The Neighborly Investor

My Efforts at Landlording and Niche Marketing on the Web

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    Tenant’s Electric Bill

    November 27, 2011 No comments

    I got my first call from the tenant that moved in last month. He reported that he lost all power to his condo unit and wanted me to oversee the repairs. The first thing I thought was that he did not start his electrical service in a timely manner. My standard procedure when a unit is in transition is to start the electric service in my name as soon as the old tenant moves out. I do this so I can perform any repairs and show the unit. When the new tenant moves in, I have the service disconnected. But typically, it takes 2 weeks for the electric company to actually cut the service to the unit. So, I thought that the new tenant did not start his service, as it was just around 2 weeks since he took possession of the unit.

    But he was adamant that he had started service and had spoke to the customer service representative at the electric company and verified that his account was in good standing.

    My next step was to call the resident manager and see if he could check the main electrical circuit breaker to the unit and see if it had tripped. A half hour later he called me and verified that the main breaker was on, and that he had spoke to the tenant and he verified that there was no power to the unit. He advised me to make sure the tenant started service. I asked the tenant to call the electric company and ask for a site inspection.

    I finally got a call from the electric company technician on site. He apologized for taking so long to diagnose the problem, because he was dispatched to the wrong unit. It turns out the tenant had started service, but had listed the wrong address and apartment number. So he was essentially paying for a stranger’s electrical service for two weeks. After I thanked the electric company rep for his efforts, I get a call from the tenant. He proceeds to make up some strange explanation for the mixup, stating that the electric company gave him wrong instructions on how to turn on his electric meter and start service to his unit. Pretty weird as the electric company would never give you the ability to physically go to your meter and turn on your service.

    Whatever. I just hope he pays his December rent on time.

    Tenants ,

    Tenants Leaving

    September 8, 2011 No comments

    The tenants I just placed in the condo are now leaving. They called me to say that the principal wage earner is having job difficulties and they want to move in with relatives. Despite signing a one year lease, and having a co-signer I could theoretically chase, I am going to release them after just one month. I would rather have a tenant self report difficulties and volunteer to leave, rather than deal with a tenant that is in denial, loses his job then just stops paying rent, eventually requiring me to evict them.

    It is a pain, but one of those cost/benefit decisions you make as a landlord. Fortunately I will just have to re-list my craigslist ad as the photos are still current.

    Tenants

    New Tenant (not section 8)

    September 4, 2011 No comments

    The new tenants are in. After verifying the information on their application, I decided to require a co-signer. The co-signer was necessary because their employment history with their current employers was short (1-2 months), and total wages were less than ideal. But after passing the criminal background check and talking to the last property manager (real estate agent), it seemed like they would be good tenants.

    After the co-signer checked out, we signed the lease.

    REI Education, Tenants

    Tenant Transition

    June 10, 2011 No comments

    My section 8 tenant is out. She was a good tenant that usually paid on time. If she was late she always included the late payment penalty, no questions. The good thing was that I received most of the rent from the government, who always paid on time.

    I was unable to meet her for the final walk through of the unit, but I asked her to leave the keys on the counter. Usually when a tenant leaves I meet with them to inspect the unit together. At the start of the lease period I have my tenants fill out an inventory form. This form allows the tenant to make notations on the condition of the unit. But I am able to comment as well, I will usually note things like if an appliance is new, recently installed carpet or other aspects of the unit that I want to state at the start of the lease. I also usually have pictures of the unit that I used for advertising, so am able to visually document the condition of the unit.

    I use this form to then note the condition of the unit and the end of the lease.

    My rental agreements state that the unit shall be returned to the landlord in the same condition as when originally leased, allowing for ” normal wear and tear”.

    I just did my walk through without the tenant today. I have two weeks to return her security deposit. During these two weeks, I must determine if I will withhold any part of the deposit for repairs. If I decide to withhold any part of the deposit, I must document the work done through receipts for work done or product purchased, or show written estimates of work to be done.

    After my walk though I determined that the carpet needed to be cleaned (it was installed just before the tenant moved in and was now dirty), and the curtains that came with the unit (also installed just before the tenant moved in) was now gone and replaced with sheer nylon type drapes.

    I will now have to hustle to get some estimates in the next few days.

    As the tenant will be paying for these expenses out of their deposit, I do not feel too bad. Just part of being a landlord.

    REI Education, Tenants ,

    Service Calls

    May 26, 2011 No comments

    Fixing things that break/wear out in a rental unit is just a fact of life. Generally the landlord is responsible for keeping the unit in a safe and habitable condition, and all appliances in good working order. My lease and state law require that I make allowances for “normal wear and tear”, and that I repair these items at my expense. But damage to items due to tenant neglect, carelessness or abuse is their responsibility.

    Recently a tenant called to complain about their toilet not working. When asked if he knew what happened to cause this, he said that a cap from one of the aerosol cleaning products in the bathroom ended up in the toilet when it was flushed. He wanted me to send for someone to fix the toilet immediately. When I emailed him to say that someone was ready to do an inspection and estimate for me, but that he would have to pay for the repair, he was upset. He wanted to know why I would charge him for this type of essential repair. I had to explain to him that the toilet absolutely needed to be fixed, but that the toilet was plugged because of his actions, he had used the toilet in a manner inconsistent with its intended use. Toilets were not designed to dispose of plastic caps.

    When the plumber arrived, he tried to snake the cap out for $225, but that did not work. He ended up having to removing the toilet and charging the tenant close to $500. Hopefully the tenant learned his lesson.

    Tenants ,

    Section 8 Vacancy

    May 15, 2011 No comments

    Sorry for the long hiatus. Job and family conspire to limit my spare time. I give alot of credit to those bloggers that can maintain their blogs on a regular basis.

    The reason for this post is that my section 8 tenant has given notice that they will depart soon. This seemed like a good opportunity to document what is done during a transition time. Hopefully this one goes well.

    Tenants , ,

    Lawn Service

    December 7, 2010 No comments

    Who does the lawn service on a SFH is often used as a marketing tool by landlords. Landlords either offer a price reduction for tenants that do their own lawn service, or it is advertised as a “free” service listed with the other amenities, like “all utilities included in rent”.

    I have found that it is generally best to include lawn service as part of the rental price paid by the tenant, and performed by a third party vendor. We used to have the tenant perform the lawn service, but this required that we drive by the property on a periodic basis, to make sure they were doing a satisfactory job. Invariably, they did not do a good job. Usually this meant not doing it at all, or doing it very poorly (knocking off sprinkler heads on a regular basis).

    By having the lawn service provided by a vendor paid by the landlord, I never have to check up on the vendor’s performance. The tenant is usually quick to point out when the vendor is late, or does not do a good job. It is like the tenant is now doing my job of monitoring the lawn vendor’s performance. Less work for me.

    REI Education , ,

    New Website Up

    September 30, 2010 No comments

    This took much longer than anticipated to setup. I like WordPress for now, but open source does present some challenges. While developing the new website, the phase that took me the longest to accomplish was going through and evaluating/testing the plugins I eventually chose to run on the website. Support is very uneven, as many of the developers seem to be working on many projects at once, and often appear to abandon support for a particular plugin for months. But despite this, if you try, you will eventually find a combination that works. I will continue to work on this site, but I think it works well enough now. I am curious to see how much traffic I can obtain through some backlinks and posts that span once in a few weeks. The website is oahuexcursions.com

    Websites

    Why Security Deposits are a Good Idea

    September 14, 2010 No comments

    While doing a recent exit walk through of my parent’s SFH rental, I noticed that:

    1. the tenant had subscribed to a satellite TV service and left the dish over the garage and coaxial cable running on the outside of the house with holes punched through a number of exterior walls. The tenant contended that he had done me a favor by leaving this hardware behind as the new tenant would not have to invest to have it installed themselves. What the tenant did not consider was that the rental agreement he signed clearly stated that there were to be no installations or alterations of the property without the landlord’s prior written consent. Historically previous tenants preferred cable service, and so the house was already wired for cable;

    2. A bedroom was repainted, but not painted well, allowing you to see the underlying base color. He never asked for permission to paint this room;

    3. Damaged master bedroom door; and

    4. Because he stained a small section of the living room carpet, he cut out a one foot square piece around the stain and replaced it with a similar one foot square piece he cut out of the master bedroom carpet. When asked why he did not have it professionally cleaned, he said he thought it was a good idea at the time.

    Within the time allowed by law, I wrote to the tenant returning his security deposit minus the cost of the repair work. While a hassle to have the repair work done before the next tenant moved in, with enough tenants like this, I can eventually have the entire house refurbished through tenant security deposits!

    After receiving my letter, the tenant called a number of times to complain about the deductions, claiming that in his 25 years of renting, he had never been treated so unfairly. I told him that I had documented the damage, had excluded anything that would be considered normal wear and tear, and was merely enforcing the terms of our rental agreement.

    Tenants , ,

    WordPress Plugin Learning Curve

    August 23, 2010 No comments

    Things often seem to take longer than anticipated. I have been working on a new photo website of Oahu outdoor activities (mentioned briefly in my last post) off and on for the past 3 weeks. Besides trying to configure a new WordPress theme (Atahualpa), I am having allot of problems getting separate geotag and photo album plugins to work. I can geotag the post, but am having problems getting it to recognize the photos in the post so that it will display them on the Google map insert. In some posts, I want to have an album, but have been unable to upload photos and create album directories using the plugins upload utility.

    Progress is slow because I am a novice at WordPress and its widget/plugin universe. With so many plugin choices, and no easy way to evaluate them beforehand, it took many days of trials and research to narrow the choices. So the battle continues.

    I am working on a landlord related post now and will likely have this up before the website goes live.

    Websites , , ,
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