If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

If you give a mouse a cookie, the story goes, he will ask for a glass of milk.  If you allow a tenant one small, 10# dog, he will bring in a 40# dog, and then two.  It's true. 

In August, when Courtney signed the lease, she told the property manager she had a dog.  A small one.  We soon discovered it was a 40# black lab mix dog that BARKS!  Now we find Courtney has two dogs that bark in stereo.  We've actually known it for a month or so, but we haven't done anything proactive about it yet. 

Flash forward to today.  Chris, my son, was at the 4-plex painting one of the vacant units.  Courtney, who has been spying on Chris between the slats of the blinds for two days ran outside to tell him "you're going to have to replace the carpet, you know, because of the dog." 

He proceeded to tell her tenants were allowed one small, 10# dog and not two large dogs.  And if the carpets were damaged and needed to be replaced it would come out of her deposits.  "Oh no," she said, "I mean in this vacant unit.  Inez had a dog."  

A.  Inez did, in fact, have a dog.  For two months she had the tiniest chihuahua you ever saw. 
B.  There was very little 'evidence' left behind in her apartment.
C.  Where the heck does she come off "ratting out" Inez, when she has two dogs the size of Manhattan?

Chris called to tell me the story - and we chuckled.  But the big laugh came an hour later when the property manager emailed to tell me that Courtney called to say, "We had to get a (second) male dog because one of my husband's friends said he was going to come have sex with me."  (Cue to barf here. This is not a pretty picture)

The saga will continue tomorrow when the property manager and I confront Courtney.

You couldn't make this stuff up!

The (undesired) Return of the Evicted

It's been about 2 months since Vicky was evicted. (Read below for full story)  She was two, three ... I lost count ... months behind in her rent.  Then, standing before a judge, she had the nerve to lie to him and tell him that our records were faulty and that she should be allowed to stay.  But it's all behind us now.  I thought.

Today it was snowing and the temperatures are going to be in the single digits this week so we stopped by the 8 plex to check on the boiler .  Julie was shoveling the show - hallelujah!  Here's my conversation with her:

Julie:  Hey, remember that girl who lived upstairs?  (Vicky)  She came by here the other day asking where your mom lives.  She said she wants to move back in here.  She said she didn't want to talk to Jana (our property manager), but wanted to talk directly to your mom. 

Me:  WHAT?  There is no way.

Julie:  Yea, I told her "after all you did to them and you owed them so much money?  You need to leave them alone."

Ya think?  After all her lies, I am done dealing with her. 

Vicki is street smart and a good liar and great at manipulation.  However, I'm confident that Mom won't give her the time of day. She'll refer her to The property manager.  But I'm still amazed at her nerve.  Either she is the most nervy person I've known, or she's the most delusional.  I'm not sure which!

A story of two phone calls (okay, three phone calls)

Last month Courtney called to say her bathtub was clogged.  Friday she called again; the bathtub is clogged.  She tells me that the last time the plumber dug out a bunch of rubber bands.   WHAT?  I'm thinking that's not my problem - but it is. 

Diego and I were right in the middle of pulling wire for new outlets at my mom's house and really didn't want to drop everything go clear out her drain.  So I asked our wonderful property manager to call a plumber.  It will probably result in a $100 after-hours call (New Year's Eve and they'd already gone home).   Plus, if it turns out to be clogged with their own stuff (rubberbands??), then the property manager will bill them for the call. 

Then, today I had two voice mails from Courtney.  The first said that the power was out in the building but they had called Excel.  The secon call said that the power was back on.  Now those are the kind of calls I don't mind getting on a Sunday morning.

Snow news is good news?

The winter storm that hit today only meant that we spent the day shoving sidewalks and driveways.  Actually we had asked one of the tenants in each building to shovel - and bought them a shovel.  We told each that we would pay them $10 per hour to shovel the walks. 

When we got to the 8 plex it was evident that Shane had, indeed, shoveled once already.  It was still snowing, so we shoveled again.  What a great surprise!  Maybe they'll use the money to go toward their rent.  Really, I'm sure they will! 

The other person that we asked to shovel was the one who was the Midnight Moveout yesterday, so we shoveled over there.

But, alas, it's been snowing all day and promises to snow all night so tomorrow will probably be a repeat performance. 

Midnight Moveout

That's what our property manager calls it.  Someone who moves out with no notice and doesn't tell anyone they're moving.  It happened to us again today.  Actually we kind of expected it since I'd talked with her last week, but really - not a word?  Don't return the keys?  Leave the lights on?  I dropped by the apartment today to touch base with one of the other tenants and discovered the moveout. 
And the key that I have to that apartment doesn't work, so now we either break into the apartment or have a $51 locksmith bill.  I have no idea what we'll find when we finally get in. The saddest part is that she was my favorite tenant and we tried really hard to take care of her!  Darn it.

Last time this happened we didn't realize that we needed to call the gas company and make sure the account was changed back to our name.  That was June.  When we had the furnaces checked for the winter season, we found the meter had been booted for lack of payment by the Midnight Moveout Tenant.  That meant we had to pay a turn-on charge to have the gas guy come out.  This time I'll call both gas and electric tomorrow just to ensure it gets changed. 

Then, tonight found that one of our new tenants have two 40 pound black dogs.  We've only recently relented and allowed small dogs.  But our concession was for one dog per apartment and no larger than 10 pounds.  It just doesn't seem to matter what you allow, people always want more.

Tenant drama equals vacancy

I've said it before, but our tenants live on the raw edge.  Sunday afternoon I stopped by the apartments to give the tenants a Christmas card and wish them a merry Christmas.  The first tenant I talked to said her husband was working in Texas and fell of a roof.  His harness wasn't tied well and he broke his leg and severly injured his shoulder and probably something else because he's still in the hospital in Texas.  So, now she's driving back and forth to Texas and decided to she needs to be there. 

She's talking about moving in mid-January.  I'm not sure how it's all going to play out, but darn.  Another vacancy means we have another apartment to clean and repair before we can rent it.  I'm not sure I have the energy for it, but then I suppose I'm just borrowing worry. 

Meanwhile, we framed the wall for a new closet in the master bedroom of Mom's house.  All went well.  Wiring is next.  The four feet that we took out of the living room will never be missed since it was pretty useless space.  Dad used to refer to it as the world's largest hallway. 

Rental Income - a misnomer

After Dad died we discussed what to do with the apartments.  Of course there was the option of selling them but how long would that take in this market and what kind of price would we get in this economy?    Another option was to keep them as the primary soure of income for mom.  We calculated that even at half occupancy there would still be sufficient income for mom and still meet the expenses.

Now that we've been at this for a while we realize that isn't necessarily true. We've been hanging in at about 66-75% occupancy.  Occupancy means nothing, however, if the tenants can't pay their rent.  So many are living on the ragged edge that an illness, car trouble, or even Christmas throws their financial world into chaos and they can't pay all of their rent. 

In the last several months our gross income should have been over $4,000 / month but collected rents were about $2,500.  What do you do?  If we evict them we are left with vacancies and all the same expenses.  Is half rent better than no rent?  Arrrrgggghhhh.