I'm already in holiday mode. The fact is that in the rental business, not much happens between Thanksgiving and Christmas. People are busy scurrying around shopping for Christmas presents. The weather is cold in Ohio. People certainly aren't moving if they don't have to. Therefore, I typically go into slow motion and take a lot of time off during the Christmas season. This week has been the perfect example.

On Monday, I worked for about 2 hours doing a little maintenance. I checked the winterization status of the couple of vacant rentals I have; fixed a minor electrical problem; and patched some drywall. For December, Monday was a beautiful day with temperatures in the mid-50's. So, after my 2 hours of work, I decided to go to the gun club and do some shooting. I got a lot of practice in and had a good time.

On Tuesday, my new Lionfish arrived (via overnight shipping) for my 220 gallon aquarium. I decided that was a good reason to take the day off and that was exactly what I did. I spent about 3 hours acclimating my new fish to my aquarium and then practiced some timed shooting at the makeshift airsoft shooting range in my basement. I find the airsoft shooting to be very valuable training as it builds speed and accuracy; and the gun I use for the airsoft shooting is almost identical to my Glock.

Today, I was in court for the final hearing on a judgment I won against the last tenant I evicted. That only lasted about 1/2 hour and then I took the rest of the day off.

I am planning to do a little work tomorrow if I can get motivated. However, if anything more interesting comes up, I may take tomorrow off also.

When I was a child, my mother used to say "never talk to strangers." I guess I never was very good at taking instruction! Today was a good example. I was driving to one of my houses to do a little maintenance work. On the way, I drove by the only house that I now have vacant. As I glanced at the house, I noticed a stranger leaning up against the front of the house, fiddling with something in his hands. The guy looked a little "iffy" and I decided to stop and see what he was doing.

I got out of the truck and asked the guy if I could help him. He said "no, I'm waiting for someone". I responded that was fine, but he couldn't wait on our property (I never say "my" property, because I want to portray that I'm just the manager). The guy said that he was waiting for the person that lived in the house and said that he had just been talking to them a few minutes before. Since the house is vacant, I knew that he was lying. I asked him for the names of the occupants of the house and he said that he didn't know, but it was a Mexican and a woman. There aren't many Mexicans in this part of Ohio and almost every Mexican male that I have seen would be working during the day (as I was doing). I told the guy that there was no Mexican that lived at the house.

I asked the liar again what he was doing at the house and he said that his friends were working in the back of the house. I followed the guy around to the back, keeping a safe distance behind him. There was no-one at the back of the house and I told the guy to get off the property and stay off or I would have him arrested! He left the property and started walking down the street.

My next concern was that someone might have indeed broken into the house. I used my key to enter the house and carefully searched it. There was no-one in the house and no evidence that anyone had been in there.

As I exited the house, I saw a couple of guys that lived in the neighborhood. I asked them if they knew who the stranger was and they said that he had been slinking around their truck and camper a little while earlier. Obviously, this guy was up to no good. Clearly, mother knew what she was talking about - this stranger was definitely trouble. I asked the two neighborhood guys to call me if they saw him again and they said the would do so, as well as calling the police.

I'll try to keep an eye on the property for the next couple of days.

The economy is bad - I guess that's not a great revelation. One of the issues that has arisen due to the bad economy is that I'm seeing more tenants paying late (during the 3 day eviction notice period and with a late fee). This month was no different, and I had one tenant that paid me yesterday. When I was in town to pick up the rent, another tenant called to tell me that there was a bat in her house. I told her that I was already in town and that I would be happy to stop and remove the bat for her.

I'm an animal lover. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a wacko, leftist, PETA type animal lover that doesn't eat meat or wear leather, but an animal lover nonetheless. I can't say the same thing about tenants, but that's another story. Anyway, many tenants are afraid of bats and will kill them unless I go get them. So, I always like to go rescue the bats from the less-than-lovable tenants.

When I arrived at the house, I found the bat hanging from the living room curtains. That's a frequent occurrance in this part of the country. Bats that are hanging upside down normally won't fly or cause any other problems and can be easily moved into a box. Once I located the bat, I went back to my truck to find a box. As it turned out, the only box I had was a beaten up box that contained contractor size trash bags. It had been underneath some of my tool bags and was in bad condition. I taped the corners of the box back together and took it into the house to retrieve the bat. I placed the open box against the curtain just below the bat and used a small piece of cardboard to scrape the bat off the curtain and into the box.

As usual, the bat seemed perfectly content to be in the box. He didn't move or attempt to fly. I closed the lid and put the box on the floor in the front seat of my truck, because it was quite cold outside and I didn't want to freeze the little bat before I released him.

Since the bat had already found a way into the tenant's house, I didn't want to release him close to her house. I decided to release the bat at the state park, which is located very close to my house. My business in town being completed, the bat and I headed for home. About half way home, the bat apparently started to wake up (it was getting close to dark) and he started scratching at the inside of the box. I felt sorry for the little bat being trapped in the box, but we only had another few minutes remaining before we would reach the state park.

Just before I reached the Park, the bat finally stopped scratching and I assumed that he was settling down. Then, suddenly, just as I turned into the Park, I thought I saw something fly by my head. After thinking about for a second, I convinced myself that it was just one of the floaters I've had in my eye since my recent retina tear. This isn't the first time that I thought I saw something that wasn't there due to these floaters. So, I just kept driving as I was only another minute or so from the spot where I intended to release the bat. I'm sure that you can guess where this is headed. The bat had somehow gotten out of the box and was loose in the truck with me. At this point the bat flew right by my ear and landed on the seat beside me.

Although I love animals, I certainly don't have any desire to be locked in a pickup truck cab with a bat. I immediately stopped the truck and got out. I walked around to the passenger door and as I opened the door, out flew the bat. I'm sure that he was very happy to be free and I was equally happy that he would out of my truck.

After a two month hiatus, I'm back to blogging. For all of you who have sent e-mails wishing me well, let me say a hearty Thank You! I appreciate your concern.

My break from blogging started one evening, about two months ago, as I was cleaning the swimming pool. As I glanced into the water, it suddenly looked like a thousand gnats were swimming in the water. Obviously, gnats don't live in water. I looked away from the water and discovered that the "gnats" were still there. Within a few more seconds, the swarm of gnats had expanded to fill the entire field of vision in my left eye, only now there weren't a thousand gnats - now there were THOUSANDS OF GNATS. I was puzzled as to what could cause such a malady, so I decided to make my way back to the house. Within a very short period of time, things got much worse and there was a sudden influx of thick black liquid swirling around in my left eye. To top it all off, there were sudden flashes of light that looked like little lightning bolts. At that point, I decided that a trip to the emergency room was in order. That is how my adventure began.

After sitting for several hours in the emergency room, it was decided that I probably had a torn retina. Being a Saturday night, there was no opthamologist on duty, but the ER physician called one that was on-call and he scheduled an appointment to meet me at his office the next afternoon. After a detailed exam, the opthamologist determined that I had a retina that was torn in two places and that I had experienced a hemmorage as the retina tore (that was the thick black liquid floating around in my eye).

I felt sorry for the opthamologist who was wasting his Sunday afternoon to work on my eye (although I appreciated his sacrifice). It reminded me of the occassional times that I have had to fix some tenant problem on a weekend. As it turned out, about 2 1/2 hours of his Sunday afternoon would be spent examining my eye and then performing emergency laser surgery to "tack up" my retina - enough to get me through until the next day at which time I would see a retinal specialist. As I understand it, the surgery basically consists of using a laser to burn the retina, causing it to form scar tissue and thereby welding it to the rods and cones at the back of the eye. This prevents the vitreous humor, which is the liquid in the eye, from leaking behind the retina and causing a retinal detachment, which is a very serious problem that can cause blindness.

The following day, I met with the retinal specialist and had more surgery. While the first surgery on Sunday was relatively painless, the surgery on Monday was excruciating! I think the issue was that Monday's surgery included re-burning the previous day's burns to my retina and let me tell you - IT HURT! Within a few minutes of the surgery being completed, the pain was nearly unbearable. I took everything I could think of to lessen the pain and put an ice pack on my eye for a couple of hours. Although painful - it was certainly better than being blind - so I really didn't have anything to complain about.

The retinal specialist recommended that I not do much reading for the next 60 days, therefore I stopped blogging and all but stopped reading anything on the internet. Gradually, the sight in my left eye improved as the thousands of "gnats" slowly faded. The bigger problem was the thick black liquid (from the hemmorrhage) which was very slow to re-absorb into my eye and in fact is still not completely gone even today. At any rate, the danger of further retinal tears is now largely over and I can get back to participating on the internet and blogging.

Obviously, my rental business didn't stop just because of my eye problem. I really wasn't under any restriction during this period (other than limiting my reading) and I have continued to work on my rental business about 12-16 hours per week as usual.

During my break, I have also taken up competition shooting, which has been a lot of fun. I am now participating in various defensive type shooting sports including IDPA (International Defensive Pistol Association) and USPSA (Unites States Practial Shooting Association), both of which are very good practice for anyone that carries a concealed handgun. My goal is to practice a lot over the winter and to be competitive in matches starting in the spring.

That's about it. I'll be back to blogging about the rental property business with my next post.

I just got back from a very relaxing vacation on Topsail Island in North Carolina. For those of you that have never been to Topsail Island, it is a very quiet island with beautiful beaches. It is just about as far from being a tourist destination as a beach can be. There is no amusement park; no tourist type shows; and very few tourist shops. It was very relaxing, and except for a trip to visit the Battleship North Carolina, we didn't do any tourist activities.

However, little did I realize just how relaxing it was. Today as I returned to work on my rental business, I discovered that not only did I get a lot of relaxation on vacation, I actually got younger - A LOT YOUNGER! In fact, one rental applicant that I talked to today apparently thought I was born YESTERDAY! Talk about finding the fountain of youth! LOL!

Here's what happened. A woman called today wanting to see one of my two bedroom apartments. As always, I asked her who would be living there. She said it would be her mother; her mother's boyfriend; and she would occassionally stay there too, when she was in town. I was thinking "B.S."!!! Obviously, if the mother was actually going to live there, then she would have come to look at the apartment. So, I asked the woman why her mother wasn't here to look at it and she replied that her mother had C.O.P.D., which is a lung disease that makes breathing difficult. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out that a woman with severe breathing problems would not be able to climb a LONG flight of stairs to a second story apartment. Even though my vacation had been relaxing, I clearly wasn't born YESTERDAY!

Just for fun, I played along with the charade. I told the woman that I would need her to take an application to her mother and have her mother fill it out. And by the way, I would need a copy of all their driver's licenses in order to do their screening. We walked out to my truck and I gave the woman an application. She left.

Within 5 minutes, she was back. She asked if SHE could fill out the application and now claimed that she would be paying the rent for her mother. The crap was getting pretty deep and I didn't have my hip waders! Even so, I managed to keep a straight face. I told the woman that she could indeed fill out the application, but that I would still need the info for her mother and her mother's boyfriend, including their driver's licenses. With that she left again.

I quit work today about 1 pm and headed home. As I pulled into the driveway, the woman called me. She said that she had the application complete and wanted to meet me to give me the application. I asked her if she had copies of the driver's licenses for her mother and her mother's driver's licenses. She said that her mother and the boyfriend wouldn't be living there now - they had changed their mind! At this point even hip waders couldn't stay above the b.s. and I ended the game. I told the woman that I would not rent to her, her mother, or her mother's boyfriend and then I said goodbye!

As Paul Harvey used to say - 'and now the rest of the story'. When the woman came to look at the apartment, she brought 2 men with her. She looked iffy. Her boyfriend had tattooes all over his body and I judged him to be a druggie. The other man looked even worse - like a FREAK! From experience, I immediately knew that these were the scumbags that wanted to rent the apartment, probably with the mother and the mother's boyfriend. The woman claimed to have all the money with her to rent the apartment on the spot. That was additional confirmation that I did NOT want to rent to them. My theory is that these scumbags were being setout after being evicted. I'd bet good money that their current apartment is in the mother's name and if I had screened her, she would have an eviction on her record. I would also bet that the boyfriend had an extensive criminal record. Therefore, the only one left with a relatively clean record was the woman who came to look at the apartment. NO THANKS! I don't need any scumbags renting my apartment!

My morning started bright and early. Shortly after I woke up this morning, I sat down to watch the news and check my e-mail. My security camera views are always up in the background on my laptop and as I picked up my computer I noticed a convicted felon walk onto the property at one of my apartment buildings. This criminal is nothing but trouble and is barred from the property. I called the police and reported that the felon was trespassing (criminal trespassing) on my property and asked that an officer meet me at the building. I met the officer and gave a report. The criminal was about 2 buildings down and the officer gave him a citation for the criminal trespass charge. The officer also requested that I get a copy of the security camera video to him and I did so.

After this incident, since I was already in town, I decided to lay another room of carpet at one of my 3 bedroom houses. I got that done and then moved onto mowing grass. I mowed grass at 3 buildings and then called it quits for the day.

I had a very busy day today. It started with a trip to drop off my final 2008 tax information to my accountant (it's on extension). Next was a trip to the bank and post office. I moved in a new tenant yesterday, so I had to take the money to the bank.

After these preliminary tasks, I got started on applicance day, which consisted of putting appliances in two rentals. I know this sounds like a minor task that should have only taken a few minutes - but that wasn't the case.

The story all started a couple of weeks ago with the annual Section 8 inspection of a two bedroom apartment. As usual, the apartment passed the Section 8 inspection with flying colors. The problem started when the apartment was picked for a "quality control inspection", which is when Section 8 re-inspects the apartment to basically inspect the inspector. I've been picked for a lot of these quality control inspections and have always passed them. However, this time things took a turn for the worse. The unit failed the second inspection for two reasons: 1. the inspector said the oven didn't work and 2) the kitchen had a non-working refrigerator (which ended up being true). As it turned out, there was nothing wrong with the oven, except that the tenant had unplugged it. However, the stove was very old and ugly. I decided to just replace it, with a used stove from the used-appliance store ($65). This tenant had 2 refrigerators and a freezer in her apartment and has had this arrangement for several years. It is not my business how many appliances she has and I never questioned it (and don't honestly care). As it turns out, the refrigerator in the kitchen stopped working at some time in the past, leaving the tenant with a refrigerator in the bedroom and a deep freezer in the living room. The Section 8 inspector apparently questioned the tenant about the 2 refrigerators and freezer and found that one was inop.

The tenant is not in good shape and isn't capable of much physical activity. I had to move a bunch of furniture to get the old stove and refrigerator out and then move the new in. Of course, after doing that, I had to move all the furniture back. All in all, a 5 minute job ended up taking over an hour.

Next on the agenda was to put a (used) stove and refrigerator in the 3 bedroom house I'm finishing. Unlike the previous job, this literally took 5 minutes.

There was an armed bank robbery a couple of days ago in the area. The police released a description of the suspect and the get-away car today and I think I know who did it, so I called and talked to the police captain about my suspicions. To make a long story short, there is a convicted felon in the neighborhood near the pink elephant. The felon is on parole for robbery and he is associated with another scumbag that drives a car that matches the description of the get-away car. I offered to look at the bank's security camera system and the captain said that he would pass the info to the detective in charge of the case.

Enough for one day. More tomorrow.

Today was yet another day in court. The purpose of today's court appearance was to evict another deadbeat. The deadbeat in question is a 21 year old girl who only moved in one month ago. At the time of her move-in, she had no history of evictions and no criminal record. Now, she has both. Almost immediately after she moved in, she began hanging around with a convicted felon, who is out on parole and who lives down the street. In that short month, she's been arrested for disorderly conduct and has been involved in numerous thefts and fights. I did everything right on the screening and yet I still got this scumbag! UGH!

The eviction hearing was at 9am this morning and predictably, the scumbag didn't appear. It is almost impossible for scumbags to drag their butts out of bed to be in court by 9am! So, she was evicted and I immediately filed for the writ of possession. My guess is that I'll be throwing her stuff out by next Tuesday!

In addition to the eviction, I layed another room of carpet in one of my 3 bedroom houses and replaced a broken bathtub drain. All in all, not a bad day!

I'm back to work again, after taking a few days off last week. Today was all about getting my 3 bedroom house ready to rent. I'd like to have it ready to go for September 1st and I'm getting a lot of calls about it. The big project for today was to install carpet. I got the living room and spare room done today. In addition, I installed a fire extinguisher; 2 smoke detectors; and bought a bunch of miniblinds to be installed later.

With dozens of rentals, there is always something to fix. Today's project was a clogged drain line that occurred because the low income tenants weren't smart enough to scrape off their plates before trying to wash them. The drain line was BADLY plugged and it took a significant amount of effort and a significant mess to fix it. I ended up cutting the drain line and installing a new cleanout in the line so that I could run a snake through the line.

After finishing the repair, I gave the tenants a lecture about scraping the food from their plates BEFORE washing their dishes. I also promised them that I wouldn't repair another tenant-caused clog without charging them!

While we're talking about tenants that aren't too bright, one of my tenants reported to me today that a fellow tenant stole cigarettes from her. The tenant that stole the cigarettes is already being evicted for non-payment and has had several police contacts in the 6 weeks she has lived in the apartment. All the tenants, including the victim KNEW that this person was a scumbag and a thief. Even so, my tenant allowed the tenant into her apartment to use the phone and therefore became the victim of the theft. Not too bright.

BTW, the thief (my tenant) had a clean criminal background check when I accepted her. She is young and was probably a criminal all along, but obviously previous juvenile records are sealed making it impossible to discover the truth about young applicants! UGH!

I took the day off today, at least as far as the rental property business is concerned. However, I did still have a personal real estate project to do. To make a long story short, my wife's family is selling a house they inherited and somehow I got picked to do a few maintenance items at the house. To accomplish that job, I needed to pick up a few things from my storage room at the Pink Elephant. I got the things out I needed and started to cut a 2 X 6 right there on the sidewalk. I'm always aware of my surroundings when I work in low income areas (and everywhere else for that matter) and therefore I certainly took notice when a very rough looking man approached me. He had a cast on his left arm and his right forearm had MANY noticable cuts. I stopped working and asked him what I could do for him. His answer was unique to say the least. He said he wanted me to call someone to pick him up. That's not too uncommon in low income areas. Many times in the past, homeless people have asked me to call someone for them because they don't have a phone. I'm normally willing to make a quick call for them, provided I have the time. I thought that was what he wanted and I asked who he wanted me to call. His answer was that he was "thinking of committing homicide and suicide" and he wanted me to call the police. Well, that definitely got my attention! I didn't see a gun or knife and he hadn't threatened me directly, but I felt like I needed to have a few feet of separation from this guy and I definitely needed to keep him in front of me for tactical reasons. I directed him to sit down on the porch and told him that I would call the police. As soon as he sat down, I dialed the police and explained the situation to them. The said they would send an officer.

As we waited, I talked to the guy. As it turns out he was a mental health patient who is homeless and hasn't taken his medication for about 2 months. He apparently got into a fight with someone who accused him of stealing drugs and that person broke his arm. That occurred recently, although he told me different stories about when. He claimed that his wife cut his other arm, but from the shear number of cuts and the look of them, I'd bet that these were self-inflicted razor blade wounds.

About 10 minutes later, the police arrived. They talked to the man for a few minutes and it seemed like they were just going to leave. The man told them that he thought he might kill someone and burn down the guy's house that broke his arm. I wasn't too keen on him being released without getting some help. I pushed the idea of taking the guy to the hospital for a mental health evaluation and after radioing the station for permission, the police decided to do that. They searched the guy for drugs and weapons and put him in the cruiser to take him to the hospital.

Very strange encounter for a day off and just one more reason to always be armed!

 

I spent a little time today working on my 2008 taxes. OK, I admit that I've procrastinated a little in getting them done. Anyway, something really impressed me as I was working on one of my rental property businesses. This particular business has about 10 rentals in it and I was entering the data into Quickbooks Pro. As I entered all the income and expense data, it became rapidly apparent that my expenses for this business were very low. I had very low maintenance; hardly any vacancies; no lawsuits; no legal expenses; no evictions; etc. Although I haven't quite completed entering the data and I don't have the exact numbers yet, I'll certainly have expenses WELL below 50% of the gross rents.

The big question is what does that tell us? Am I a genius at the rental property business? Have I discovered some secret to success? Am I smarter than other landlords? Do I live in the best rental market on the planet? The answer is that this data tells me NOTHING! It's completely insignificant and irrelevant. I'm not a genius. I haven't discovered the secret to success. I'm not smarter than other successful landlords. I don't live in the best rental market on the planet.

A sample size of 10 rentals over one year is statistically insignificant. The data tells me absolutely nothing about my long term operating expenses. It doesn't even tell me about the operating expenses in my local area over the past year. Trying to conclude anything from this data would be foolish at best and financial suicide at worst (if I were to assume those expenses were correct for the purpose of evaluating future deals).

Once I finish the taxes on all my companies and print out the financial reports, I'll post the results on my blog. We'll see if there is any useful information that can be derived from my several dozen rentals.

One of the things that is significant is the paydown of principal over time. As I was entering the data this morning, I noticed that I'm paying down about $1,000 per month on principal on one of the loans. Picking up $12,000 per year in equity on just that one loan is significant! I'm looking forward to seeing what the principal paydown is on all my loans! I can't eat that equity, but it sure does feel good to watch it build up.

After doing the paperwork, I felt like getting out of the house, so I went down to the Pink Elephant to do some painting. I actually got quite a lot done in a short period of time.

I finally got back to painting the Pink Elephant today. It was a beautiful day, although blazing hot, and I spent about 3 1/2 hours doing some painting. In addition to the painting, I had to stop by the insurance agency to sign paperwork for a renewal of one of my rental policies. I also fixed a leaking sink trap.

That was about it - all in all a pretty routine day.

This weekend was another 3 day weekend! I did work about 2 hours Friday morning in order to completely catch up with the last maintenance tasks on my list. Those projects included fixing a leaking toilet (replacing the flapper valve and tightening the hold-down bolts), spraying weeds, and taking mouse traps to a tenant (and giving her a lecture about cleanliness).

After my two hours of work, I took the rest of the day off. My wife and I spent some time having fun and doing some things around the house.

On Saturday, we went to the gun show at Vets Memorial in Columbus. I didn't buy any more guns, but I did get some ammo. As most people know, thanks to our President, ammo is in very short supply. I have a compact .32 cal auto handgun that I carry when I need a small gun - like riding my bike. Ammo for it is nearly impossible to find. I've searched all the gun shops and no-one has had any for months. I found some (that was manufactured in the former communist block) at the gun show and bought several hundred rounds. I also found some 7.62 X 39 mm ammo that was made in Russia and bought half a case. Finally, I found some JHP (Jacketed Hollow Point) self-defense ammo for my Beretta carry gun and bought some of that! A very successful journey.

With the way the country is rapidly deteriorating, I consider ammo to be as vital as an emergency food and water supply. Our economy is on the brink of disaster with debt that is crushing the country and ANY spark could easily throw us into chaos. It's happened many times throughout history and it's smart to be prepared. By the way, this isn't just crazy talk, the United States government has spent millions of dollars to tell YOU to be prepared. Here's a link to the government website: http://www.ready.gov/america/npm09/getakit.html Guns and ammo are not politically correct and are therefore not on the list.

After the gun show, we went to the shooting range for a little practice and fun. My wife got a chance to shoot my .40 Beretta, which was fun. She's a very good shot, but the kick almost lifted her off the ground, which was entertaining.

Of course, I took today off also and we had some family over to swim in the pool! It was a beautiful day - perfect for swimming. We followed that up with a cookout. All in all - a very good weekend.

If you are wondering what happened to yesterday's blog, my wife and I went out with friends for an afternoon and evening of fun and I didn't get home until late - too late to post my blog. So, let's catch up now!

Yesterday started at about 9 am with the posting of an eviction notice for a tenant at the Pink Elephant. My next stop was in municipal court at 9:30. This was my "second cause of action" (lawsuit) against the tenant I evicted last month. She really pissed me off, so I sued her for everything I could possibly think of! All together, I am claiming about $2,000 in damages which includes lost rent, late fees, physical damage, etc. In reality, I have already won the lawsuit via a default judgment because the tenant didn't respond to my lawsuit in the designated time (idiot). However, a hearing before the magistrate is still required to justify the amount of the judgment. The tenant didn't show up at this hearing, which was all the better for me!

You may recall from my original post on this eviction, that I have a new lawyer. She is inexperienced in evictions, but did a very nice job at the original eviction hearing. Unfortunately, there was a little paperwork snafu at the hearing yesterday, when my lawyer hadn't filed the proper amendment to the complaint, which should have included the final amount of damages we are seeking. This amendment required a proper service on the tenant and obviously that hadn't happened. The result of this mistake was that the magistrate could only award me a little over $700 in damages yesterday. So, we elected to continue the case for another 30 days so that my lawyer could amend the paperwork. When we go back to court, I can be awarded the entire amount of the damages. No big deal!

Next on the agenda were two Section 8 inspections. The first one was at about 11:30 and I passed it with flying colors. The next one happened at about 1:30 and it also easily passed! It doesn't get better than that!

As soon as the second inspection was complete, I was ready to quit for the day and I headed home. My wife and I decided to have some fun and we met another couple for an afternoon and evening out on the town!

My projects today included repairing the ceiling in an apartment and replacing a defective ceiling light. That took about 3 hours and that was enough for today. I had a few things I wanted to do around my home today, so I spent most of the day doing personal (non-work) stuff. I'll be mowing grass tomorrow and am thinking about going shooting.

 I started out the day with 17 rents to collect. With the exception of one iffy tenant and a couple of chronic late payers (bless them for the late fees every month), I got all the rents I was expecting today.

My project today was to rebuild the rail for the deck that I rebuilt yesterday. That turned out to be a bigger job than I anticipated as the untreated wood that was used for the rail was in bad shape. So, I rebuilt the entire rail with treated lumber.

I also inspected one of the apartments that will be inspected by Section 8 tomorrow. It was generally in good shape. I had to plug in the exhaust fan in the bathroom, as a working exhaust fan (or a window) is required for the Section 8 inspection. However, this tenant doesn't like the noise that the exhaust fan makes, so she has me unplug it right after the inspector leaves every year.

To my dismay, I also had to put a battery in the smoke detector. You'll notice that I didn't say "replace" the battery, I said put a battery in the smoke detector BECAUSE THE TENANT TOOK THE BATTERY OUT OF IT!!! I am continually shocked at the number of tenants that remove their smoke detector batteries to use them in some other gizmo, like toys and various electrical appliances. I wasn't able to coordinate with the tenant of the other house that will be inspected tomorrow, but she said the only thing she could think of that needed to be done for her inspection was to find her smoke detector!!! She apparently hasn't only taken the battery out of her detector - SHE'S LOST IT!!!

It's a good thing that fires are relatively rare, because otherwise every tenant on the planet would burn to death! I just can't believe that people are so dumb as to remove the smoke detector batteries or remove the entire detector!

Before the inspections tomorrow, I will be in court for the conclusion of my lawsuit against the tenant I evicted last month. We have a default judgment against the tenant who didn't respond and tomorrow's hearing will be to get the amount of the judgment finalized. This idiot tenant is the manager at the local Dollar General and it should be easy to garnish her wages!

I spent today getting ready for a pair of Section 8 inspections on Wednesday. My primary focus was to rehab a second floor deck for one of my apartments. Some previous landlord had overlayed the original deck floor with particle board - UGH! Obviously, particle board is NOT intended to be an exterior material and certainly isn't meant to be an exterior floor decking. Over the years, moisture has caused the particle board to get VERY soft and it was becoming unsafe. So, I removed it and the original decking underneath and replaced it with pressure treated 5/4 inch deck boards. It was a big job, but I got it done. Tomorrow, I will replace the top rail which is also rotted.

Mixed in with working on the deck was day three of rent collection. With August 1st and 2nd being on Saturday and Sunday, I collected a BUNCH of rents today. I would normally have made a mid-day trip to the bank if I collected that much money, but I was just too busy working today. So, by the time the end of the day came, I had a BIG pocket full of cash. I'll take that to the bank in the morning before I do anything else.

The other thing I did today was inspect a 3 bedroom house that I just got back. I received a call from the long term tenant (6 years with me, 9 years in this house) last night, informing me that they had moved. No notice! The good news is that they took almost all their stuff and they cleaned up the house. It will need new carpet, but not much else. This is the first house I've had available in 3 or 4 months, so it should rent quickly. With this kind of demand, I'll be raising the rent also!

You've probably never heard of a Cluster Headache. I've had them on and off since I was a kid and they are brutal. According to the doctors, they are the worst headache (pain wise) that you can have. They're called Cluster Headaches because they occur in clusters, often every day for months. Cluster headaches come on VERY fast. From the first feel of tightening in the head or neck to excruciating pain can take as little as 5 or 10 minutes. I never go anywhere without having medication close by (in my truck, backtop bag, snowboarding bag, bike bag, etc). At the first sign of a cluster headache, I take 4 Ibuprofen and 3 extra strength Excederin. Then, if the pain doesn't ease up within 30 minutes, I take a Flexeril . Flexeril is a nasty drug. It's supposed to be a muscle relaxor and they do a good job of stopping Cluster Headaches, but they make me drowsy and mean. The medicine in combination with the cluster headaches makes me very sensitive to light and especially sound. It's very hard to listen to anyone talk when you have one of these headaches.

I had a VERY bad headache yesterday that didn't want to go away, and I took almost the entire day off (except for a quick trip to sign some papers for "free" government weatherization of one of my apartment buildings). Today, I had one of the worst headaches I've had in years and the first round of drugs Ibuprofen, Excederin, and Flexeril didn't stop it. I had to wait til noon to take the second round. Finally, by 2pm, my headache started to improve and I was able to go into town to do a little work.

What does this story of my headache have to do with the rental property business? EVERYTHING! One of the best things about owning a rental property business is that I can set my own schedule. When I felt bad yesterday, I didn't have to go to work. When I felt bad again today, I didn't have to go to work. I could take off without calling a boss or asking for permission. As they say in those credit card commercials: The freedom to set your own schedule - PRICELESS!

When I did recover this afternoon, I went into town to work on a 1 bedroom apartment that I rented for August 1st. The previous tenant broke the commode and I needed to repair the floor and replace the toilet with a new one. In addition, I had to replace the smoke detector, which the tenant stole and replace the bathroom mirror. I did the smoke detector and mirror first, since they were minor jobs. Then, I removed the old commode and cut out the water damaged section of floor. I used the cardboard from the box for the new commode to make a pattern for the new subfloor, which I will make out of 3/4 inch treated plywood. Due to the late start, that is all I did for today!

They say that when it rains, it pours. If that's true, then today must have been a real storm. I started my work today with a trip to the bank and post office. When I picked up the mail, I had EIGHT letters via certified mail. As a rule, certified mail is generally not a good thing. That was especially true today as they were all lawsuits! UGH!

I posted the story of the first lawsuit about two weeks ago (7/16/09). As you may recall, the city has decided to attempt to collect past due water bills from the landlord, even though the tenant subscribed to the water service. They don't even try to collect from the tenant - they just go after the "RICH" landlord!!! Needless to say, that is COMPLETELY IMMORAL. Although we're headed straight into socialism and the government wants to 'share the wealth' through taxation, it is RIDICULOUS to think that I should pay the tenant's bill for them. What's next? Should I buy their clothes? Should I buy them a car? GIVE ME A BREAK!

If you've read much of my story, then you know that I'm a real jackass when I think I've been wronged. I will NOT give in and pay these bastards! Instead, I will do whatever it takes to fight these frivilous lawsuits. Along with a few other local investors and our REIA, I am trying to organize a lawsuit against the city. We have a big-time, out-of-town attorney coming to the next REIA meeting and we will be organizing as many landlords as possible to be party to the lawsuit. I will be writing a scathing Letter to the Editor and will meet with the news department of the newspaper to have a news article done on this story. As far as I'm concerned, it's going to be war against the morons running the city! They're up for election in November and our REIA already has two members running for city council!

Beyond that bit of cheery news to start my day, I did actually get some work done. I trashed out a vacant 2 bedroom apartment; collected 2 rents; and started working on rehabbing a deck in preparation for a Section 8 inspection next week. I also repaired a broken screen door lock.

After not working much last week, I did get a little work done today. To start, I had a tenant that reported that her kitchen light had gone out. I always suspect that the bulb(s) are burned out when a tenant reports that a light is out, but in this case the tenant swore that the switch didn't feel the same as it felt yesterday (she thought it felt much weaker than yesterday). I have seen switches break on occassion and that is often how they feel. This particular light fixture had four flourescent tubes and the tenant reported that they all were on yesterday. It seemed highly unlikely that all four bulbs burned out at once. So, I removed the switch cover and tested the switch with a meter. The switch was fine. I should have gone with my next inclination. So, I changed the bulbs and the light worked fine. I suspect that three of the bulbs had burned out over time and the last bulb finally burned out yesterday. Obviously, the tenant hadn't realized that only one bulb was working until yesterday and the tenant just imagined that the feel of the switch had changed. No big deal!

My next project was to mow the grass at 2 apartment buildings and then spray weeds. Both of these buildings have small yards and that only took about an hour.

Finally, I was scheduled to meet a woman who was interested in one of my apartments. She is significantly disabled and this is a downstairs apartment. Moreover, her son lived right across the street and he would be able to come over and help her with her daily activities. She liked the apartment and put down a non-refundable deposit so that I would hold the apartment for her. One more apartment rented!