The storm damage continues to increase, even though the big ice storm has been over for a couple of days. Last evening, I received a call from a neighbor of one of my other properties to report that one of my trees had fallen on his shed and was pulling down his electric line (and his lights were flickering). Obviously, if the tree was pulling down the electric line, I wasn't going to touch it! Therefore, I told him that I would stop over today to see if there was anything I could do.

When I got up this morning, the temperature was ZERO DEGREES! Therefore, I decided that I would stay home until about noon to allow the temperature to warm up. Just before noon, I went to the bank to deposit a couple of rents that I collected yesterday (early). Next, I stopped at my last available apartment to show it to an applicant. As it turned out, I recognized this woman as a druggie and I won't be renting to her!

Attempting to remove the ice from the sidewalks at the Pink Elephant was my next effort. I made some progress on that, but it's still a mess as the ice is over 1 inch thick. The temperature here tomorrow is expected to be in the 40's and I'm hoping that will help get rid of the rest of it.

My final project today was to go check out the damage that the neighbor had called me about last night. As it turned out, the tree was severely leaning but had not fallen. Limbs were touching his shed but had not fallen on it or damaged it. The lines that were being stretched were the phone and cable lines. The power line was untouched and his flickering lights were probably a product of his imagination. While I was there, I did remove a bunch of limbs to lighten the leaning tree and that was that.

I almost made it home when I received a call from a tenant at one of my triplexes. He reported that he heard a loud bang and that the rain gutter on the front of the building had collapsed and was hanging just above the front door. I turned the truck around and went directly to the triplex. Sure enough, a section of gutter about 15 feet long was hanging vertically. This is a very tall building and the bottom part of the gutter was still at least 10 feet from the ground. This is a continuous gutter and the other 30 feet of the gutter was still attached to the building and looked to be firmly attached. The hanging section of the gutter was completely filled with ice as were all the other gutters on the house. With the sidewalk and the roof covered with more than an inch of ice, there was absolutely nothing I could do about the hanging gutter, so I went home. On the way home, I contacted a local contractor that I use to do all the high work on my buildings. I don't like to work that high and this is one of the few things I use contractors for.

I arrived home from my trip last evening. All in all, it was a nice trip. My wife had a good time at her conference and we had some fun time also. My wife and I ended up seeing Gran Torino on Wednesday night. It was a good movie, but I would have enjoyed it more if Clint Eastwood would have done more shooting!

One of readers of this blog, Robin, suggested that I see Defiance. I saw it yesterday afternoon while my wife was at the conference and it was an excellent movie. It is the true story of the Russian resistance during WWII. Lots of action and a great story! I highly recommend it.

I spent today catching up from the days I was gone. I spent the morning paying bills and this afternoon, I cut up one of the many trees that fell due to the ice storm. Today's project was cutting up and removing my tree limbs that fell in a neighbor's yard at one of my duplexes. Fortunately, the limbs didn't do too much damage, although they did knock down all her utility lines and damaged a couple of boards in her privacy fence. I spent about an hour and a half cutting up the limbs and removing them. I'll pick up a couple of fence boards tomorrow to fix her fence.

After I finished with the fence, I worked on the ice covered sidewalks at the Pink Elephant. Fortunately, the ice is very rough (and about 1 1/2 inches thick) and not very slippery. I've treated them three times with ice melt and was able to get part of the ice broken up and shoveled.

Tomorrow, I've got another tree to cut up and some more ice to work on. I also need to decide which unit I will rehab next. With only one rental available, I need to get moving on the last couple of un-rehabbed units I have left to do.

I'm still on the road with my wife at her conference. Today, I would just like to provide an update on my long distance landlording experience. As anyone knows that has watched TV the past few days, we had a significant (once a year) winter storm go through the area. The storm dumped a few inches of snow, followed by an inch of solid ice, followed by another 4 inches of snow. The roads yesterday were a disaster with parts of the interstate shut down and accidents just about everywhere. Electricity was out in many areas; power lines were down; trees and limbs fell due to the weight of the ice; and businesses were closed. It was a mess.

I received two calls from people yesterday regarding the storm, both to report downed tree limbs. One of these calls was from a tenant at one of my apartment buildings, where several large tree limbs were down. No one was injured and no damage occurred at that building. The other call I received was from a neighbor of one of my duplexes. She reported that a large part of one of my trees had fallen, pulling down her phone and cable lines and damaging her privacy fence. I told her that I was out of town, but would clean up the tree on Friday and replace the damaged section of the fence. As I've said before, I don't like trees on rental properties and will work again this summer to have as many cut down as possible.

I'm practicing my long distance landlording skills while I'm on the road this week with my wife. She has a business conference for her business and I'm taking a little mini-vacation just to relax as she attends her conference. Unfortunately, the weather in the midwest is HORRIBLE! Today started with about 5 inches of snow and now we're receiving freezing rain. That's cutting down on my fun a little, but I'll still have a very relaxing few days.

Just for fun, I thought I would provide a running commentary of my long distance landlording experience as the week progresses. My trip essentially started on Sunday as I left to attend the Ohio State vs. Michigan State basketball game at the Ohio State University in Columbus. I didn't receive a single call from a tenant on Sunday, so my little adventure started uneventfully. My wife and I actually left for her conference yesterday and just like Sunday, I didn't receive a single call from a tenant.

My first long distance landlording call came this afternoon when I received a call from one of my tenants, who lives in half of a duplex. The tenant was calling to report that her water heater wasn't working. This is a gas water heater and they don't fail very often. As I started questioning her about the water heater, she asked if I would look at the gas furnace while I was there. She said that there was something wrong with the furnace. Now that could be a serious problem that would warrant me calling a HVAC company for an emergency repair, especially with the current lows in the single digits! However, I was now getting very suspicious. It might be possible for a water heater to go bad or a gas furnace to go bad, but for both to happen simultaneously sounds mighty fishy. I asked if the temperature in the apartment was like 15 degrees, as that's the outside air temperature today. She said no, that she had been using electric heaters for a while. I can tell you for a fact that when the furnace fails, tenants do NOT go out and buy electric heaters and use them for "a while" before calling the landlord. GOTTCHA! At that point, the puzzle was solved. I asked her if her gas had been shut off. She admitted that she was behind on her gas bill, but denied but that it was shut off. OF COURSE IT WAS! I told the tenant that I would look at it Friday when I get home. Stupidity on the part of the tenant does not constitute an emergency on my part! All that I'm going to find on Friday is that the gas is shut off, but then again, she already knows that. If I had a dollar for everytime a tenant has pulled this crap...

That's the extent of my long distance landlording experience to date. However, there are still two more full days that I'll be gone until I return home. I'll keep you posted on any further incidents. With Ohio getting freezing rain today, there could easily be more problems!

Due to the weather today, I didn't do much. I went to Barnes and Noble and bought a new book to read. My choice was "The Great Contraction, 1929-1933" and is obviously about the great depression. I'll let you know what I think of it.

In addition, as I was out scouting the area, I found a Batteries Plus and bought a new laptop battery. I'm hoping this one will charge. I bought the last one off the internet and it wouldn't charge.

Tomorrow, I'm planning to go to the movies while my wife is at her conference. I'm thinking of seeing Gran Torino - have you seen it? What did you think?

I am happy to report that all of our houses are now rented! In addition, all of our two and three bedroom apartments are rented and the only thing I have left is a single one-bedroom apartment! That doesn't happen very often, but just shows the growing demand for rentals, due in large part to the poor economy and high number of foreclosures.

I'm currently working on rehabbing the few remaining units that I bypassed during our rapid expansion of the past 5 years. I've just about finished the rehab on a one-bedroom apartment and will be working on another one-bedroom after that. The next one is an apartment that I was using for storage prior to setting up the storefront at the pink elephant as my centralized storage facility.

I will consider my business to be stabilized once these few remaining units are complete. At that point, I'll take a look at the numbers I'm achieving and the hours I'm working and decide if purchasing any further units are warranted. My goal is to reach a balance between generating the money that allows me to live the lifestyle I desire and work few enough hours each week to be semi-retired.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished! I know that, and yet I did a good deed for one of my tenants today anyway. I'm now awaiting the inevitable punishment.

This tenant has been quite ill and has been in the hospital and nursing home for nearly 2 months. She nearly died from a severe bout of pneumonia and the complications that occurred as a result of that. She is now so weak and has so much lung damage, that she is barely able to walk and can't even climb a single step safely. There is one step at her apartment and I built a ramp to allow her to be mobile with a walker. In addition, she needed her couch elevated to make it easier for her to get up from the couch, so I built some platforms to elevate each leg of the couch several inches.

I also received a call from one of my tenants today about a leaking sink. This should have been a 5 minute repair, but ended up being a 45 minute pain in the butt. The sink was leaking from the top of the tail piece just under the sink. I tried tightening up the washer that holds the rubber gasket against the bottom of the sink. That SHOULD have fixed it, but didn't. I took it completely apart; put new plumber's putty under the lip of the drain piece; and reinstalled the tailpiece - all to no avail. In fact, after I did all that, it was leaking worse than before.

So, I went to my storeroom and picked up an entirely new tailpiece. Back at the apartment, I had it installed in a few minutes and it was finally right - NO LEAKS!

Finally, I did a little painting at one of my one bedroom apartments. That was it for today!

I caught a druggie on my security cameras slinking around my property a couple of days ago. This guy is the same homeless druggie that stole a bicycle from one of my tenants several months ago. When I saw him, he was on the sidewalk by my apartment building with his grocery cart full of his belongings. He has been barred from my property and I will have him arrested for criminal tresspass if I seem him actually on the property. The problem was that he left his shopping cart full of clothes in front of my building, which was an eyesore and certainly not the image I'm trying to project.

I took his cart to the edge of my property and put it with the trash cans. The next day, he took his belongings out of the cart and put it on the porch of a house a couple of doors down, leaving me the cart. I am simply not going to put up with riff-raff hanging around my property. I've spent a lot of time and effort cleaning up the area and I'm not going to allow it to be taken over by losers.

As I was at the building to pick up supplies today, I saw this druggie walking down the sidewalk. I told him in no uncertain terms that I will not permit him to be on the property and that I will aggressively have him prosecuted if I see any evidence of illegal activity from him in the area. I advised him to go elsewhere and avoid the area. As part of my efforts, I also had a lengthy conversation with a local police officer about the issue and he agreed to keep an eye on the area and on this particular criminal.

My projects today started with re-connecting the water lines in the two bedroom house that I rented a couple of days ago. As each house goes vacant, I've been installing a Sharkbite quick disconnect fitting in the main water line just after the water line enters the house. That allows me to quickly disconnect the water line if the house becomes vacant during the winter. That permits draining all the water from the lines and allows me to leave the heat off without fear of having frozen water lines.

My next project was fixing several small maintenance issues at a two-bedroom house that I recently rented. The repairs included installing a new shower head; fixing a sink stopper; installing two new faucets for the clothes washer; fixing a leaking sink; and repairing a loose window pane. This all went uncharacteristically smoothly and I finished all of these items in about an hour.

My final project of the day was to visit one of my tenants in a nursing home where she is finishing a long rehab after having nearly died from a very serious pneumonia. She needs a ramp installed and she needs the couch elevated about 4 inches. She is still extremely weak and will have a difficult time getting up the step and getting out of the low-sitting couch. So, I met her at the nursing home to discuss installing the ramp and elevating the couch for her. A member of the rehab staff met with us to discuss the dimensions of the ramp. I'm planning to build the ramp tomorrow.

That was it for the day and I was home by 3pm. I also played my new James Bond Quantum of Solace game some more this afternoon and evening and made it through the Science Center level. I really like that game and highly recommend it.

I'm hoping to get a few more things done this week, because I'm planning to be gone on a little trip with my wife for 5 days starting Sunday.

I had a slow day today. In fact, I spent much of the day playing my new James Bond (Quantum of Solace) video game. I finally made it past the roof top chase and am now working on the snipers at the stadium. Intersperced with that, I did manage to watch the inauguration, pay a few bills, go to the bank, and sign the lease on a two-bedroom apartment. This was an apartment that I took a deposit on about a week ago and I still have one two-bedroom apartment left.

I did spend about two hours in town late this afternoon (after I got bored playing video games). I did some painting and checked the remaining vacant units to be sure the water wasn't frozen. Fortunately, everything was OK!

One tenant called with a few very minor maintenance issues and I will fix them (and post about them) tomorrow.

Things are definitely picking up, despite it being the middle of winter and extremely cold here in Ohio. Today, I signed the lease and received the money for my last available 3-bedroom house. I also have a Section 8 tenant approved for my last 2-bedroom house and hope that he will be moving in later this week. I have been out of one bedroom houses for a couple of months. So, hopefully, by the end of the week, I won't have a single house available for rent.

I still have a little more work to do on the apartment front. While I've been out of 3-bedroom apartments for months, I currently have one 2-bedroom apartment and two 1-bedroom apartments available.

On the maintenance side, I repaired a bathtub faucet in a 3-bedroom apartment and installed a gas heater in one of my 1-bedroom apartments.

That was enough for today. I got home early (about 2:30 pm) and spent some time with my new James Bond game (Quantum of Solace) on the Wii. I have one of those Zappers which makes the game really cool!

Yesterday, I had a Section 8 tenant fill out an application and give me his "Request for Tenancy". I screened the applicant this morning (all ok) and took his paperwork to the local Section 8 office. Late this afternoon, I received a call from the local Section 8 director asking if they could do the inspection tomorrow. That's great, because it will allow me to start getting paid for the property. However, the house needs a new water heater and I'll have to do that tomorrow morning before the inspection. It currently has a gas water heater, but I'll be replacing it with an electric one. I also have a ceiling light to install.

Today, I showed a couple of rentals to prospective tenants and continued my waterline replacement project in one of my 3 bedroom duplexes. I have now completed my work on the cold water portion of the waterlines. Sometime in the next few days, I'll do the hot water side. As usual, I'm replacing the old copper and galvanized water lines with PEX. The PEX offers many advantages in that it won't corrode and won't break when frozen.

The temperature here tonight will be below zero, and I'm hoping that I won't have any frozen water lines to fix tomorrow (or worse yet, tonight)!

As I was driving into town at about noon today, I received a call from one of my Section 8 tenants. She said that they were nearly "frozen to death". Since that sounded pretty serious, I told her that I would be right over, I certainly don't want to have any tenants die from the cold. I knocked on the door and was surprised when the female tenant (the one that called) was wearing shorts and a short-sleeve shirt. I asked her what the problem was and she said that the kitchen was so cold that the water in her washing machine was frozen and that it was "ice cold" in the bedrooms upstairs.

Now I'm no newbie when it comes to operating rentals during the winter. I know that EVERY year tenants call to complain about the cold and about their utility bills. During the winter, I always carry two thermometers in my truck. So, I told her that we would put a thermometer in each room to see what the temperature actually is. Within a couple of minutes, the thermometer in the kitchen read 68 degrees and the one upstairs read nearly 70 degrees! Hardly cold enough to "freeze to death". As I did a little more looking, I determined that the tenants had placed things over the registers in both rooms. So, I instructed the tenants to uncover the registers and expressed my sincere belief that they would indeed survive!

Never underestimate a tenant's ability to exaggerate and be dramatic!!!

Freezing drizzle, wind, snow flurries, clouds, and cold - those are a good description of our weather today. In fact, it was an absolutely miserable and gloomy day here in Ohio today. I had intended to do some work on rentals, but after hearing the cold wind howl and seeing the gloomy weather, I decided to take it easy today. As a confirmed political junky, it was a good day to stay home. I watched the Hillary Clinton confirmation hearings, which were quite interesting. A big topic at the hearings was the money that Bill Clinton has made, especially from foreign governments. I knew that Bill Clinton had made a lot of money with his overseas speeches and consulting, but today I heard that the number might be $500 MILLION! WOW! I think we're all in the wrong business. Where do I sign up to give speeches to the Saudis?

Late this afternoon, I decided to go to K-mart to buy a new cellphone case. My old one lasted all of one month before falling completely apart. I bought it at WalMart, so I decided to see if K-mart would have a better one. While at K-mart, I hit the discount jackpot by finding a pair of very nice hiking boots for $15 on a clearance table! I felt like I had found a $100K house for $10K! That's one thing that real estate has taught me. Whether I'm shopping for a rental property, a car, or a pair of shoes, I want to buy at a HUGE DISCOUNT! In addition, I have learned that sometimes a deal appears even when you're not looking for one and you need to be prepared to take advantage of it. You can always do better than retail with a little effort!

While I was getting my stuff at K-mart, I received two calls from people that wanted to look at 2 different houses. So, since I was already in town, I agreed to show them the houses. They both seemed interested, but neither put down any money. I'd like to get them rented and based on the number of calls I'm receiving, I feel confident that I'll have them rented soon.

On the way home, I also stopped by the duplex where I fixed the front stairs yesterday to pick up the cones that I left.

I'm planning to actually get something done tomorrow. No more goofing around!

I had a great day snowboarding on Sunday. We went to Snow Trails right here in Ohio and the conditions were good. They had about 6 inches of real snow on Saturday and had done a good job grooming it. I particularly enjoyed the terrain park, or at least I enjoyed it right up until the moment I fell off a rail and about busted my butt (literally)! (OUCH!) I guess a day at the terrain park wouldn't be any fun without a few bruises.

Yesterday, Monday, I did a few little odd jobs on my rentals. I fixed some air leaks (cold air leaking around the door, etc) at one apartment and a leaking shower drain at another. I also put some vinyl concrete patch material on some steps while the weather was above freezing. Between doing these jobs, I showed 3 rentals and actually got one rented (complete with money)!

One of the applicants was a trio of young (20 something) people from Florida, two men and a woman. The looked at and wanted to rent my only remaining vacant 3 bedroom house. I explained our screening process to them and told them that the application fee was non-refundable. They took an application and said that they were going to the bank to get the application fee. This trio looked ok, but I still had an uneasy feeling about them. A little while later, the woman called and said that she had the application filled out and the money for the application fee. She also said that one of the men had decided to get his own place and wouldn't be applying! BINGO! I immediately knew what they were trying to pull! I told her that I understood that this man wouldn't be living with them, but I woud still be screening him since she originally told me that he would be living there. There was momentary silence on the line. So, I asked her if the truth was that the man couldn't pass the screening and she verified that he had indeed been recently evicted. What they were now doing was using her name to get an apartment and I would likely need to evict them also! Obviously, I told them that they were DENIED!

Here's an update on the arson/break-in situation that I reported on a couple of days ago. The police did catch and arrest the criminal. Evidently, this has become a relatively big deal in my area. I have received telephone calls from a police officer, a detective, and the arson investigator about the incident and I have now taken a copy of the security camera video to the arson investigator and the police. The police say that they are planning to charge the criminal with multiple counts, including at least one felony count, and are hoping to send him to prison for several years. Let's hope so!

All landlords know that you don't receive a lot of calls in the morning (at least til about 10am). Tenants that work day shift are busy working and tenants that don't work (far too many) are busy sleeping. When I got a phone call this morning at about 7:30 am, I knew that probably wasn't a good thing. The caller was a long time Section 8 tenant in one of my low income apartment buildings. She was calling to tell me that someone tried to break into her apartment at about 4am this morning. She said that there was some damage to her door and that the police wanted me to check our security camera video to see if we could identify the culprit. Since this wasn't an emergency, I told her that I would be there around 10 am.

When I arrived a little before 10 am, I went straight to my apartment building next door, where our security camera system is located. This particular security camera system covers both buildings. As I approached the door to the storeroom where the security camera system is located, I immediately noticed that something was wrong. There were scrape marks on the door frame; the door knob was dented; and the plastic trim piece on the padlock was missing. Someone had clearly tried to break into my storeroom also. Upon entering the storeroom, I started to burn a DVD of the camera footage from the night before.

While the DVD was being burned, I went next door to talk to the tenant. The door trim had been taken off the door by the criminal and there were tool marks on the door where the criminal had attempted to gain entry. There was also a shoe print on the door where it had obviously been kicked. I repaired the door and told the tenant that I would contact the police with the camera video after I had a chance to review it.

It's easiest to review the camera video on my laptop, so I grabbed the DVD and prepared to go home to get look at it on my laptop. As I was getting to my truck, I saw a man walking on the sidewalk wearing a badge around his neck (like a detective). I asked him if I could help him find someone and he asked who owned the building with the security cameras. I asked him who he was and he said that he was the investigator with the fire department. The building next door to mine had been the victim of an arson fire last night. I told him that I owned the building with the cameras and that there had been break-in attempts at both of my apartment buildings last night also. That couldn't be a coincidence, crimes at three buildings in a row in an area where there hasn't been any significant crime (at least since I put in the security camera system). I also discovered that 2 bicycles had been stolen from my building last night. I explained to the investigator that I had the camera video on DVD and was going home to look at it. I told him that I would call him with the result.

I went home to watch the video and have an early lunch. What I saw was shocking. A well-known criminal from the area was responsible for this mini-crime spree. I instantly knew the identity of the criminal. I had encountered this loser many times before. However, what was surprising was the extent of this criminal's activities the night before. The video caught him attempting to break into 6 apartments; attempting to break into my storeroom; and walking to the building next door at exactly the time that the fire was set. BUSTED!

I called the fire inspector and told him that I would bring the DVD down during the afternoon and I intended to call the police about getting them the video also.

My intention for the afternoon had originally been to replace an old corroded galvanized water line that was supplying one of the water tanks in the same building that had been broken into. So, one the way back into town, I stopped at the plumbing supply store to get the parts. I dropped off the video at the fire station and went back to the apartment building to start working on the water line. No sooner had I arrived at the building, my phone rang. It was a tenant at my apartment building next door. The criminal that had been on the crime spree the night before was there and in a confrontation with one of my tenants who caught him with her stolen bike. He was threatening my tenant with the same hammer that he used the night before to strike my door knob and pad lock. Needless to say, I immediately called the police, as did some of the tenants. Within a few minutes there were two police cruisers on the scene. The criminal had fled the scene, but I had the opportunity to show the officer the video. The officer said that based on the video, they would attempt to arrest the criminal and they asked me to take a copy of the video to the police station in the next couple of days.

After all the excitement settled down, I went next door and replaced the water line. That was enough for one day and I headed for home.

Tomorrow, my wife and I are going snowboarding!

The weather in Ohio was very cold and dreary today and I just wasn't motivated to do much. I originally planned to do a little work at about 10 am, but I just couldn't get going. By the time noon came, I had pretty much given up on doing anything significant. About that time, I received a call from a couple that wanted to look at one of my 3 bedroom houses. I went to the bank and post office and then I showed the house to the couple that called. They said that they would have the money on Monday, but I'm not holding my breath. As you may recall, I showed four units to applicants yesterday and I haven't received a single penny from any of them yet, even though all of them wanted the rentals. Needless to say, I won't hold any properties until I have cash in hand!

The only maintenance item I did today was to fix a leaking drain line in the basement of one of my apartment buildings. That was literally a 10 minute fix and then I headed home.

My day started with a call from one of the tenants. He reported that his furnace had gone out and that they were "freezing". I made that my first stop this morning and I took a look at the furnace, even though I am not a furnace expert. I checked that all the wires were intact; that the overtemperature switch was working; and everything else I could think to check. I discovered that the furnace motor was not working, although the motor switch seemed to be ok. Therefore, since I wasn't sure exactly what was wrong, I called my HVAC guy and he agreed to meet me at the property later in the morning.

Stop number two was at one of my 2 bedroom apartments - to show it to an applicant. The woman liked the apartment and said she would take it, but I never believe it until I receive the money.

Stop number three was at one of my 2 bedroom houses to show it to an applicant. This woman liked the house and also said that she would take it. I had already screened this woman and her husband about a week ago, but without money, it's far from a done deal.

My fourth stop was at a duplex that had frozen water lines in the basement during the last 5 degree day. I installed those insulating sleeves on all of the water lines and we'll see how it does during the next cold weather this weekend.

Stop number 5 was at one of my 3 bedroom houses to show it to another applicant. This couple liked the house and said they will have the money by Saturday. Again, we'll see!

Stop number 6 was back at the house with the furnace problem. I met the HVAC guy and he quickly diagnosed the problem as a bad furnace motor (which is what I thought). Fortunately, he had one on the truck and within an hour, he had it installed and the furnace was once again working.

On a humerous note, the tenants in the apartment were wearing heavy winter coats and talking about how cold they were. According to the thermostat, the temperature never got below 63 degrees F! When I told them that my wife and I keep our house at 67 degrees all the time, they said that they keep their apartment at 75 to 80 degrees because of their pet lizards! These are Section 8 tenants whose rent is 100% paid by Section 8!

My final stop of the day was back at the 2 bedroom apartment that I showed eariler in the day. Another couple wanted to look at it. They liked it and said they will take it. So, I've got two people that say they will take the same apartment. Personally, I'm just hoping that one of them will follow through!

After waiting 3 hours at the Ford dealer for a job they said would take 1 hour, my truck is finally fixed. The heat is back on just in time for a resurgence of winter. However, I did discover a problem when I got home today - the mechanic only put enough antifreeze in my truck to protect to +5 degrees F. That would be fine except we ALWAYS have below zero temperatures here in Ohio during the winter. Is it any wonder that I do all the work on my rentals myself? A large percentage of people are just plain incompetent and I can't stand dealing with incompetence!!!

I'll have to drain some water out of the radiator and add some more antifreeze. Fortunately, my distrust of people caused me to check the antifreeze in the radiator before I have a cracked engine block! There are a few benefits to being a landlord - being skeptical is one of them.

After I finally got my truck back, I went to one of my 3 bedroom houses and steam cleaned the carpet. Next, I met a professional plumber at one of my 1 bedroom houses. The main drain line was clogged and there is a very large tree in the yard. My power snake only has a 3/8 inch cable, and is not a heavy enough machine to take care of tree roots. Now, that I know about this problem, I can put copper tree root killer in the drain a couple of times a year to keep it open.

The weather was just plain NASTY this morning. We had freezing rain and the roads rapidly became slippery. My wife needed to be somewhere at 9 am and didn't want to drive on the icy roads. I didn't particularly want to drive on the roads either, but I took her to the appointment anyway (it's always good to pickup a few brownie points when you can).

After that, I went to the bank and post office before meeting with my new tenant to sign the lease. We filled out all the paperwork and signed the lease, and then I went next door to the other half of the same duplex to work on the shower before the Section 8 inspection. I replaced this shower valve just a year ago and the tenant reported that it is only putting out warm water. When I installed the shower valve last year, I also replaced the water lines in the back of the shower with PEX and Sharkbite fittings. That made it easy to remove the lines today and check the water pressure in the lines. The hot water side appeared to have a little less pressure than the cold side, but certainly not to an extent that the water would only be warm. That meant that the problem must be in the valve, which is an anti-scauld valve. I took the valve completely apart and flushed it with water. After re-assembling it and reconnecting the water lines, the shower was putting out water that was much hotter.

Within a short period of time, the Section 8 inspector arrived and the duplex passed with flying colors! This was my second Section 8 inspection in two days and I was happy that both went so smoothly.

I was home by 1pm and that was it for today.

Today was a busy day for me. It was supposed to start with a woman moving into one of my 3 bedroom duplexes. I still had a few little things to finish before she moved in, so I started early today (at about 9am). I went to Lowes to pick up a few items and then went to the duplex. One of the items that I needed to do was install a GFCI outlet in the bathroom. The house had the strangest outlet that I have ever seen in this bathroom. It was a normal size outlet, but instead of having two spots to plug in appliances, this one had FOUR spots (obviously without grounds). I check it with a voltmeter and all four spots were hot. Very odd!

My next project was to change three miniblinds, but before I got that done, I received a call from a tenant a few blocks away who had a leak in her kitchen faucet.

I drove over to look at the leak and discovered that there was a small pinhole in the neck of the faucet. I made a quick trip to Lowes and picked up a new faucet and then went back to the unit (another duplex) to change the faucet. About 5 minutes later, I had the faucet changed and checked it for leaks. It was bone dry and I left to go back to the first duplex to change the miniblinds. Before I could even get back, the tenant with the leaky faucet called to say that there was water leaking badly under the sink. She said that she put a pan under the leak and had already had to empty it once (in the 5 minutes since I left). So, back to fix the new leak. Sure enough, the hose going up to the new faucet had developed a leak! What are the odds of that happening? So, I drove about 2 blocks to a nearby plumbing supply store and bought a stainless steel hose. A few minutes later I had the hose changed and was once again on my way to the apartment to change the miniblinds.

I changed the miniblinds; changed a couple of lightbulbs; and vacuumed a couple of drawers. That finished up the duplex.

My next stop was at one of my apartment buildings to show an apartment to a victim of domestic violence. Unfortunately, after talking with her, there was no way that she could afford the rent. Next, I walked to another apartment building to pick up the rent from a tenant who receives his money from a government payee. His rent is always paid on the 5th, because of the government payee, which is a day after my normal rent period. As I was doing that, I received a call from the tenant who was supposed to move in today and she rescheduled for tomorrow morning.

I could really tell that the holidays are over by the number of phone calls I received today. I received more phone calls just today than I've been receiving in an entire week during December.

My next stop was at one of my three bedroom houses for a Section 8 inspection. This is a very nice house and it easily passed the inspection.

Next was a trip to my local Ford dealer to have my truck looked at. My truck has been leaking antifreeze when the heater is turned on for the past few days. I looked for the leak and thought it might be coming from the top of the water pump, although the water pump isn't making any noise. I had planned on taking the truck in for service around the middle of the week, but the leak got very bad over the weekend and it obviously needed to be fixed ASAP. After about an hour in the shop, they discovered that the leak was coming from a small pipe just above the water pump. This pipe is just a simple tube with a flange, but it had to be ordered by the dealer. That little pipe is $233! OUCH! They'll have the pipe on Wednesday morning and I'll finally have it fixed.

My final stop of the day was at a duplex that will have a Section 8 inspection tomorrow. Everything looks good, except the tenant reported that the water coming from the shower isn't very hot. I took a look at that and determined that the hot water seems to be restricted to the shower only. I don't know if there is dirt and rust particles clogging the line or if the shower valve is misbehaving (it's about 6 months old). I'll look at it again tomorrow before the inspection, although that won't keep the unit from passing.

That was it for today!

Now that the holidays are over, we can finally get back to business! As I've said before, the rental business (and many other businesses) just absolutely die during the holidays (from Thanksgiving until after New Years). People are thinking about Christmas; buying presents; traveling to Grandma's house; parties; and other things not related to working. It's a nice time of the year from a social standpoint, but a very dull time from a business standpoint. Fortunately, that will end beginning Monday (January 5th) as people return to their normal routines.

Needless to say, I'm not immune to the Christmas holiday season. My wife and I attended several parties; bought Christmas presents; had a two day Christmas celebration; participated in the Christmas Cantada at church (no, I didn't sing); and even hosted a New Year's Eve party. We had a good time with family and friends, but now it's time to get back to business.

Since New Year's Day was the 1st, rent collections this month will be concentrated during a 3 day period (the 2nd through the 4th). For that reason, I will collect more rents on those days than is normally true. I collected a bunch of rents yesterday and also fixed a wobbly toilet and touched up the paint in a vacant 2 bedroom house. Today, I'm planning to take a deposit to the bank; collect more rents; and do a little preparation at one of my 3 bedroom houses for Monday's annual Section 8 inspection.

I've been slacking off during the holidays and haven't been posting my blog regularly. Now that the holidays are over, I'm planning to get back to posting on a regular basis.

I hope you have a happy and prosperous New Year!