Tenant Likes to Fight!

I finally got back my final two units today - the ones that were potential evictions. It's been a roller coaster ride as I started the month thinking I would have 3 evictions this month. Two said that they were voluntarily leaving and actually started moving. I wrote about the 3rd one in Wednesday's blog. The first of the 3 moved out immediately and left the apartment clean, although there were still a couple of pieces of furniture in the apartment. The second started moving out immediately, but were slow in getting everything out. I could have filed the eviction in court yesterday, but gave them until this morning to be completely out. When I arrived at the building this morning, they had indeed completely moved out and the apartment was relatively clean.

I had a water heater to fix this morning and as I was working on that, I got a call from the grandmother of the 3rd tenant's pregnant shack-up girlfriend. She said that they were completely out and wanted me to come pick-up the keys. I suggested that she leave the keys on the counter and lock the door. She wasn't having any part of that and wanted me to come inspect the apartment and pick up the keys. I told her that I was busy but that I would come over in a little while, when I was done with the job I was working on.

When I arrived, the deadbeat tenant and his deadbeat girlfriend were sitting on the front step. The grandmother was nowhere to be found. The tenant said his uncle had gone to the hardware store and had the keys to the apartment. He would be back shortly. The "uncle", who wasn't his uncle at all, had repaired about 20 holes that the tenant put in the walls during fits of rage. The grandmother of the girlfriend and the "uncle" had cleaned the apartment and done a pretty good job. The uncle also left a new bathroom mirror for me to install - the tenant destroyed the mirror.

The reason that they did all this - repaired all the holes; cleaned the apartment; and removed their junk - is that they expected to get their deposit back. WRONG! I've lost rent for this month; I'll still have to paint the patched walls; and they broke the commode (actually broke it during one of their violent rages). So, they won't get a penny. When I told the tenant that, he wanted to fight. Obviously, I can't be in a fist fight while I'm carrying a handgun, so I simply didn't participate in his childish nonsense. Fortunately, within a few minutes, the "uncle" returned; gave me the keys; and hauled the deadbeats away. Before he left, I briefly talked with the uncle and discovered that the deadbeats had been living with the grandmother and had destroyed her house. He wasn't very happy with them! I don't recall the grandmother mentioning that when she brought the little angels to rent my apartment!

The good news is that I got all my property back without an eviction this month and without any significant damage.

In addition to this nonsense, I replaced four glass panes in an apartment and did a little work on my security camera systems.

Really Pissed!

The setout for my latest (June) eviction went bad almost immediately this morning. The setout was scheduled at 10 am and when I arrived at 10 am, I immediately suspected that things were not going to be good. There was a lot of trash and debris on the front porch; sidewalk; and front lawn. F_ _ _ YOU was spray painted on the porch facade. The door was open as was one of the front windows. As I pushed the door open, I could see that there was trash all over the place. The carpet that was exactly one year old was ruined. The tenant had shut the refrigerator off and left ice cream in the door, so there was a big pool of melted ice cream on the floor and ice cream drip out from the slightly open door. One window was broken out. Seven mini-blinds had been destroyed. The commode was plugged (probably intentionally). It was a mess. As if this weren't bad enough, the real shock occurred when I opened one of the bedroom doors. There was a very thin cat in the room with absolutely no food and no water with her newly born 8 kittens!!!

That was it - I was now officially REALLY PISSED! I called the police and met an officer at the house to report the animal cruelty. The tenant had a BEAUTIFUL Dodge Charger with custom wheels that was still parked in MY PARKING LOT. I asked the court officer what I could do to get rid of the car. He went to talk to the judge and in a little while returned and informed me that it could be towed to a private impound lot. I immediately called a tow truck and they towed her car away. In Ohio, if the car isn't claimed in 14 days, the impound company can get the title to the car!!!

The really STUPID thing about this tenant is that she is the MANAGER at Dollar General. She has a good job and I filed for a "second cause of action" (i.e. money damages) with the original eviction suit. I will sue her for the damage and I will collect by garnishing her wages. She'll lose 25% of her take-home pay until I get paid off.

This was all unnecessary. She could have paid the rent and avoided this entire situation. She could have voluntarily moved out and cleaned up the house. She could have at least not spray painted grafitti on the stone facade to the porch. She could have done the right thing. Instead, she made me evict her and then set her out; she abandoned a cat with her new kittens without so much as a saucer of water; she left her beautiful car in the parking lot. All of that was enough to piss me off and caused me to press charges for cruelty to animals; have her car towed to the impound lot; and sue her for damages! Yep, SHE'S A MORON!

New Streak Still Alive

It was a great run while it lasted. I had 9 months without a single eviction. It was quite a streak! That all ended in June when I evicted a tenant, who told the magistrate that the eviction was just a misunderstanding. The setout for this tenant is tomorrow at 10 am!

I was hoping to start a new eviction free streak beginning with July, but that dream appeared to be shot down before it even started when it looked like I might have THREE evictions this month. I got lucky and two of the tenants decided to move out voluntarily instead of being evicted. That left me with one set of idiot tenants that looked like a certain eviction. One of my first projects this morning was to take the paperwork for this eviction to my new lawyer. I decided to drive by the apartment involved in this eviction on the way to the lawyer's office and to my total surprise, the tenants were loading their stuff into a pickup truck. I stopped and told the tenant that I was on my way to the attorney's office to file the eviction. They said that they would be out today and have everything cleaned up by tomorrow. As a result, I decided to wait one more day before taking the paperwork to the lawyer. I don't want to spend money on the lawyer and the court filing fee if I don't have to.

It was a beautiful, sunny day here in Ohio and I was looking forward to finally getting back to painting the Pink Elephant. I got out my scaffolding and got to work. Everything went well and I was happy with the work I got done.

I quit about 3pm because I wanted to take the paperwork to Community Action, which is the agency in charge of the weatherization program.

After dinner, I went for a nice bike ride and then my wife and I went for a walk. All in all, a very good day!

Insteresting Day!

My day started with paperwork - specifically paying bills and paying my property taxes (YUK). Talk about something that gives you that sick feeling, that's exactly how I feel every six months when I write checks (in the 5 digits) for property taxes.

As I was finishing up my taxes, I got a call from The Sprint Store telling me that my Palm Pre had just arrived and I could come pick it up. So, as soon as I finished the taxes, I went to the Sprint Store and picked up my new phone.

I had a Moto Razor before, so moving up to the Palm Pre was quite a move up. The Pre is a very sophistocated machine - more like a small laptop than a phone. I'm still learning to use the phone/handheld computer, but I really like it so far. It uses an operating system that lets you view websites exactly like you would on a computer! Very cool.

After getting the Pre home and putting it on charge, I did the paperwork to take to the lawyer for the eviction I have going. As you may recall from my previous posts, I have a brand new lawyer doing my evictions. With the paperwork complete, I made a trip to the bank; the post office; and my lawyer's office to drop off the eviction paperwork. I intended to just hand the paperwork to my lawyer's secretary, but when I did the secretary said the lawyer wanted to talk to me. To my surprise, she informed me that she was moving to another city and wouldn't be able to do my eviction. RATS!

I need the evictions filed on Thursday, so I needed to find another lawyer fast! I went into town and stopped at another lawyer's office that I know. He's done some work for me in the past, so I knew he would be good. Fortunately, he was in the office and agreed to do my evictions.

Next stop was the police station. I needed to get the police reports for the last 2 months for the Pink Elephant. The reason that I needed the reports is that I've had 3 criminals barred from my property by the police and I needed copies of those reports. With copies of those reports, it's much easier to have a barred person arrested for criminal trespass.

I received a call from one of my friends who is involved in the government. She wanted to tell me that one of the local agencies had taken a BUNCH of stimulus money that they had used to hire summer workers (mostly students). They didn't have enough work to keep these workers busy and wanted to know if I had any work they could do - like painting low income houses or yard work at low income houses. My answer - YES!!! So, I made a list of rentals that I would like to have work done. We'll see what happens!

That was about it for today. I'm going to try again tomorrow to work on painting the Pink Elephant.

Eviction Paybacks

It's been quite an unusual year in my rental business - at least as far as my evictions go. I went an entire 9 months without a single eviction, which was absolutely astounding. It got to be kind of a game for me - seeing how long this would go before I finally had an eviction. I was secretly hoping for an entire year, but I knew that was highly unlikely.

As each month went by without an eviction, I felt like a guy riding one of those mechanical bulls. The longer the ride lasted, the more it was going to hurt when it ended. That wild ride finally ended in June with one eviction. This month started with three imminent evictions, but it looks like two of those tenants will move out before the 3 day eviction notice expires. If so, I'll only have one eviction again this month.

My rental property work today included fixing a leaking shower stall; showing an apartment to a potential tenant; getting the lease signed for a new tenant; and paying some bills.

Tomorrow, I'm planning to take the eviction paperwork to the lawyer; replace a couple of cracked windows; and start painting at the pink elephant.

Tea Anyone?

Today was the final day of rent collection. However, because it was also a holiday, I had already collected most of the rents and therefore only had a few to pick up this morning.

My real agenda for today was to attend a local tea party, protesting the socialist agenda; reckless spending; and impending radical increases in taxes that are occurring in the US. I was a little disappointed in the turnout at today's tea party, but the weather here in Ohio was rainy and it was a holiday. I'm sure that many people had family plans and therefore couldn't attend. However, at a time when the government is intent on taxing the vast majority of the middle class out of existence and taking away our way of life, I would hope that people could be a little more focused.

It is becoming increasingly clear to me that the American Public is incapable of acting proactively. Just as has happened throughout history in other countries, the vast majority of the public will allow all their freedoms to be taken away and will not utter so much as a whisper in opposition. It's disappointing.

The Rents are Rolling In!

With the fourth being a holiday and being on a Saturday, I've received an unusually large number of rents on the first three days of the month. I collected so much cash today that I was a little leery of carrying it all around.

Rental demand also remains very high. I had an eviction this month in one of my SFHs (single family houses) and the tenant will be setout next Thursday. That is the only SFH that I've had available in four months and I already have it rented, with the new tenant to move in as soon as the old tenant is gone. I also rented my last two one-bedroom apartments today.

My project for the day was to finish installing the carpet and doing a little plumbing work in one of the one-bedroom apartment that I rented today.

I also had took care of a little management issue, when I had a guy that I recently had barred from my apartment buildings, charged with criminal trespass.

That was it for today. I'm going to a tea party tomorrow to protest our out-of-control government.