Last week Wednesday was my monthly dinner with Damon.
I asked Damon how renovations are going at his Vacancy Bank property. He said that he now believes he has to get a contractor to do the work instead of doing it himself, mostly due to his job being very busy. I reminded him that I advised him early on to get a contractor to do the damned job. By now, the property would be just about rental ready. Instead, he’s still going through the vetting process of finding the right contractor.
He asked me about my properties, and I explained the situation going on at Property X. Damon reminded me of the times that a situation would get bad, and how I would rationalize procrastination instead of taking action. This was absolutely true, and I had to stomp this bullshit out before it got worse. The upstairs tenant, Danny, was supposed to make his next $250 payment that day, but he said his boss changed his payroll so they get paid Friday. He asked if I could wait until Saturday morning. I told him that… well, here’s the exchange that took place after I asked him to get a letter from his boss saying that he changed the payroll date:
Would you look at that. A scumbag who actually acts like a scumbag? Who would have thought?! What he was asking wasn’t unreasonable. It was the fact that he thought he could withhold a COURT ORDERED payment based on an issue that wasn’t even happening in his apartment! I didn’t respond to his question. Instead, I called my lawyer Marvin Wassle very early Monday morning and told him Danny defaulted on the payment agreement. He should be getting the eviction notice this morning, which means he’ll be out by Monday. I also filed to garnish his wages, so hopefully I’ll get what was owed. As far as Chuck and the Van Sickle family go, I spoke to Chuck yesterday. I let him know that I’ll have to give him a 30-day notice and he has to be out by the end of September. He seemed a little pissed off, but I got the feeling that he knew this was coming. I really wanted to make a big deal about the bedbug infestation and put it on them to pay for it, but the hassle it would take to get them to do so is too much.
I decided that the next tenants of Property X’s downstairs apartment should be immigrants. I went to Property 1’s Nepalese family to let them know the place will be available in October. I even told them that I can work with whoever they find on pricing, just as long as they’re trusted friends or family members. Imagine renting a beautiful 3 bedroom 2 bathroom apartment for less than $600?! But that’s what I’ll have to do for a property located in that neighborhood. The mortgage for the place is $712 so, as long as both apartments bring in a combined $1100, the place will pay for itself with enough left over for average repairs. I no longer care about Property X’s profits and, if one takes a good look, it’ll probably make more money this way.
Whatever profits Property X had during the Van Sickle/Danny tenancy will be completely wiped out by the cost to treat the bedbugs, the water bills, and the repairs both during and after their tenancies. Things would be much different if I had a Nepalese family living in the downstairs like the one in Property 1 and a human in the upstairs. The repairs would most likely be less and the rent would be stable. And they would be impervious to the shit talking that goes on with the neighborhood… especially the next door neighbors who seem to enjoy starting drama there. So, an unstable $1400 or a stable $1100? Yeah. My response exactly.
I'm proud of myself for being proactive and throwing them both out when I could have bled the situation out longer with both parties. I could have waited longer for Danny to pay the $250. I could have accepted that Chuck had taken care of the bedbug problem on his own and rented the upstairs out, while working with him on the rent with another payment agreement. But I’ve done this before. Over and over again, especially with Property X. The pattern is too obvious for me to ignore. The sooner I do something about it, the better I get at being proactive in future situations.
P.S.: The dinner was relatively quick and not as informative as previous ones. Damon seems to gear our conversations towards personal stuff, and I’m getting very tired of being the one to keep the purpose for these dinners in focus. I also found out that he works only a block away from me, for the same bank that Marla works for. They even know each other! This is combined with the fact that Pelcom Nick works across the street as a delivery boy at a restaurant. My ex girlfriend, ex handyman, and annoying real estate acquaintance all within one block of me? Too close for comfort. If these dinners don’t get better, I’ll have to end them and go back to relying solely on this blog for real estate advice. There’s nothing he has said in the last 5 months that I haven’t said on this blog anyway.
I asked Damon how renovations are going at his Vacancy Bank property. He said that he now believes he has to get a contractor to do the work instead of doing it himself, mostly due to his job being very busy. I reminded him that I advised him early on to get a contractor to do the damned job. By now, the property would be just about rental ready. Instead, he’s still going through the vetting process of finding the right contractor.
He asked me about my properties, and I explained the situation going on at Property X. Damon reminded me of the times that a situation would get bad, and how I would rationalize procrastination instead of taking action. This was absolutely true, and I had to stomp this bullshit out before it got worse. The upstairs tenant, Danny, was supposed to make his next $250 payment that day, but he said his boss changed his payroll so they get paid Friday. He asked if I could wait until Saturday morning. I told him that… well, here’s the exchange that took place after I asked him to get a letter from his boss saying that he changed the payroll date:
Would you look at that. A scumbag who actually acts like a scumbag? Who would have thought?! What he was asking wasn’t unreasonable. It was the fact that he thought he could withhold a COURT ORDERED payment based on an issue that wasn’t even happening in his apartment! I didn’t respond to his question. Instead, I called my lawyer Marvin Wassle very early Monday morning and told him Danny defaulted on the payment agreement. He should be getting the eviction notice this morning, which means he’ll be out by Monday. I also filed to garnish his wages, so hopefully I’ll get what was owed. As far as Chuck and the Van Sickle family go, I spoke to Chuck yesterday. I let him know that I’ll have to give him a 30-day notice and he has to be out by the end of September. He seemed a little pissed off, but I got the feeling that he knew this was coming. I really wanted to make a big deal about the bedbug infestation and put it on them to pay for it, but the hassle it would take to get them to do so is too much.
I decided that the next tenants of Property X’s downstairs apartment should be immigrants. I went to Property 1’s Nepalese family to let them know the place will be available in October. I even told them that I can work with whoever they find on pricing, just as long as they’re trusted friends or family members. Imagine renting a beautiful 3 bedroom 2 bathroom apartment for less than $600?! But that’s what I’ll have to do for a property located in that neighborhood. The mortgage for the place is $712 so, as long as both apartments bring in a combined $1100, the place will pay for itself with enough left over for average repairs. I no longer care about Property X’s profits and, if one takes a good look, it’ll probably make more money this way.
Whatever profits Property X had during the Van Sickle/Danny tenancy will be completely wiped out by the cost to treat the bedbugs, the water bills, and the repairs both during and after their tenancies. Things would be much different if I had a Nepalese family living in the downstairs like the one in Property 1 and a human in the upstairs. The repairs would most likely be less and the rent would be stable. And they would be impervious to the shit talking that goes on with the neighborhood… especially the next door neighbors who seem to enjoy starting drama there. So, an unstable $1400 or a stable $1100? Yeah. My response exactly.
I'm proud of myself for being proactive and throwing them both out when I could have bled the situation out longer with both parties. I could have waited longer for Danny to pay the $250. I could have accepted that Chuck had taken care of the bedbug problem on his own and rented the upstairs out, while working with him on the rent with another payment agreement. But I’ve done this before. Over and over again, especially with Property X. The pattern is too obvious for me to ignore. The sooner I do something about it, the better I get at being proactive in future situations.
P.S.: The dinner was relatively quick and not as informative as previous ones. Damon seems to gear our conversations towards personal stuff, and I’m getting very tired of being the one to keep the purpose for these dinners in focus. I also found out that he works only a block away from me, for the same bank that Marla works for. They even know each other! This is combined with the fact that Pelcom Nick works across the street as a delivery boy at a restaurant. My ex girlfriend, ex handyman, and annoying real estate acquaintance all within one block of me? Too close for comfort. If these dinners don’t get better, I’ll have to end them and go back to relying solely on this blog for real estate advice. There’s nothing he has said in the last 5 months that I haven’t said on this blog anyway.
I wish I didn't have the experience to contribute a comment here.
ReplyDeleteMany years ago, I allowed some friends to stay at my house overnight...and they brought bed bugs. Since these were friends, I am sure they must have picked up a stray bedbug hitchhiker on their luggage during their travels and didn't even know. A few weeks later I had 60 bites on my left arm alone (I had bites everywhere but only counted one arm because there were so many). Thankfully, my house was still relatively bare with minimal furniture at that time.
This is how I got rid of the bedbugs: Every day I sprayed the entire house a few times with 90% alcohol--the floors, walls, sinks, cracks, doors, ceilings, etc. 90% alcohol kills bugs and their eggs (they sell this in large containers at Costco). Cloth items like curtains and mattresses were steamed everyday because steaming kills bugs and eggs. I washed all linens daily in hot water and then dried for 2+ hours on high heat. I sealed all cracks with silicone. It would be much easier in an empty house.
Eradicating bedbugs is an extremely time consuming, tedious, full-time job. Not taking this seriously or being less diligent will cost you more time and money in the long-run. Keep in mind, bedbugs can live several months without feeding and multiply faster than imaginable. You can't leave ANY eggs behind because a single egg can quickly result in a new infestation. I got rid of all the bedbugs in a few weeks and have been bedbug free for 5 years. Getting rid of bedbugs this quickly is almost unheard of. You need to take this extremely seriously to prevent them from staying and constantly reinfecting the house.
You don't really think I would recommend the place to my precious Nepalese tenants if I didn't have a plan, did you?! I'd never let them move into a place that I would live in myself.
DeleteI'm not going to treat anything until both the upstairs and downstairs tenants are gone and the place is completely empty. Then the pest control guy is gonna go in there and do his thing. His services carry a one year warranty and I've used him for this problem before back in 2011 (at Property X of course), so I'm not worried.
The current tenants don't deserve to live in a bedbug free apartment. Danny is a liar who can't pay on time, and the Van Sickle family brought the bedbugs in the first place. If I'm gonna do this and spend the money to treat this issue professionally, it'll be for tenants that I know will appreciate it and I won't have to worry about them bringing the bedbugs back.
I'm much lazier than you, so I could never do that much work to eradicate the bedbugs. Between everything I'm currently doing, I just don't have the time and dedication it would take to do it on my own. I'd much rather pay to have the professionals do it, and then have in writing that the place is infestation free. As a landlord, that writing is extremely important.