaving. AMEN! She insisted that I come over to the house to look at the mold and I told her to forget it. I told her that I didn't want to see her again and that she should call when she was out. Yesterday, she called to say she was out and that she was demanding her deposit back. FAT CHANCE OF THAT!

I stopped by the house yesterday to see how it looked. There WAS a lot of mold, which is exactly what happens when you have an airtight house and run a gas heater to the point that the temperature is in the mid 80's all the time. Fortunately, the mold should be VERY easy to remove as I know that there was no mold about 3 weeks ago. I'll take some Joy detergent and a bucket and I should have the mold cleaned up in a couple of hours. The tenant also decided to leave a bunch of furniture and other stuff in the house, so I'll have to take that to the dump.


That is how my battle with the BLACK DEATH developed. In truth, this is partly my fault. I should have known better than to seal up the house and install the gas heater, suspecting that the tenant would keep the temperature so high. What I should have done was simply refuse to install the heater and refuse to over-insulate the house. Fresh air is needed in any house and gas heaters are famous for causing moisture, especially if over-used in a sealed environment.

As a parting shot, the tenant called the health department to complain about the mold. I have a good working relationship with the health department and they didn't even call me about the issue.

Gotta Go! The battle is waiting!

If I had a dollar for every idiot I talk to, I'd be a very rich man. It is still hard for me to believe that there are so many absolutely worthless people in this world. As a Christian, I would like to have better feelings toward these people, but unfortunately I don't.

Just today, I had a guy call. He was very interested in one of my 2-bedroom houses. I always ask the applicant about their previous criminal record and any evictions before I go to meet them. This guy said that he had never been evicted and had only traffic tickets on his record. I happened to be on the computer at the time I was talking to this guy and so I looked him up right there on the spot. He had been evicted 3 times in the last 2 years including once in 2008! He also had 3 pages of criminal history, including 2 theft charges in the last year. WHAT A SCUMBAG (AND A LIAR)!

It would be nice if this was the exception to the rule, but here in my little corner of Ohio, this is the rule. In fact, about 95% of the people I talk are losers that I can not rent to. How did our country get to be in such a mess? I blame it on all the entitlements and handouts that our nation has given out over the past 50 years. We have turned people into victims who depend on the government for their every need. I think that is VERY SAD!

If the socialists get their way, we will be handing out even more entitlements and making even more people victims. Universal health care and ending poverty will be a fast start to the destruction of our country. Speaking of poverty, I haven't seen it. I have dozens of tenants, many of whom don't work. They receive all their money thanks to you and me, the taxpayers of this country. Even though they don't work and are the "poorest of the poor", I have yet to see a single one that doesn't have cable tv. When the poorest of the poor, have a big screen tv with cable and a cellphone, you know they aren't really "poor". A better word would be LAZY!

After a very discouraging past couple of weeks (as it pertains to finding new tenants), I had an absolute flood of applicants looking for housing today. I had applicants today that said they will take my 1-bedroom apartment; two 2-bedroom apartments; two 2-bedroom houses; and my 3-bedroom house. Of course, nothing is done until I have CASH for the rent and security deposit. We'll see tomorrow if anyone actually will follow through and put their money where their mouth is!

I received a call yesterday from my attorney concerning the lawsuit. We will be countersuing the tenant and his mother for damages, including attorney fees since fraud is involved. It will be interesting to see how the lawsuit develops.

If you want to reach me early next month, come to the courthouse! Why the courthouse? Because I've got 3 evictions and 1 lawsuit all scheduled to occur in a 2 day period. Two of the evictions are from my new apartment building and one is just a routine deadbeat tenant. I described the lawsuit in an earlier blog entry and unfortunately I'm not at liberty to discuss the case further at this point (just in case the plaintiff or her lawyer is reading this blog). This lawsuit is VERY interesting and I will post the details at a later date. I am meeting with my lawyer tomorrow to discuss the filing of the answer to the lawsuit, which must legally occur by next Wednesday.

As part of my plan to "turn around" all the problems at my new apartment building, I have been making daily trips to the property. I saw both of the tenants that we are evicting and both said they would be out before their court dates, but I'm certainly not counting on that. I certainly don't take the word of liars, deadbeats, and criminals! If they're out - FINE! If not, we'll see if they show up in court. Either way, they're going to be out. In reality, the timing on these evictions is quite good. With the tenants in their apartments through the end of February, they are providing the heat for the apartments during the cold winter weather, which means I don't have to pay for the heat for these units. By the first of March, winter will be mostly over in Ohio and the chances of frozen water lines will be significantly lower.

Speaking of winter, I spent about 1 1/2 hours yesterday shoveling the snow at my apartment buidings. After that, I fixed a leaking toilet and treated an apartment for roaches. Tonight, we're expecting another snow storm, but this time with freezing rain. So, I'll probably be spending some time Friday morning doing some more shoveling.

Geesh! Another day, another liar.

Today, I showed a two bedroom apartment to a married couple. They are on Section 8 and wanted the apartment. I explained our screening criteria and asked them if they met those requirements. Their answer was an unequivocal YES. The woman had her Section 8 "Request for Tenancy" form with her and I had her sign it. When I returned home, I was so confident that they were going to be acceptable, that I started to fill out the paperwork for Section 8. After a few seconds, I decided that I should do their screening before I spent 20 or 30 minutes on the paperwork. That was a good decision.

Less than a minute into the screening, I discovered that they had an eviction from 2006. I was a little surprised because my gut told me they were going to be alright. I did a little more digging and discovered that the address she listed was not owned by the landlord she listed. That was enough wasted time on this couple and I called them to tell them they were declined. To my surprise, she strongly denied that she had ever been evicted and she insisted that the information on her application was correct. I told her I would call her back in a few minutes.

I then called Section 8 and talked to her case worker. Just as I thought, everything she told me and everything on her application was a lie. I called her back and told her that she was declined for lying and she finally admitted to the lies.

When it comes to applicants - ASSUME EVERYONE IS LYING UNTIL PROVEN OTHERWISE!!!

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!

Yesterday was a perfect day to go snowboarding. The temperature was in the low 30s, there was no wind, and the snow was excellent. More importantly, one of my entrepreneurial friends decided to take the day off and called to see if I wanted to go yesterday. Fortunately, as a rental property owner, my answer can almost always be YES! Yes, I can take the day off and go snowboarding. Yes, I can take the week off to go camping. Yes, I can take a few days off to ride my motorcycle. YES, I CAN!

Anyway, it was a great day on the slopes. By early afternoon, there was a very small crowd (one of the benefits of being able to have fun on a work day). We had a great time!

My meeting with our city's nuisance board went quite well. Fortunately, I wasn't asked to attend. I volunteered to meet with them to discuss the Rat's Nest (my new drug infested apartment building). The previous owner had received multiple fines on this building because of all the criminal activity at the building and I wanted to meet with the board to let them know that we would be getting the property straightened up. To that end, I wrote up a Nuisance Abatement Plan and presented it to the board. As part of the plan, I let them know that we already had two pending evictions and would be evicting everyone who couldn't behave. Of course, we will also do a cosmetic rehab on the property as soon as the weather warms up.

The board was happy that I was being proactive and they agreed to give me whatever time was needed to straighten things up! I agreed to give them an update at their next monthly meeting.

I have now started the process of evicting the deadbeats from the Rat's Nest (my new 7 unit apartment building). As with all druggie rats, they are playing their silly games right down to the last minute. When I stopped by the building yesterday for a quick check, I found a known drug addict going into one of the apartments. She was an absolute mess. She looked HORRIBLE - with two black eyes and obviously high as a kite. I told her that we did not allow druggies on the property and insisted that she leave immediately. About that time, one of the tenants who is being evicted came out of his apartment as was quite agitated. He was yelling and screaming that I was going to be in big trouble. He said that he was going to call his lawyer. I said "go ahead". He then said that he was going to call the building inspector and again I said "go ahead"! However, his second statement caused me a little concern. Most of the time, tenants will threaten things and then not follow through. However, on the rare occassion that they do follow through, it can mean trouble. The very last thing any landlord needs is a building inspector walking through the building with an angry tenant.

I have discovered through experience that the best defense is a good offense. Since I considered it possible that the tenant would contact the building inspector, I thought I better get there first. Fortunately, I had a big advantage over the deadbeat tenant - TIME! I knew that I could take my time this morning and still get to the building inspector's office before the deadbeat. Why? Because low income druggie tenants are up partying all night and sleep in until late in the day!!!

Therefore, I got up this morning and went into town to talk to the building inspector. I told him that we were taking over the Rat's Nest (my nickname for my ugly apartment building) and that we were in the process of cleaning it up. I let him know that I was evicting the druggies and that the druggies were very unhappy about that! I told him that I had already met with the police and talked to the nuisance board and that we were all working together to get this eyesore of a building turned around. The inspector is familiar with this property and with the work I have done on other crack houses and said that he would not respond to any calls from the druggies, since he knows that we are working on the situation!

Being proactive is very important when you're trying to turn around problem properties and it makes everybody's job easier! The best defense is a good offense!

I've decided to nickname my new 7 unit apartment building the "Rat's Nest", not because there are 4 legged varmits, but because it is infested with the 2 legged type. Believe it or not, a full 3 weeks after taking over this building, I still don't have a complete picture of what's going on or even who all is living there.

Here is what I know so far:

One apartment is occupied by a couple of ladies who have been there over 25 years. They have a very nice apartment and are excellent tenants. To be honest, I don't know why they've stayed all these years with all the nonsense going on. They even had a bullet fly through their apartment at one point when a gunfight broke out in the apartment above theirs.

Another apartment is occupied by a elderly woman who has been there over 8 years. She seems relatively nice (albeit a little rough) and should be fine. The only problem that is currently occurring at her apartment is that she allowed a relative to move in with his child and she now wants them gone because they are taking advantage of her. The police were there 2 nights ago when a fight ensued over this issue. I think that she will be alright if we can get that freeloader and his kid out of there.

A third apartment is occupied by a woman and her boyfriend. They have been there about 5 years and I haven't had any trouble from them. I think they could be good tenants also.

A fourth apartment is vacant and needs to be rehabbed.

These four apartments and their tenants are the good news.

The bad news begins with the 5th apartment. This apartment is occupied by another long term tenant who is a flaming drunk. I have been to the apartment at every possible time of day and night and she is ALWAYS drunk. She has two relatives living with her and they are also ALWAYS drunk. The police have been to this apartment probably a dozen times in the 3 weeks that I have owned this building and have arrested her at least once. I will be picking up the police reports from the last week tomorrow and I'm anxious to see what has happened this past week. At this point, I believe that she will need to be evicted, but she's number three on my list for eviction.

Apartment #6 is occupied by 2 men. None of the tenants in this building had a written lease, but the previous owner didn't even know who was living in this apartment. The primary tenant in this apartment is reportedly subletting his apartment to a roommate. This tenant has not paid his rent and I posted a 3-day notice last week. We will be filing the eviction with the court for this tenant tomorrow. There have been numerous fights and other problems in this apartment and this tenant is my number one priority for eviction!

The seventh apartment is also a big problem. This apartment is supposed to be occupied by a married couple, but the man is a convicted criminal. I have personally seen known drug addicts and dealers in his apartment (I kicked them out) and I believe that he is involved in illegal activities. His wife is tired of "the game" (his words) and has left. He pretends to be unemployed and receive unemployment insurance, but has failed to pay his February rent. I'm also evicting this tenant.

So, my current plan is to evict these two tenants and then re-evaluate the situation. I would like to think that the drunk female tenant will straighten up after she sees two other tenants evicted (and at least not be arrested), but that's wishful thinking. I'll almost certainly need to evict her also.

In the rental business, you run into a LOT of criminals. The funny thing to me is that they constantly lie on their application, thinking that the landlords will not actually check them out. I have this happen on almost a daily basis. Yesterday was no exception. Here's what happened.

Two days ago, I had a couple (shackup couple) look at one of my two bedroom houses. The couple was fairly clean looking but the man initially didn't get out of the car to look at the house with the woman (red flag number one). The woman liked the house and said they would take it. I said "surely your boyfriend wants to see the house", at which point she motioned him into the house. I said hello, but he didn't look me in the eye when he responded (red flag number two). I then went over our screening criteria and asked them if they had any criminal history. As the man started to speak, the woman talked over him and said that he only had one domestic violence charge which was being dismissed (BIG RED FLAG NUMBER THREE). I was very suspicious at this point, but took their application and told them I would call them after I checked it out.

Well, needless to say, they didn't pass. The man had two pages of criminal history. The woman also had several criminal incidents. The woman had also been sued in civil court by a local bank. That was that and I put their application in the REJECTED file.

The next afternoon, she called me and wanted to know if she was accepted. I told her absolutely not and she wanted to know why. I said "because you are both criminals and we don't take criminals." At that, she expressed her anger that I hadn't called her earlier to let her know. That's how this low income criminal scum thinks - it's my fault for not accepting her, even though I told them clearly BEFORE they filled out the application that we don't accept anyone with more than 2 misdemeanors in the past 5 years. Obviously, she didn't think I was serious.

I'm being sued, or rather my LLC is being sued.

This is a very long story, but basically here's what happened. In early 2006, I accepted a tenant who was a convicted felon. My company policy is that we won't take a person if they've had a felony within the previous 5 years. This man's felony had been 7 years ago and he hadn't had any significant criminal history since.

About a month after this tenant moved in, he beat the crap out of his shackup girlfriend. He was so out of control that he had to be tazered by the police and then kicked the window out of the police car!

At any rate, a couple of months after this incident, the tenant failed to pay the rent and I started eviction proceedings. He threatened several times to "get" me. A few days before the court hearing for his eviction, he called to say that his mother had been visiting and washing dishes in his apartment when the ceiling collapsed on her, severly injuring her. I knew that this was a scam right from the beginning and I didn't even got to the apartment to look at the "damage".

The next day, the mother called to say that a massive water leak had caused the "accident" and that there was so much water that the wall was about to collapse. I knew that it was a scam, but I thought they might have intentionally damaged a water line to cause a flood. I immediately went to the apartment. There was absolutely no evidence that there ever had been a leak. There was no leak. There was certainly no water on or in the wall and the wall was certainly not about to collapes. With that, I left.

In a few days, the tenant was evicted. When he left (the day before the setout), he stole the gas heater; wrote grafitti on the wall; left piles of feces in the apartment; and left trash and belongings strewn everywhere. I called the police and reported the stolen heater.

A day later, I got a call from the scumbag. He was at the police station and wanted to know if he returned the heater would I be willing to drop the matter. I said "ABSOLUTELY NOT"! I wanted to see him in jail where he belonged and I told him that. The next day, the heater was sitting at the back door of the apartment where he returned it.

Within a few days, I got a letter from one of those low-life, scumbag contingency lawyers who wanted to sue us. I told the scumbag lawyer to go ahead and I would report his scumbag client for fraud (she was working at a bar and for a rehabber) even though she had been "totally disabled" for many years. I'd like to see her in jail too (where she belongs).

Fast forward, nearly two years. I was served with a lawsuit for this incident. This suit was filed in small claims court and they are seeking $3,000 in damages, which I think indicates that the lawyer knows this case has absolutely no merit and he therefore isn't willing to file a real lawsuit that would cost him more money.

I can't discuss our legal strategy until this case is over, but we WILL be suing her for the damage to the apartment and we WILL win. It will be very easy to prove that she is perpetrating a fraud!

Unfortunately, in our ridiculous society, legalized extortion happens every day. My policy is to NEVER settle and to ALWAYS fight these lawsuits aggressively.

Today was my favorite day of the month - the 1st day of rent collection! My entire mission for the 1st four days of each month is to collect the rent. Today went quite well and I collected a bunch of rents today.

On my way to collect the first rent, I received a call from one of the tenants at my newest apartment building. The police were there and were talking to a druggie that had been banned from the property. This druggie was arrested about two weeks ago and was just released from jail. I talked to the officer and expressed my desire that the druggie be arrested if at all possible. During the course of the day, the police were at the building at least 4 times (I was there three of those times). This property is an absolute mess and I'm in the early stages of cleaning it up and getting rid of the riff-raff. I have now finished reading all the recent police reports for the property and have a good understanding of who the troublemakers are. Now, it's just a matter of getting rid of them.

In addition to collecting rents today, I also showed rentals to a couple of applicants. The number of calls from potential tenants is increasing, probably as people are getting their tax returns. I'm looking forward to getting my vacant units rented, so getting more calls is a good thing.

Finally, I started putting my tax info into Quickbooks Pro today. I'll try to do a little each day and I'm hoping to be done by the end of the month.