The saga continues

So this morning, the maid service goes over to the rental house. They call me to ask if I know there are roaches. Um, duh. The lady who gave me the estimate says she doesn't remember seeing any. I hadn't realized she was blind. Anyway... This is an actual quote from the owner of the company: "This house is too dirty to clean."

So now we are stuck cleaning it ourselves. I understand their concerns: they don't want to carry the bugs to their other clients' houses.  I've had the same concern.  Every time we go over there, we leave our shoes outside when we get home and we wash our clothes on "sanitize".  We have thrown away lots of stuff that looked decent because we didn't want to bring it back to our house.  Now, we will have to buy a dedicated set of cleaning supplies to use only there, and to throw away when we're done (maybe including a vacuum, although we've already thrown away all of the carpet).

I am just dying to call that woman and tell her that her house was too dirty for a MAID SERVICE to clean.  That's got to be embarassing.

Tenant troubles part... okay, I've lost count

We recently had to ask a tenant to move out. Number one, she couldn't afford to live there on her own after kicking her husband out. But number two, and really the main reason, was that she was filthy. We're talking cockroaches by the thousands, dog poo on the carpet and walls(!), cobwebs in every corner. Disgusting.

Now, we were very fair to her.  We gave her plenty of time to find another place, and she did.  We weren't nasty about the situation, just firm.  And how does she repay our kindness?  By leaving piles and piles of garbage in our house.  Old furniture, bags of who-knows-what, table, chairs, two refrigerators complete with rotting food, and let's not forget my favorite, the broken deep freeze.  So now we have to clean all of this stuff out of the house before we can even begin to clean it, paint it and recarpet it.

I really struggle with this as a Christian because I want to show compassion to people who are getting divorced, have three children to care for, haven't found a job yet, and probably won't even be able to afford her new apartment.  But am I enabling her if I just let it go?  I have a judgment against her, which means I can legally collect the debt, but is that the right thing to do?  What about her husband, who gave us the security deposit to begin with?  Doesn't he deserve something back if he didn't cause all the damage (though he certainly caused some and had to have known about the rest of it)?

The fact is, she is costing us literally thousands of dollars, not including the new carpet we were going to have to put in regardless.  And I feel entitled to get some of that back, even if it means having the sheriff tag her belongings and sell them at auction.  And yes, I'm angry about it.  I'd like to take all her trash and dump it in her new front yard.  But I'm sure that would be illegal.  It's fine for her to dump it on us, just not vice versa.

Water everywhere

As I was making dinner last night, I got a call from our tenant who lives an hour away. Her basement was flooded. So we packed up the kids and headed out, stopping for subs on the way.

Sure enough, she had about an inch of water, as did the adjoining house. That's right, the adjoining house which is now under contract, to be closed on in two weeks. We just found out Monday that the sump pump there was broken. But the buyer didn't want us to fix it. Guess what? We had to. There's now a new sump pump, and we have a fan running to dry out the basement.

On the way home, we dropped off an eviction warning at another tenant's house. Rent is due before the 5th and we don't have it yet. Normally, I'd call and find out why not, but these people have a bad record with us and I've had it. They can pay up or get out.

We got home at 12:30 a.m. Just another fun day in the life of a landlord!

Stupid people

So I spent a couple of hours researching PA law just to make sure, but no, they are not allowed to withhold rent just because they have roaches. There is a long drawn-out process which, if they followed it, could eventually lead to them being able to legally withhold rent, but they would have to prove the roaches weren't their fault, and I know they can't do that.

I am giving them just ONE chance to get the situation straightened out. Their lease is up in November and if they are still living in filth, they'll have to leave. Technically I could evict them now, but I hate going through the hassle.

I wonder if the tenants in the other side would like to buy the whole house and take us out of our misery?

What do you think? Opinions, please!

If a tenant's disgusting living habits cause there to be roaches in a house that for the previous eight years never had any, does the tenant have the right to withhold rent until the landlord calls an exterminator, even though they have never informed the landlord of the problem until sending a letter saying they are withholding rent?

And if the tenant signed a lease agreeing to keep the house clean but is such a disgusting pig that they attract roaches, would the landlord be justified in not renewing that lease?

Hypothetically.

Coming down the home stretch

There are not words to express how tired I am of that rental house. If we didn't have Hubby's brother and sister helping us out the past few weeks, I don't know how we could have gotten so much done. I will be SO glad when I can call the realtor next week and say, "Sell that sucker!" We have only the floor in the kitchen and the carpet in the living room and master bedroom to finish, plus lots of little touch-ups (a bit of paint here, a bunch of cleaning there).

The former tenant finally called me back (after three weeks, or has it been four) to say she was going to paint the house, but when she got there the locks had been changed. Well, sweetie, when you say you're going to do something and it hasn't been done three weeks later, we're under no obligation to keep waiting for you to do it.

We changed the locks because it had been three weeks since she moved out, and every time we came over either the windows were all open, the back door was sitting open, or both. And we brought lots of expensive tools over there so we could fix things, so we weren't going to leave them in an unlocked house that everyone on the block knows is empty. Not to mention that her ex with the bad temper still had the key. I'm sorry she went and bought paint and then couldn't use it, but she certainly could have called the next day and said, "Hey, I've got paint - do you want it?" Or "Even though I can't get in on my own, I'd love to come help you paint."

No, it was only when we threatened legal action that she bothered to call us. Which is just the way it is with some people. But she has at least said she'll pay the back sewer bills, which is something. Let's see if she follows through. She has until the 31st.

The kids are sick of going over there. I'm sick of going over there. I will be dancing in the streets when this is finished.

Grr...

We have a busy two weeks ahead of us. One of our rental houses is vacant and we need to get it in shape to either rent or sell. That means painting, new carpet, new flooring in the kitchen, major cleaning, and a bunch of minor fixes.

I've found that if I do much physical labor, my incision sites get very sore. So I will not be the one doing most of the work. We will probably end up hiring someone to do the painting since it's very time-consuming as well as physically demanding. I hate to do that when normally I'd be perfectly capable of painting, but time is of the essence and there's just no way I'll be physically able to paint a whole house within the next two weeks.

The thing that actually bothers me about all this is that the tenant gave us less than a week's notice before she moved out, so now we're without that income. And laws in this state favor the tenant, so even if we took her to court and we won a judgment, we'd probably never get a penny out of her.

I think I'm going to write a letter to my state representative and state senator. After eight years of being a landlord, I know whereof I speak. The laws have got to change - landlords should not have to give out free rent to deadbeats with no legal recourse.

Yep - I'm gonna write a letter.

A one-day-before-my-birthday rant

Hypothetically, if you were going to threaten to take your landlord to court for something, do you think you would perhaps check the lease you signed first to see whether or not the landlord was within her rights? I think a reasonable person would.

Of course Fred and Ethel unreasonable people would call and leave hostile phone messages merely because the landlord has returned their October rent checks (they paid last month in advance) along with a note saying they will get their deposit back within 30 days after they move out. Hey, idiot, you signed a lease that says I have 30 days to get it back to you. How stupid would I have to be to give your money back before I inspect the house for damage? If we weren't going to be on vacation then, I would definitely wait the entire 30 days.

I'd actually kind of like them to take us to court for this. They would have to pay $100 or more in court fees to have the judge laugh at them. And really, according to the lease, if they break any of the rules, we're not required to give them back one penny. Which, if they were to take me to court, I would love to point out.

I now know 100% for sure that Jill has been telling the truth all along (not that I really doubted) and these people are nuts. Especially since, hypothetically, they're the type of people who would slash their own tire to try to get their neighbor in trouble. Hypothetically.

Birthday month - Day One

Official celebrations may begin - it is now my birthday month! While there are no official ceremonies planned, don't forget that my birthday month always ends with lots of people donning costumes and handing out treats. Start planning now!

In other news, Fred and Ethel are not at all pleased about being told to move out. We weren't home all day yesterday and when we finally got home last night, we had an angry message from Fred telling us we were making a mistake, because Jack and Jill are the ones who called the cops on them. Um, duh! That's one reason we know we're not making a mistake! Then he started ranting about his security deposit and taking us to court. Yeah, good luck with that. He signed a lease saying we have 30 days after they move out to get any money back to him. And unless the house is trashed, he'll get all of it back that he's supposed to.

Honestly, in almost nine years of being landlords, this is the first time we've had people complaining over and over about one of our tenants. Do they really think they're the innocent ones here? I have nothing against them personally, but they clearly cannot play nice with others, and I'm tired of the phone calls. So my phones are off until they calm down. They've said they'll be out by the 30th. We'll see.

Hey, where was I 12 years ago today? Any guesses?

That's me in a Rockapella sandwich. Mmm.

When grown-ups act like babies

We have these two sets of tenants. One is an older couple, I'll call them Fred and Ethel, and one is a younger couple, I'll call them Jack and Jill. Jack and Jill have lived in one of our houses for four years now. They always pay rent on time, they pay their sewer bill, and we have never had any complaints about them.

A year ago this past month, Fred and Ethel moved in next door. At first everything is fine. But then we start getting calls from Jill. Ethel is calling her names, standing at the window screaming at her two kids, telling them to get off her lawn. Basically, Jill and the kids can't go outside without this woman screaming at them. In fact, while Jill was telling me this on the phone, I could hear Ethel shrieking from her open window in the background.

So I called Fred and asked him to please control his wife. She is slightly mentally unbalanced (and that's not a dig, she really is), but he knows how to handle her. He assures us he will take care of it. But summer is coming, which means the kids are going to be outside more often. Sure enough, Ethel calls me to complain about people walking through her yard. She wants me to pay for a fence. Um, no, sorry.

Three weeks ago, I spent three hours on the phone, first with Jill, then with Ethel. They were both in tears. Jill was upset because Ethel just won't leave her alone. She can't walk outside without being called an f-ing b- and that's on a good day. Meanwhile, Ethel is in tears because she can't have a decent looking lawn because people won't stay off it. So I asked Jill to please not walk across Fred and Ethel's lawn, and to keep her kids off as well. This was mostly to see if that was really the problem.

Naturally, it was not. Ethel has since grabbed another neighbor's son around the neck because she thought it was Jill's son. She has also told Jill that she should keep her kids inside if she wants to keep them safe. The police were called, and would have pressed charges for harrassment, but indicated to Jill that it would probably get thrown out because of Ethel's mental illness. Jill is at the end of her rope. So at this point, since their lease has expired, I'm going to be asking Fred and Ethel to leave. I will evict them if I need to. Which is a shame, because they have been perfect tenants as far as paying rent on time and not giving us trouble. Unfortunately, they, or I should say she, can't seem to stop causing everyone else trouble.

I probably shouldn't have let it go on as long as it has (four months now), but until this recent incident, it was just Ethel's word against Jill's. I finally have other people willing to tell how this woman is terrorizing Jill and her family. What a pain for me, though! I have to kick out perfectly good tenants and then try to find new ones. Ugh. Why can't people just get along?