I was back to work today with my rental property business. As always, things were very unpredictable. Although I'm currently at a very high occupancy rate, I did have a few rentals available including one 1-bedroom apartment; two 2-bedroom apartments; one 2-bedroom house; and one 5-6 bedroom house. I had already shown all these units several times and believed that I would receive the money for most of them today. Of course, nothing went as planned. The Section 8 tenant for the 2 bedroom house bailed out at the last minute. I think the reason is that she couldn't afford to have the gas turned on. Another Section 8 tenant bailed out of the 5-6 bedroom house, because she couldn't come up with the deposit and her portion of the rent.

I did get the deposit on the 1-bedroom apartment and I have another tenant that will supposedly have the money for one of the 2-bedroom apartments tomorrow. Another couple looked at the 2-bedroom house and claims they will take it tomorrow and a young pregnant woman looked at the other 2-bedroom apartment and claims to want that.

I did a little finish work on my 2 bedroom house today and I am within a hour or two of finishing it so that someone can move in. Tomorrow, I'm going to steam clean the carpet and do a couple of finish items and hopefully get it rented.

I also picked up the bikes from the bike shop today. I was shocked that the bill was only $93 for both bikes. I guess there are still a few things that are a good value.

I just got back from another 3 day trip. This trip was the fullfillment of one of my goals for this summer: to take a longer cross-country motorcycle trip. So, off we went Saturday morning on our trip from Ohio to the Tennessee/North Carolina border to ride the Tail of the Dragon. The Tail of the Dragon is an 11 mile stretch of Highway 129 that has 318 curves. Many of the curves are VERY SHARP and have a lot of vertical change. Throw in the occassional RV that is taking up most of the road and a bunch of crotch-rocket drivers that are going around the corner so fast that they're skidding on one knee, and you've got an exciting 11 miles!!! This was quite a trip for a first time cross-country rider and gave me a lot of valuable experience.

Tomorrow, I will get back to the rental business and I'll try to post about whatever happens (I've got no idea right now, but something will come up).

I spent some time yesterday and today working on my 2 bedroom house that is being inspected by Section 8 tomorrow (Friday). The work included replacing the carpet in the kitchen; replacing missing outlet and switch covers; painting the wood floor in the utility room; installing an overflow tube on the water heater; replacing light bulbs; doing some general cleaning; etc. Nothing major, just the routine work that is required to get a property ready for an inspection. The inspection is between 3pm and 5pm tomorrow and I still have a little work to do tomorrow, including replacing two broken windows, installing a few miniblinds, cleaning the carpet, fixing an exhaust fan; and installing one smoke detector.

I also need to pick up my bike and my friend's bike tomorrow at the bike shop. My friend's bike got a new rear derailler bracket. My bike got a tune-up; new pedals; a new yoke for the handlebars; the rear wheel straightened or replaced; and a new mirror.

This two bedroom house that I have been working on has been a little bit of an anomaly for me. Because my wife and I have been gone so many days lately (at a seminar, then camping, and then on a motorcycle trip this weekend), I decided to hire someone to paint the interior of this house. I have had a college student that has been pestering me for a job and so I hired him to do the painting. As usual, I was NOT happy with the experience. He did an acceptable job of painting, but he called me several times during the job for silly things. More significantly, I asked him to be sure to lock the door when he wasn't on the jobsite, and he couldn't even accomplish this simple task. On the day after he finished the job, I went by to check the result and found the door UNLOCKED! This is EXACTLY why I don't like to hire people. I'd rather do it myself and do it right and without the hassle!!!

It was back to the rental property business today. I started the day by taking my mountain bike and my friend's mountain bike to the bike shop. They will be done Friday morning!

Next, I went to Lowes to get materials to build my first shelving unit for the storeroom in the Pink Elephant (my pink apartment building). I decided to build shelves instead of buying them for two reasons: 1) to save a little money, and 2) to make stronger shelves. The shelves that I made today were 4 feet high, 4 feet long, and 2 feet deep, with 3 shelves spaced 18 inches apart. The shelves were made from 2 X 4's and 1/2" OSB board. It took about an hour to build the shelves, which I am using to store all my paint. While at the Pink Elephant, I also arranged the rest of the storeroom by type of material. As I said, all the paint went on the shelves. Next to the paint went the cleaning supplies (including the vacuum cleaners and the steam cleaner). In the next aisle, I put the electrical supplies, lighting supplies, and plumbing supplies. The next aisle has all the building materials: wood, doors, windows, etc. In the forth aisle is carpentry tools, drywall tools and materials, and concrete tools. I'm looking forward to building more shelves and getting everything very well arranged.

After completing the shelves, I showed two apartments and one house to applicants. I've already checked these applicants out: two are ok and one is a druggie.

Next on the agenda was to cut up the tree that fell down at one of my duplexes. I got most of the lower limbs cut up this afternoon but will need a ladder to get the higher stuff tomorrow. When the tree fell, the top of it landed on another tree at the opposite side of the yard. Part of the tree is still suspended about 10 feet off the ground by the other tree and a very tough phone line. I will try to cut out most of the tree top before cutting the limbs that will allow it to fall the rest of the way to the ground. Obviously, I'll need to be careful, but I think it can be done safely.

Tomorrow, I will be finishing the rehab on my 2 bedroom house that is being inspected by Section 8 on Friday.

I did do some real estate related stuff today, although not exactly what I talked about in my blog just this morning. That's the way the rental property business goes - no plan survives the first call of the day.

I started the day with some paperwork and busywork - paying a few bills; ordering a part for our motorhome (not real estate related); calling the bike shop (also not real estate related); and calling to complain about my new computer battery which is total junk. As I was getting ready to head to town to do some rental property work, I received a call from the alarm company who was ready to install my new alarm system in the store room of the pink elephant. So, I headed to the bank and post office; picked up a kitchen sink sprayer at Lowes; and then went to the pink elephant to meet the alarm company. The alarm company was there as promised and I let them in so that they could get started installing the alarm.

While the alarm was being installed, I went to one of my 1-bedroom apartments to fix the kitchen sink sprayer. That only took about two minutes, but the tenant had several other little things that needed done. I installed a new strainer in the kitchen faucet; removed a broken light bulb and replaced it with a new one; and turned up the temperature on the water heater. After doing those things, I showed a one bedroom apartment to an older guy who rode up on a Harley.

I then returned to the pink elephant to see how the alarm was coming. They were making good progress and within a half hour the system was done. It is an excellent system with two very loud sirens - one inside and one outside. It has a motion detector and a door sensor. It has a smoke alarm. All these things are fairly standard in an alarm system. What makes this system interesting is that it has a cell phone type transmitter which transmits the alarm signal to the monitoring center. I don't need a phone line for the alarm and no-one can cut the phone lines to prevent the alarm from working. The other nice feature with this alarm is that it has a key chain remote that allows it to be turned on and off from outside the building without using a key pad. In addition, the key chain remote also allows for a zero delay time, meaning that the alarm will sound IMMEDIATELY if a criminal opens the door or sets off the motion detector!

After the alarm was done, I came home and went mountain biking at a nearby course. I was obviously the first person to ride the course since Hurricane Ike blew through and there were many trees blocking the path. Even so, I was doing well until I was about 3/4 of the way through the course. At that point, I hit a particularly bad spot and ended up going over the handle bars. I wasn't seriously hurt, but did cut my hand and broke the mirror on my bike. I finished the course and called it quits. Top on the agenda for tomorrow is to take my bike (and my riding partner's bike) to the bike shop to get them both fixed (the bike shop was closed today). Both of our bikes have taken quite a beating this summer and are in need of some much needed repair.

My wife and I are back a day early from our 4 day camping trip. We decided to leave with the rest of our church group yesterday instead of staying for an extra day (as we had originally planned). The reason for our early departure was that a lot of stuff was breaking down and I wanted to come home and fix it.

When we arrived at the campground (state park) on Friday, we were pleasantly surprised to find that the electric was back on, after being out for nearly a week due to Hurricane Ike. However, within two hours of our arrival, the electric went out and never came back. NO PROBLEM! Our motorhome is self-contained and has just about every possible amenity, even without an external power source. It has a separate "coach" battery that will power just about everything except the air conditioners. It has propane which will power the water heater, stove, and refrigerator. It even has a 6.5 kw generator which will power just about everything, including enough outside outlets to provide power to other campers in our group. We were fully prepared!

Friday was cool outside and we used the coach battery and propane to power everything. This was the very first time that we had ever used propane to power the refrigerator or the coach battery to provide electrical power and I was very pleased that everything worked!

Saturday morning, we went mountain biking. As we were nearing the end of the course, my friend's back tire went flat. No problem - I was prepared with a miniture can of Fix-A-Flat. We inflated the tire with fix-a-flat and got started again. This is the point at which things started to go wrong. After only a short period of time, the tire went flat again. This wasn't a big problem as we were within a mile of the campground and we just walked back. Saturday evening, the women went to town and they picked up a self-sealing tube for my friend. After our evening cookout, he installed the new tube but as he was re-installing the wheel, he discovered that he lost the axle nut. This could have been a big problem as he certainly could not ride without an axle nut. However, another member of our group had a fancy baby stroller with the same nut and he was more than willing to loan it to my friend. Problem solved.

Saturday was a warm day and we decided to start the generator on the motorhome so that we would have air conditioning and be able to run our outside lights and outside AC outlets. As it got dark, our group was sitting around the campfire, which was near our motorhome. I noticed the interior lights had gone out and I went to investigate. The generator was working fine. The AC outlets were working fine. It quickly became obvious that everything that ran on DC power was dead. I checked the battery, which was nearly new, and it was reading 13.5 volts - PERFECT. I checked all the circuit breakers and fuses - ALL OK. With it being dark, I decided to give up until the next day. We didn't really need DC electric (or any electric for that matter), so it wasn't really any big deal.

The next morning, we got up early to go mountain biking again. The weather was beautiful and we were riding the course at a pace that would have surely been our best to date! As I went around a sharp corner, the back end of my bike slid wildly to the side. I thought that I might have just hit some loose dirt. My riding partner who was just behind me yelled "your tire is going flat". Since we were within a few hundred yards of the half-way point (a state park lodge), I decided to keep going. I leaned over the handlebars to keep the weight off the flattening back tire and asked my friend let me know when it got completely flat. I was sure that we could make it to the half-way point (still in record time). About that time, I heard my partner yell "OH NO"! I thought he might have crashed. I couldn't see him in my rear view mirror and I yelled "are you OK"? He responded, "I've got a major malfunction". I started walking back to him. It was obvious that he did indeed have a major malfunction and that our riding was over for the weekend. The rear derailler was broken and hanging by the chain. In less than half the length of the course, we had broken both bikes.

We walked the rest of the way to the lodge (half way point) and called our friends at the campground. Within a short period of time, a friend arrived with a pickup truck and we were on our way back to the campground with our broken bikes.

Since our bikes were out of commission, I decided to work on the motorhome. I got out the electrical schematic for the motorhome and my voltmeter and started troubleshooting the electrical system. It didn't take long before I found the problem - a damaged DC electrical buss. The bottom part of the electrical buss showed signs of overheating, with melted plastic around it. It was certainly an odd failure, but one which shouldn't be that difficult to fix. As a temporary fix, I jumped the power input to the buss and got all our DC components back in operation, other than the radio and a couple of other non-essential things. The only question left to be answered is what caused the overheating at this point.

Anyway, with two broken bikes, a temporarily fixed motorhome, and no electrical service at the campground, we decided to leave with the rest of the group on Sunday afternoon and start to get things fixed. I've already gotten my flat tire fixed and will take my friend's bike to the shop tomorrow for him.

I know none of this has anything to do with real estate. I will be doing some rental property stuff this week, before riding my motorcycle with another church friend down to Tenessee for another 3-day weekend, starting Friday or Saturday. We'll be riding "The Dragon", which is an 11 mile stretch of road that has 318 curves. If you're interested, you can read about "The Dragon" at http://www.tailofthedragon.com/.

Sorry for the lack of posting this week. I simply haven't been home and will be gone again starting tomorrow. This past Sunday through Wednesday, I went with my wife to a conference that is connected with her business. The conference was held at the Hyatt (Boo-Hiss!), which I think is a TERRIBLE hotel. Although the rooms rent for $150 per night, they stick you for every little thing - like $21 per night for parking; $10 per day for internet access; etc. It's a total ripoff if you ask me (although as a landlord, I am a confirmed cheapskate). Are these "fancy" hotels really worth the price? I think not! Give me a Comfort Inn or Holiday Inn anytime, where you don't pay to park; don't pay for wireless internet access; and get a free breakfast; ALL FOR HALF THE PRICE!

Anyway, we had a good time and the business that sponsored my wife paid the tab for the room, internet, parking, and all that other stuff so I guess I shouldn't complain. It just rubs me the wrong way to throw away big money on substandard service. While I'm on a rant, I did have one more complaint. Since I didn't want to attend all the events, I took my personal taxes with me to complete (they're on extension). After I finished it up, I wanted to print one page and then copy 9 pages. The Hyatt had a business room, where you could accomplish all that. It cost $5 to hook up the laptop and $1 per page to make black and white copies ($2 for color copies). So, to print one page and copy my 9 pages, it would have cost about $15!!! Talk about ROBBERY! So, instead of doing that, we stopped by Office Max when we went to dinner. Office max copied them for a whopping 89 CENTS! They even gave me about half a dozen paperclips for free.

During our trip, Ohio received the remnants of Hurricane Gustav which combined with a cold front over Ohio. The result was hurricane force winds covering almost all of Ohio. As this occurred, I began receiving calls from tenants. When all was said and done, I had four properties damaged, thankfully none of them badly. One had some rolled roofing blown off a porch; two had some siding and shingles blown off; and one had a large tree down in the back yard. I was very fortunate that the tree fell parallel to the duplex, with the damage was limited to the edge of the roof and a fence that was smashed. All in all, not too bad, especially when compared to all the damage in Texas. We had about 2 million people without power in Ohio due to the storm, but most of my tenants had their power back on within a day and a half.

We got home yesterday about 1pm and I spent most of the remainder of the day checking all of my rentals for storm damage. I also had to re-initialize the remote viewing capability of my surveillance camera system at the Pink Elephant because the cable and power had been out. The surveillance system was working but the IP address for my remote viewing had been altered and that had to be taken care of.

Today, I did several small jobs, including signing leases for two apartments; fixing two minor water leaks; fixing a broken toilet; trashed out a basement; and steam cleaning the carpet in one apartment. Tomorrow morning, I'm planning to paint one bathroom and hopefully cut up the tree that fell in the back yard of my duplex.

Then, in the afternoon, we're going camping! We'll be gone Friday through Monday on another 4 day weekend. It should be a lot of fun with the beautiful fall weather coming to Ohio. I'm looking forward to some great mountain biking and a lot of good fellowship with some friends from church.

That's about it. We're caught up. I probably won't post while were at the campground. The campground is still out of power (due to Gustav) and I'd bet that the internet access is out also. We won't have to worry about electric - our Motorhome has a 6.5 KW Generator, but we don't have an independent source of internet access.

Have a good weekend!

I have a very good record passing my Section 8 inspections. In fact, the inspectors have told me that I am one of the few landlords that frequently passes the inspection the first time. I am proud of that fact and do my best to pass them all the first time.

I had a Section 8 inspection this morning on my 6 bedroom house. This is a very nice house and I didn't anticipate any problems. As we walked through the house, everything was looking good until we walked into the downstairs bathroom. The inspector asked where the exhaust fan was and of course the answer was that there wasn't one!!! It hadn't even occurred to me that the downstairs bathroom didn't have a window or an exhaust fan (one of which is required). The upstairs bathroom has a fan, but both bathrooms need one. So, the short story is that I failed the inspection. The only good news is that the inspector said that he would be back in the area in a few days and he will be happy to re-inspect it at that time.

I had an eviction this morning at 9:15 am. Just like last month, the tenant didn't show up for the eviction trial and therefore was evicted. Strangely, exactly like last month, the tenant showed up about 15 minutes late as I was leaving the courtroom! That is EXACTLY why these people ARE tenants - because they simply can't get their act together. They spend the rent money on something other than rent. They can't drag their butt out of bed in the morning even if something urgent (like a court hearing or a job) is on the agenda. They just can't force themselves to be responsible!

After court, I had to call tech support for my surveillance camera system. While I was trying to copy a little criminal incident yesterday from the camera system's DVR to a DVD, the DVR apparently decided that it didn't have a hard drive (even though I paid good money to have a 500 GB hard drive installed in the system). After about 5 minutes, the technician had my system up and running again.

Finally, I installed the door handle and trimmed out the door frame for a door in a new wall that I constructed. This wall turned a 2-bedroom house into a 3-bedroom house.

I haven't decided (or even given much thought to) what I'm going to do tomorrow. I'm sure that there is something to do. One of my priorities tomorrow is to do a little more work on my mountain bike. The back rim appears to be bent from one too many close enounter with a rock or tree root, and I need to take a look at that.

I'm a little behind on my posting again, so I'll use this post to catch up.

Last Thursday and Friday, I caught up on several smaller projects. One was what I thought was a clogged sink drain, but ended up being a clogged main sewer drain in one of my apartment buildings. I ended up having my plumber bring in his big electric snake to clean the main drain. It seems that this particular apartment building needs this drain cleaned about once a year. I also finished up the rehab on one of my one bedroom houses. That entailed steam cleaning the carpet, hanging miniblinds, and a lot of cleaning. Another unit ready to rent.

As I was finishing up collecting the rents on Thursday, I had an interesting situation occur. I was standing on the porch at one of my duplexes talking to one of my tenants. I noticed a scruffy guy that looked like a druggie walk to the duplex next door, which is occupied by a known drug dealer that is being setout (evicted) next Tuesday. Suddenly, I heard some glass break and my tenant pointed to the guy who was breaking the windows. I called the police. By the time the police arrived 15 minutes later, the druggie was gone. However, a couple of minutes later, I saw this idiot casually walking down the street about a block away. I called the police again and this time I followed the guy, continually giving the police his location. About three blocks away, the police finally stopped the guy. He had drugs in his pocket; a big wad of cash; and some items in a bag that appeared to be stolen property. I identified the guy as the criminal who had broken the window and the police arrested him and took him to jail. I'll let the other landlord know who did it, so that she might be able to get restitution when this loser goes to trial.

On Friday, I took 3-day eviction notices to the tenants who had not yet paid - SIX OF THEM! One of these tenants just moved into one of my 1-bedroom apartments last month. When I knocked on his door, it opened. There was nothing in the apartment. No food, no clothes, no furniture - nothing. The key was on the kitchen counter. Therefore, I considered this apartment to be abandoned in the absence of rent. Since I had another applicant looking for a one-bedroom, I changed the locks and signed a lease with the new tenant. That's the kind of turnaround that I really like - change the locks, sign a new lease, and I'm done!

I'm expecting the other tenants to pay by Tuesday with the $50 late fee (the final day of the 3-day notice period). If not, I'll file the evictions on Wednesday.

Yesterday (Saturday), I went mountain biking with a friend from Church. The course was wet and slippery, which made it quite challenging. We had a great time and got home in time to see the end of the Ohio State game. After the game, I worked on my bike. It has taken quite a beating this summer during all these mountain biking trips. The pedals are bent from hitting roots and rocks; the brakes were out of adjustment (hopefully fixed); and the front derailler isn't quite right. I may need to take the bike to the shop for a tune-up.

Today, in addition to church, I'll be taking another bike ride (concentrating on the hills).

There we are - caught up! I'll try to do better with the posting next week.

Today's primary goal was to pass the yearly Section 8 inspection on one of my 3 bedroom houses. The tenant is a single mother with 5 kids (all very young) and of course children under 6. Having children under age 6 means that the paint must pass the Section 8 inspection, which is always the most difficult aspect of a Section 8 inspection. The way I normally handle things is to check the rental the day before the Section 8 inspection, so that any items that need attention can be fixed. My quick check of the unit yesterday uncovered one broken window; one missing light switch cover; one hole in the wall; some spots where the paint needed attention; and two loose window panes in the basement.

The inspection was scheduled for 2pm - 4pm today, so I went to the house at about 12:30 pm. First, I installed new glass in the broken window. Then, I caulked the loose window panes in the basement. Third on the priority list was to replace the missing switch cover. Next was patching the hole in the wall. Finally, I went around the house and touched up any paint that needed it, concentrating on the window frame areas. I was finished by 1:45 pm and just about that time the Section 8 inspector arrived. He was a little early, but I was ready. The unit passed with flying colors.

After the inspection, I collected several rents and then trashed out the basement of one of our 3 bedroom duplexes. That was enough for one day.

We had a great time this weekend. I took Friday and Monday off so that my wife and I could have another 4- day weekend for camping. This time, we went to Ceasar's Creek State Park, near Wilmington, Ohio. Being my first time at this campground, I wasn't sure what to expect. However, I can report that it is an EXCELLENT campground with a beautiful lake, spectacular scenery, and very challenging mountain biking courses. It was a fantastic long weekend with good food, great friends and a lot of action packed fun.

Of particular note was our second day of mountain biking. Ceasar's creek has an elaborate system of mountain biking trails, stretching for many miles. Most of the course is intermediate and advanced in difficulty. On the second day of our mountain biking, we decided to do the entire course. It was a challenging course with a lot of steep climbs and descents. Everything was going fine for the first hour and a half. We had just completed the advanced portion of the course without any significant difficulty (other than my partner taking one fall) and thought that we were about half way back to the campground. As we arrived at the intersection of two trails, we realized that we had somehow gone around the advanced course again and were STILL ON THE ADVANCED COURSE! We were MANY miles from the campground. I was out of water. My partner was almost out of water. We were getting VERY TIRED and obviously lost. Certainly not time to declare an emergency, but still an uncomfortable situation.

Fortunately, while we were contemplating our situation, a lone biker arrived at our location. This was somewhat amazing, as he was the only other biker we saw on the entire course that day! He was a local guy who knew exactly where we were, and he volunteered to ride with us to the intersection of the next trailhead. By the time we finally arrived at the next trail head, we had already been riding for more than 2 hours and had ridden at least 20 miles on very challenging trails. We were both out of water and extremely tired. It was obvious that we couldn't ride the course back to the campground. We decided to exit the course and head back to the campground via some nearby rural roads.

As we made our way onto a country road, there was a man sitting on his porch. We stopped at his house to ask for water. The man was very kind and filled our water bottles with cold water from his refrigerator. I was certainly happy to have some fresh water and that water allowed us to continue back to the campground. By the time we finally arrived, we had been riding for nearly three hours and we were both literally exhausted. We were both close to being physically sick. After eating a light lunch and taking a two hour nap, I started to recover and was feeling better. By the next morning, I was feeling well enough for another 10 mile ride.

This incident teaches a valuable lesson that can be applied to just about every facet of life (including real estate). This lesson is one that I learned in the military; one that I know well; and one that I have applied in almost every other situation. In fact, I am a little embarassed that I didn't apply this lesson to my mountain biking when it was so obviously needed. Of course, the lesson is to be prepared! In the military, they expressed this to me (over and over again) as the Seven P's: Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. In the case of our mountain biking trip, our lack of planning certainly did result in piss poor performance.

So, I have vowed that I will apply the lesson learned by this experience into my future mountain biking trips (including this coming weekend). From now on, I will carry my camelback (additional water), a powerbar or something else to eat; a small first aid kit, and some sort of navigation device (either a compass or a small GPS. I also will re-evaluate the tools that I am carrying. I am already religiously wearing my helmet, but am considering wearing some sort of glasses or sport goggles for eye protection.

This has already been a long post, so I'm not going to opine how this applies to real estate - I think you get the point.

Speaking of real estate, I was back to work today. I spent the day collecting rent; fixing two showers; mowing the yards at two apartment buildings; and inspecting one property in advance of tomorrow's Section 8 inspection.