I love this place. I get to stay in the basement and
remain hassle-free with relatively no repairs that need doing. I was challenged
to see whether it was worth raising the rent of my Nepalese tenants by $25 and
risk losing them. As I wrote in an earlier post, they were the only tenants
that had an issue with the rent increase that begins in 2015. I was all set to
raise their rent until Christmas happened. There I was, after working at the
bank job for 8 hours, lying in bed and truly relaxing. The Nepalese tenants
were playing video games and listening to Johnny Cash. One of them has been
trying to learn how to play guitar and was playing along to “Ring of Fire”.
There was the smell of delicious foods in the air and… it was just a great
feeling for a basement dweller like myself. I started to wonder what my life
would be like with new tenants. Even if they pay $75 more, will they be as easy
to live with as the Nepalese? Will I like them as much? So I’ve decided not to
raise their rent, and leave it at $525. Maybe when I have a second apartment to live I would risk raising their rents. But right now I like
the atmosphere around my little man-cave, and I’d like it to stay this way.
Having a comfortable home life was the whole reason why I spent almost $10,000
building a basement apartment, so why risk messing that up for $25 a month?
While Nicholas seems to be handling the rent
increase without a problem, the same cannot be said for Christopher. In November,
Christopher confessed that he had lost his job. Ugh. He was still able to pay
November’s rent with the late fee, but it took a while before he finally found
work and will now begin a massive 3 month payment plan of $200 a week. I’ve
done payment plans with him before, but never one this long. I am a bit
skeptical that he’ll be able to get it together, but if anyone can it’s
Christopher. He’s been my tenant since 2009, and has endured a lot during his
tenancy, including his girlfriend dying of cancer in the apartment. Through it
all he has always found a way to pay me when he’s behind on rent, and he just
started working at THREE jobs to catch up on his bills. Come on, even I have to
respect that. So I agreed to the plan which starts next week, and we’ll see how
things go.
Not much to update here. The same tenants doing the
same stuff. Taniqua and Eugene were late with rent as usual, but this month they were
extremely late (first payment on the 15th, second on the 27th).
While I don’t mind the extra $35 a month in late fees, the routine is getting
old. I’d rather get the rent on time than late with the late fee. But whatever.
Despite their chronic lateness, they like living in that dingy apartment, so I’ll
live with it until I build up enough money to pay for the renovation of this
property. Should be about 3 years from now, so I’ve got a long way to go.
For once, I have some very good news about this
piece of shit property that I’m forced to manage. Before that, I’ll bring up a
quick conversation I had with Damon during our last dinner:
Damon (after hearing my gripes about the tenants at
Property X): Wow, so you have to wait until the end of May to finally throw
that autistic bitch out?
Me: Yeah.
Damon: Hey, why did you have her sign a one year
lease? For that matter, why did you sign your new tenants to a 6 month lease
when you’ve always talked about enjoying the freedom of month-to-month leases?
Me: I… I don’t know. I think it's because I want the
tenancy to feel more established or something, you know what I mean? Like presenting a fixed-term lease seems more professional, you know?
Damon: That doesn’t make sense.
And Damon was right. Why was I so against having
new tenants sign month-to-month leases? I have no reason not to! I even talked Damon into doing month-to-month leases at our first dinner. If I had done so
with Tisha and my former tenant Mallory, it wouldn’t have taken so goddamned
long to get them out. Okay, so here’s where the good news come in. Tee hee hee...
Tisha called me a couple weeks ago complaining that
the new upstairs tenants, Tony and Ashlin, were having a party late into the
night. Since it was on my way home from work after midnight, I decided to stop
by just to check it out. They were indeed having a party that was just about
over, so I took Tony downstairs and explained the situation. The neighborhood
finally has a chance of being good now that the bar is closed down/ the
property management company is part of a neighborhood watch/ you know, the
usual. The next day Tisha calls me again to say that the tenants were trying to
break into the basement and she doesn’t feel safe and yadda yadda yadda (power
was out upstairs and they didn’t know how to get into the basement). I let her ramble
as I watched cartoons until she said something that made my heart smile:
Tisha: I don’t feel safe anymore here and I need to
break this lease so I can leave. I don’t care if I’m signed on for a year, I
will call a lawyer and find out how I can get out of this lease…
Me (trying to hide my excitement): If you fear for
your safety then I have no problems changing your lease from a one year lease
to month-to-month. I’ll do the same thing for you like I did for Mallory when
she had the same fear after being maced in the face (by Tisha’s son).
That Monday I quickly went over to give her a paper
to sign stating that she’s now a month to month tenant. I didn’t want to seem
too eager, so I told her she could mail it to me. Once I got it, I was… man! I
wanted to frame that piece of paper like it was a diploma! On the 29th
I sent her a 30 day notice via certified mail, which means that she’ll be out
before the end of JANUARY! Oh how sweet it is! Without this fortunate series of
events, I would have had to deal with this monstrosity until May of 2015! I don’t
think I would have made it. As an added bonus, I convinced Ashlin to change her
lease from 6 months to month-to-month due to the party that night. Lovely!
So now I just have to sit back and wait. Tisha
called me about an hour ago complaining that I gave the upstairs tenant a key
to the basement to check in case their power goes out. She started rambling on
and on, saying that I tricked her into signing a month-to-month lease and
started bringing up issues with Mallory and she’s gonna call code enforcement
about this and that and… ugh, I just had it. I found myself raising my voice to
her and realized that I let her get to me again. So I got off the phone with
her and will not take her calls anymore. I will keep the lines of communication
open with texts, but no more talking. Even with her short tenancy, I can easily
say that Tisha and her son are the worst tenants I’ve ever had. They’re scum
and true wastes of life. But in one month, neither of them will be my problem.
Tony and Ashlin have expressed their desire to move
into the downstairs apartment once Tisha leaves, but I’m not sure I wanna do
that right now. They’re just starting new jobs, had that party, and I caught
them screening my calls a few weeks ago when I called from a different number.
Not good signs. Thankfully, if they have problems with the new tenants then I’ll
throw them out on their month-to-month asses just like Tisha. But right now all
options are open and, with Tisha leaving, 2015 may finally be a good year for
Property X.
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