My Real Estate Life

Back Home.

2013-02-11T14:44:00.001-08:00

Made it back home and all is going well. The renter is all moved in and is arranging furniture and sending photos of how nice the place looks. Happy renters are great.

The management company is all on board and ready to go in case we ever need them. Hopefully this will never happen, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

The car is unloaded and everything is put back to where it belongs.

My desk is piled full of stuff to do with all of the things from outside the real-estate portion of my life. It’s amazing how everything just piles up.

My husband is already talking about another house. However, I am hoping we can try to put that off for a little bit until I can catch up. Having said that, he does have a way of getting what he wants, so we will see.

Will keep this blog posted and in the mean time, keep in touch.

This house done.

2013-02-06T11:58:00.002-08:00

It looks like things are wrapping up. We found a Renter and a Property Manager.

Our renter is great. He passed the background check better than he even thought. He loves the house and is getting packed up and ready to move in next week.

We found a property manager that seems to understand that this is our house and he works for us. He can be here for any emergencies and is collecting the rent directly so that the tenants will have a local place to go to pay the rent at the last second if they need to. Their price per month is not too bad at 8% of rents collected.

He is also good with not doing the renewals or the between tenant rehab. It seems that most of the property manager want to switch out tenants as much as possible so that they can charge a full month’s rent to find another tenant. Our goal is to get good tenants in that stay, not swap them out every year. Plus, this will allow us to go in and make the upgrades we want between tenants and not leave it to a stranger to fix things up.

All of my stuff has been kept in the garage in a nice organized pile while showing the house. Since we don’t have any storage nearby and I really don’t want to pay for a storage unit, it all get’s packed into the little car to head home. My renter was shocked that I could fit everything inside. But one way or another it will fit.

The plan is, the night before the tenant moves in, I pack up the car to the brim. Will meet him the next afternoon and turn over the keys and he does the final sign off attesting he received the keys and what the keys are for. Say goodbye to my new neighbor friends. And then head out for the long drive.

I can’t wait to get home to see my family again. After all, they are the reason I am doing this.

The Things People Do. (Continued from previous.)

2013-01-30T10:43:00.001-08:00

...Continued from previous.

One family came back three times. Loved the house. Loved the neighborhood. Couldn’t commit. A couple of shady characters. A few looky loos from the neighborhood. All in all, pretty positive.

My favorite one was the young couple who just found out they were pregnant and wanted to move out of their apartment.

I asked when their lease was up? “Not for another 9 months, but don’t worry. I have a friend that can write a letter to get us out of it.”

What did they do for work? “I am self employed. I work with my brother and we took over my dad’s business. “ Can you verify your income. “Well… I am self employed.”

They decided they wanted to apply for the house and insisted that this was the house for them. They submitted the application and all of the paperwork. The income verification documents looked like it was printed out from an excel worksheet. No way to verify where the numbers came from. No bank statements. No tax documents. Just a bunch of pages with numbers on it. Plus, they printed out one page twice and forgot another

I looked up and found the owner of the house they say they rented before moving into the apartment. The county records show that it was owned by his brother, who by chance was also listed as being his direct supervisor, and his personal reference. So I called the brother and asked if he worked for him, yes, he is a great guy, hard worker etc. I asked him if he owned the home at the applicants previous address. Pause, yes, he owned the home. I asked him if he knew the name of the person the applicant listed as his landlord, Pause, no never heard of him. He asked why. I told him that the applicant listed that person as his previous landlord, but you owned the home and thought that was odd, him being his brother and all. Long pause, "he's a great guy."

So then I call his current residents. They say yes, the couple rents and apartment in their building. The couple seemed ok, but, there lease doesn’t run out any time soon. I told them what he told me about the letter. They say “OH Really…. I don’t think so. We will talk to them next time they come in. Do us a favor and don’t call them back till tomorrow.”

So the next day I call the applicant back back (sent a certified letter that afternoon) and tell him we can’t rent to the them. “Umm…. Why?” No verifiable income. Currently in a Lease. “OK.” Click.

Seriously, did they not think that I would follow up or that I was asking these things on the application just for fun? The whole point of the process is the weed out people who are not going to pay, cannot pay, or would destroy the property. And if your going to lie to me right from the get go, how can I trust you with my home, my huge investment.

Well. Here's the thing...

2013-01-25T12:27:00.000-08:00

The house is listed for rent and this is really my favorite part of this whole process. It’s fun to see the reactions of folks of what they like and don’t like. It’s also fun to hear their stories. Some of them have some great life experiences. Some of them… well, you just have to laugh.

I love it when they come through the house and look around and then say, “well, here’s the thing…”

Our Lease Application lists right up front ALL of the requirements to lease the home. Most people say that they love the house, where is the application. I point out all of the requirements and hand it to them. If they don’t qualify, the usually just take it home and don’t come back.

Some of the look it over and say the “Well… here’s the thing”.

One woman says, "Well... here's the thing...". Would I be willing to take government assistance. No, I pointed out on the requirements that we do not accept any government assistance programs. She kept saying, “but it’s guaranteed money” and, “you would get your rent every month with no problem”. I finally had to tell her, “no, we are not accepting any government assistance programs. If you have a program that pays you directly, that is between you and them. But the government sure has heck didn’t help us to purchase this home, so we sure as heck are not going to accept any assistance in keeping it.” We laughed and then she looked at me, realized I was serious, and left never to return.

Another family came in, filled out the applications, and paid for the background check. Did their backgrounds and my investigation and they passed. So I called them up to say congratulations. "Well, here's the thing...: They changed their mind and wanted to live in an apartment instead so there wouldn't be any yard work. They asked for their background check funds to be returned, but since I had already paid for their background, told them it was not possible. They understood.

One family came in with three adults, mom, dad and grandma. When I told them that every adult over the age of 18 must have a background check, they were shocked. “All of us! But Grandma is from another county and doesn’t have a background." They were horrified when I told them that regardless of their citizenship status that every adult over the age of 18 must must must have a background check to verify that there is no criminal history. I had to finally explain to them that the school bus stop is right in front of the house and I will be darned if I have some criminal or child molester living in my home. All three said "Oh..." at the same time when they finally got it. They never came back.

To Be Continued...

So much for the realtor.

2013-01-17T16:38:00.000-08:00

We thought hiring a realtor that was also a property manager would be a good idea. We thought so anyways.

One day during the rehab, the realtor stopped by and I asked him for the property management contract as we had not seen it yet. His wife emailed the contract a couple of days later. After fourteen pages of legal jargon, it needed to be changed.

Apparently, this is a standard contract that is used across the state with a bunch of fill in the blanks. Much of it has nothing to do with us, and there were several things we did not like at all.

Some of those things where: we had to pay them for every little piece of office supplies they used. We also had to pay for all mileage, even if someone was driving from the office on the other side of the state. The contract also stated that we had to give him $500 a month extra for anything related to the property, no questions asked.

Found the original document online, downloaded it, and rewrote it. All of the mumbo jumbo that was irrelevant to our home was removed, printed it out, signed and initialed all of the pages, and sent it back to him for his signatures. And then heard nothing.

Many days go by and still not a word. So I called him up and told him the contract needed to be in place before I left town. After a long pause, he says “About that contract. I looked over the changes and really don’t see them as being all that major. All of our out of state owners use the same contract and we have never had a problem. Plus, since this is a state wide standard contract, it is illegal to make any changes to it and has to remain the way it is.”

Illegal…. Oh really. (Remember, this is the same guy whose maintenance man tried to sell us stolen paint.) Told him I would call him back after checking with my attorney. Long pause…. “um…. ok”.

Called my attorney and he just laughed. He said that no, it was not illegal to change any contract, that is why it is called contract negations. Plus, if this guy is trying to tell me that, fire him now.

Called the realtor back, told him that on the advice of our attorney, we would not be using the original contract. If he could not accept the changes, we understood and would find someone else.

Needless to say, he was upset and tried everything he could think of to get me to sign that contract. At the end of the conversation he angrily said, “Fine, you want to be long distance landlords, you just go ahead. You will never find anyone to work for you. Have a nice life.” Then he hung up.

When I got back to my computer, I sent him and his wife a nice email and wished them the best in their future endeavors. Now to look for a property manager.

Listing and posting the Sign. (Continued from Previous)

2013-01-11T12:19:00.000-08:00

... Continued.

Once you have all of this together, it’s time to list the house. My favorite site for qualified tenants is Zillow. Other sites such as Rent.com and Rentals.com do add more exposure and we have had good results with both of them. Trulia, Hotpads, and Postlets are good also, but they pull data from Zillow, so don't waist the money. Craig’s List may add more exposure, but the prospective tenants usually never seem to qualify.

Let’s start with the description. Put as much information into the description as you can. Talk about the neighborhood, schools, rooms, updates, features, and amedities. Give as much information as possible. Most sites limit the amount of room you have so if there is space, put in your tenant requirements.

If there is a place for a virtual tour or virtual walkthrough, put it in. Upload every photo you can. If there are more photos than can be uploaded to a particular site, put in a link to where the prospective tenant can view the rest. Put in a link where they can download an application.

Some sites will not allow external links so make sure to put in an email address where they can send a note asking to see the rest of the photos, video, or the application. The more information, the better. Also, don’t forget to include the phone number where they can contact you.

If at all possible, put up a sign in the front yard so that when people are driving by, the can easily identify the home.

There are only three things that you need to put on a sign. For Rent (or Sale if it’s being sold). A phone number printed in big bold text. And a large QR Code so that a prospective tenant can use their smart phone to look up more information if they are not ready to call you on the phone. That’s it.

The biggest mistake that people make when putting up as sign is placing too much information or writing the text so small it’s hard to read from a distance. If you can't read it from three houses away, it's too small.

The QR Code is a fabulous tool. It cuts down on neighborhood peepers that only want to look for the sake of looking, completely wasting your time. And since so many people have smart phones now days the phone call of folks calling just to ask how much the rent is greatly reduced. QR Codes can be generated for free. Just do a Google search for Free QR Code Generator.

Make sure the QR Code large enough that a phone can read it from the car so people feel more comfortable using it but not so large it takes over. I usually use an image that is 4 inches by 4 inches.

A Very Important Side Note. Write down everywhere you posted the information about the home. After it is rented, everything needs to be removed from every site. Crooks use the internet just as much as the good guys do. So for the safety and security of your tenants, it’s not hard to hit that delete button and remove all photos, videos, and floor plans.

Now to spend time answering phone calls, responding to emails, and showing the house.

Virtual Tours and Virtual Walkthrough (Continued from Previous)

2013-01-10T09:08:00.000-08:00

... Continued.

Virtual Tours are another great way to show off the house. And you don’t need anything super fancy other than your camera, a tripod, and the standard video editing software on your computer.

In each room, put your camera on the tripod. Then, while recording video and being slow, steady and smooth in your motions, turn your camera 360 degrees. This will give the impression of standing in the middle of the room and looking around.

Then, put together a 5-10 minute video as if you where giving someone a tour of the home. Videos longer than 5-10 minutes take too long to download and won’t keep a prospective tenant occupied.

Don’t put any speech in the video as sometimes the spoken word can be mis-heard or misinterpreted. Instead, put plain simple easy to read text at the bottom of the image or clip. Also some nice happy music playing in the background at low volume makes these videos easier to watch. Choose something upbeat, but NOT repetitive or elevator music or super current like the latest pop song. Something that will appeal to as many demographics as possible.

YouTube tends to be the best site to use to show off the video. It's easy to upload and the site will automatically adjust the video to whatever device (such as computers, cell phones, tablets) the prospective tenant is using.

A Virtual Walkthrough is also a great tool. It allows the prospective tenant or prospective buyer look at each room online at their own speed as if they where at the home doing their own walkthrough. They can zoom in and out to see each detail and then move to the next room when they are ready.

The drawback of a Walkthough over a Tour is this. One, you need a special (and costly) one-shot 360 camera lens and software that can do 360 degree still images to create it. The cheaper 360 video images tend to be jumpy and annoying to the end user. Plus, many end users don’t realize that it is a 360 video and just watch it as a regular video. And two, is that some clientele may have trouble figuring out how to navigate through the rooms.

Having said all this, a Virtual Walkthrough really is a terrific addition to the tour. The best system I have found to create a walkthrough this is the 0-360 system.

If you are advertising a lot of homes, the price may be worth it. If only one or two, it may be better to stick with the standard photos and tour.

To Be Continued...

Taking Advertising Photos (Continued from Previous)

2013-01-09T08:49:00.000-08:00

... Continued.

There is no such thing as too many photos. Take at least two of each room. Take one photo from each diagonal corner so that they can see the room in its entirety.

When taking the photos, be very careful to take a photo of the room, not the furniture. This is a common mistake and it drives me nuts when I see people doing it. You’re advertising the room, not the furniture. If the furniture comes with the house, take a separate photo of each furniture piece separate from the room photos.

For example, in a bedroom where the bed dominates the room, take a photo of the room itself putting the bed off center of the photo so that the prospective tenant sees the floor or ceiling fan. You may need to put the camera on a tripod and raise it over your head to do this. If more photos are required, so be it. It's not like you have to pay to get them developed.

Also, try to take photos with any window coverings open. This will allow prospective tenants to see the view outside each window to they can make a decision if this is acceptable to them before even making an appointment. And if there is a curtain over the bath tub or shower, open it. That way they can see inside the wash area and they know you’re not trying to hide anything. While you’re at it, take a photo of inside the shower or tub to show how clean it is and hopefully they will keep it that way.

Make sure the photos are current. Nobody likes to see photos of something taken years ago. They want to move in now, not then. If there is still a tenant living in the home and you absolutely have to use photos taken years ago, make sure the viewer knows that these are old photos and that new photos will be taken as soon as the home is ready to show.

To Be Continued...

Creating a listing (Continued from previous)

2013-01-08T10:38:00.001-08:00

... Continued.

Second, be up front about what you are expecting from a potential tenant. On every one of our rental applications a list of requirements is right there in black and white. Things like how much their income must be to afford this home, what background checks we are doing, what the pet policy of this house is, how much deposits and fees are etc. These applications are available online for a tenant to review before they even call to make an appointment to see the home.

This is a great time saver. If a tenant doesn’t qualify, they usually rule themselves out before even showing up. Also, seeing the requirements in black and white usually makes the rules more real to somehow. And if a potential tenant doesn’t qualify, they usually just take the application never to return. When someone tries to ask to break a rule “just for them” or, “just this once”, just say no. If you start your relationship with a tenant breaking rules, expect to do it all the way through their tenancy. These rules are restricted from state to state so make sure you check with your attorney. I have an attorney for every state (except Alaska) so if you need a recommendation, let me know.

And third, is to try to get prospective tenants (especially if you’re looking for a prospective buyer) emotionally attached to the home before even stepping foot inside. This is also a huge time saver as you won’t have to show the home to tenants that feel the house is not their style or to as many neighbors that just want to peek. Neighbors quite often like to peek online so they feel that nobody knows they are looking.

To really create this emotional attachment, first create a floor plan of the home. Include all of the windows and doors and hallways. Also, show where the appliances in the kitchen go and the bathroom layouts. It doesn’t have to be to builder’s accuracy, but the closer the better. This will allow tenants to start thinking of where to put their furniture and how they personally would use each room. Plus, unless you do a major remodel, this image can be used over and over again.

To Be Continued...

Rehab Done, Time to List.

2013-01-07T13:39:00.004-08:00

The holidays are over. I took a break for a few days to fly home to visit my family. It’s hard to be away from them for so long, but they are the reason I am here. So with renewed vigor, am back and ready to get the house rented out and turned over to the property manager.

Before leaving for the holidays, I cleaned the house inside and out. The inside is white glove clean. Every crack, crevice, floor, ceiling, wall, and shelf is cleaned and ready to move in. Over the years I have found that if you turn a house over to the tenants super clean, you usually get it back semi-clean. Plus a clean house tends to attract tenants that are clean by nature and will keep it clean.

The outside front and back of the home has been cleaned, weeded, cut, and manicured so the tenants have a starting point of the condition they need to keep the yards. The garage is clean and empty except for my tools tucked back into a corner. Now to get this posted online.

It is our policy not to use a realtor to advertise the house. It quite frankly is not in the budget. A realtor tends to charge anywhere between a half to one full month’s rent to find a qualified tenant, and we are the ones that need to do the background checks to make sure the tenants meet our standards. Plus, with a background in marketing and real estate, I tend to do a better job of advertising anyways.

Online advertising with photos and video is crucial to renting or even selling a home. Like it or not, we live in an internet based society. Almost everyone these days does their research online before even driving by the home. Full disclosure about the home is important. You don’t want the tenants to try to hide something from you, don’t try it with them.

Over the years, I have developed a three part system that seems to work quite well in any market and any time of the year as long as the house is priced adequate to the current market value. If you’re not sure about the price, check Zillow. Zillow will tell you approximately with pretty good accuracy how much the house can rent (or sell) for.

First of all, be honest. If you are honest with your tenants, they tend to be a little more honest with you. Don’t try to advertise a 3 bedroom 2.5 bath house as a 3 bedroom 3 bath house or try to call a closet or game room another bedroom just to make the house would look better on paper. It may seem small, but small things add up and they do matter. You do have to promote and if you can turn a potential negative into a feature, great. By addressing any potential negatives (preferably in a positive light) right away, it shows you are not trying to hide anything.

To Be Continued...

Trash - Always Ask What Is Covered In The Bill.

2012-12-26T13:26:00.001-08:00

It so nice to have terrific neighbors. On both sides of the house, the neighbors are super nice and have been great about answering my silly questions about the neighborhood and where to find things. They also have both offered to allow me to put my food type trash out with their trash pickup pile every week so I don’t have to start up trash service for the house. So for a couple of months now, I have been going out late at night and putting out a bag of trash with each of the neighbors every week before trash pickup day.

The big stuff that the trash truck won’t take or that is harder to hide in the neighbors cans has been piled into the garage. And now there is a large pile of stuff like all of the toilets, carpet, tree limbs and a bathtub that needs to go to the dump.

My small car is just not going to fit a bathtub in the back, much less everything else. Next best thing is a rental truck. Rented a small enclosed moving truck from the local lot and brought it home. Backed it up the driveway and starting loading the thing. I didn’t think there was enough junk to fill the truck, but it was full to the top. Took me all night, but it was loaded up and ready go.

About half way through filling the truck, one of my neighbors came over to say hi. We were chatting for a little and then he said, “you know, it just dawned on me since your loading all this junk onto the truck, your water bill also covers trash pickup service….”.

Apparently, since the water bill was going to my primary residence, I never saw the paperwork that stated that trash service was included in the water bill. All this time I was sneaking out late at night to dump small bags of trash when I could have just been putting it out to the curb.

Needless to say, we both had a big belly laugh over that one. A dump run would still need to be done for the large items, but the truck would have been a lot lighter. Moral of the story, always ask what is covered in the bill.

The next morning I drove the truck out to the dump and dumped all of those large items. It only took about an hour to unload, but at least it was done.

The Carpet Disaster

2012-12-20T12:52:00.001-08:00

I made a huge mistake. When we purchased the house, the carpets were a mess. With steam cleaner in hand, I had this crazy idea that all of the stains would come right out. There were black, red, green, and blue spots scattered sporadically throughout the home. Not to mention the usually dirt and traffic foot patterns. So though all of the painting, I kept the floor covered, thinking I could save the carpet, and also thousands of dollars.

When the painting was all done, and all of the plastic remove, the cleaning began. Tried everything. Every spot removal treatment, every home remedy, every suggestion I could find online. Went to every home store and asked everyone. No luck. Wasted literally days working on trying to save it, not to mention the waste of time covering the carpet for painting.

Finally, after lots of elbow grease, sore hands and knees, a ton of soap and cleaners, sweat, and even tears, I gave up. The carpet had seen its day and now it was time for it to go.

Sadly, I wondered down to the carpet store to order up new carpet for the entire house as there was not a room in the place that did not have some sort of stain somewhere. The carpet store could not get anything installed for 8 weeks. I had made a horrible mistake. Never in my wildest dreams did I realize that carpet now days would take that long to install and I can’t wait that long.

So I went to the big box store. It cost me about five hundred dollars more, but they could get it installed in a week. I saved a couple of hundred bucks by pulling out the old carpet myself. They would send a measuring person the next day.

So that night I start ripping carpet. It was cut into manageable pieces, rolling it up, and hauling it to the garage with all of the other items to go to the dump. To save money, the tack strips were left so they could be reused.

While I was rolling up the carpet, I kept finding things under it. This was especially true in the stair way. Things like ink pens and toys. It looked like the kids who used to live here where hiding pens and toys under the carpet. It explains all of the different color spots throughout the house.

A gentleman measured the house for the new carpet. He put everything into the computer and sent it off to the installers.

The installers where great and did a wonderful Job. First thing they did was throw out the computer instructions. The computer did not take into account traffic patterns. Instead, they installed all of the carpet based on traffic patterns so as not to have seams in the wrong places, and they ended up using less carpet.

The house is starting to come together.

Kitchen is done... finally

2012-12-07T13:37:00.001-08:00

The kitchen is done, finally. Man oh mighty that was a tough job. I started out on one side of the kitchen on a small wall. The one wall I choose to start on the former owner thankfully painted before they put up the wall paper. But that is where the thankfulness stopped.

None of the other walls where painted before putting up the wallpaper. Seriously. None of them. And the stuff was put up everywhere. On the back of every shelf outside a cabinet. Above the cabinets. Along every edge. Everywhere. Plus the stuff is textured so I can’t just paint over it without the flower overlay on top of the plaid to show through. (Yes, I tried on a small spot, but no luck.)

Then, when I took down the blinds to paint in the breakfast nook (because they even wallpapered that horrible stuff on the ceiling of the breakfast nook) I found that the screws holding up the blinds where also holding up the entire back side of drywall on the ceiling. (Grrrr)

Four Coats of One-Coat Paint

So, here is what happened to fix it. First thing to do was to secure the ceiling in place so it doesn’t come down. The entire room and all of the cabinets and floor got covered in plastic because this is going to be a mess. Every inch of wall has to be covered and scraped in drywall mud to fill in the texture. The mud goes on super thin, so not too worried about cracking. However, it took me three times of doing the process to get everything super smooth to my satisfaction. This means that every inch of wall had to be mud-ed, dried, sanded, wiped down to get rid of the drywall dust, and then done again two more times. All this just to hide the texture and make sure it lasts.

Six Coats of One-Coat Paint

Then everything had to be painted. The wallpaper was so loud that it took six, yes, that’s right, six, coats of one-coat paint to cover it up so it doesn’t show through anymore.

To get the plastic off, a knife had to be used to cut away the dried paint because this room took so long to do. Cleaned everything up and called it a done.

Now on to the next project.

Starting the Kitchen

2012-10-31T10:57:00.003-07:00

Now to start on the kitchen. The cabinets’ are not all that bad. A little banged up and dirty maybe, but not horrible. Will call it a rustic country kitchen when it’s all clean. It’s really the walls that have me worried more than anything. All of the walls have a multicolored plaid wallpaper that has a translucent flower overlay. It’s really hard to capture in photos, but either way, it has to go.

Started with the cleaning everything first. There is spaghetti sauce splatters everywhere. No kidding. It’s even under the cabinets at the kick plate. Looks like the former owners had a spaghetti fight in there before they left.

Pulled out the stove and there was a ton of icky gunk underneath it, behind it, and running down all four sides of it. No sign of mice, thank goodness, because if they found this spot, the little fur balls would be there forever and live fat dumb and happy without anyone ever knowing they where there.

All of the old shelf paper was removed from the cabinets and everything got a good cleaning inside and out with lots of soap, water, and elbow grease.

There is a water filter under the sink that was turned off because apparently one of the valves leaked. It was a five dollar fix and it’s good as new. Replaced the water filter and it’s ready to go.

The dishwasher seems to be working ok. The stove is very old. Have had bad luck with an old gas stove blowing up in the past, so before doing anything with it, the gas company was called out to look at it. They ran gas through all the lines and tested the stove. It seems to be working just fine. So since it’s working, cleaned that up inside and out as well.

The ceiling fan was just as dirty as the rest. When it was dirty, it looked really old and nasty to the point it was about to be thrown out. But all cleaned up, it looks great and is ready to go.

The windows had some badly placed tinting on them so all the glass had to be taken out, the tint film removed, and then cleaned with Goo Gone to remove the sticky stuff. Then a good cleaning with soap and water to remove the Goo Gone and then a final cleaning with window cleaner and it's good to go.

Now to peel off that nasty wall paper.

The Master Bedroom

2012-10-30T14:19:00.003-07:00

The Master bedroom is done. All of that Red Paint. What were they thinking? And the silver sponge effect. I know, I know, it must have looked great with their furniture right??? Nobody taped any of the trim so there are paint brush swipe marks all over the trim. At least they didn’t hurt the doors, windows, lights, or most of the hardware.

Before

The blinds in the window had splashes of red on the top rail where they where mounted. So the blinds had to come out. I was able to save the blinds by cleaning them up with soap and water then cleaning/scraping off paint from the top mounting rod. However, the mounting brackets where completely caked in the red paint. Pulled them all off and repaired the drywall holes. Then took one of the brackets to the hardware store to match the size. Unfortunately this is a custom size and all of us (literally, there were 3 store associates helping me look) could not find the exact match. However, we did find one that was slightly larger. And with a little wood modification to fill in the gap, it worked like a charm. After the room was painted and dried, the blinds where hung back up and they look as good as new.

Washed/scrubbed all of the walls with TSP. Then started the paint. It took about 5 coats of the one-coat-paint, but finally got it so the red can’t be seen anymore. Everything is a nice and creamy white semi-gloss so it will be easy to clean later on down the line.

After

The closet looks great and with a little soap, water, and elbow grease, it cleaned up nicely. There was no cover for the hole in the wall that leads to the plumbing in the master bath, so a plastic utility cover was picked up. And with a little cutting on the drywall to make it look nice and level and square and it’s all covered up.

The ceiling fan is beautiful and quite functional. However, it looks like nobody has ever cleaned it. And I mean ever. The blades were covered in dust and the glass on the lights was filthy. None of the bulbs worked anyways, so all of the light bulbs got removed. Then the glass was taken down and thoroughly washed with hot soapy water. They were so caked with dirt that when cleaned, they look like new glass. The blades and housing where dusted and pledged. The housing was cleaned and vacuumed. Then it all got put back together and looks terrific (and new).

Insurance Inspection.

2012-10-16T14:11:00.002-07:00

Oh dear. Have been so busy cleaning and painting, and painting and cleaning that the posts have been neglected. Please forgive me. Will try to post more often.

Got a letter from the insurance company. Apparently they came by during one of the few times I left the house to run to the hardware store or grab a bite to eat. They saw that the lock box was on the front door still (the sellers never came to take it off the door so it’s still there) and thought the property was abandoned. The letter stated that we had fifteen days to occupy the property or they would cancel our insurance. ACK!

Called the insurance company right away talked to a wonderful young lady. We figured that the inspector must have never left the car because if they did, they would see through the window all of the stuff in the front living room that I am using to fix the house up. I promised to get the lock box off the house by the end of the week and she promised to have the inspector come out to look at the house and take their photos next week or so.

On the back of the lock box is an 800 number to the sellers contracting company that does lock boxes. So I called the number. Got a nice guy on the phone. Told him about the lock box. He asked for the ID number on the box. He then stated that they didn’t want it anymore and I could do what I wanted with it. That’s great, but, how to get it off the door. He laughed and put me on hold. Apparently he hadn’t thought about that. When he came back, he had gotten permission from his supervisor to give me the code to get it off the door. Thank goodness. Now I have a bonus lock box, but not sure if it would be ok to use it again. Will have to think about it.

Since the insurance company only wants to look at the outside and take photos for their files, I wonder if they will even knock on the door? So just waiting for that insurance inspection.

Finshed the Master Bath

2012-10-01T11:43:00.001-07:00

We had a surprise expense. The toilet in both the bathrooms was cracked and leaking. Apparently when I cleaned them the scrubbing cleaned away the goo on the hidden crack and there was nothing left to hold back the water. My father-in-law is very particular about toilets and has very strong opinions about them. And even though he is far far away, we decided to honor his wishes and put in his preferred toilets. So the handyman came in and replaced them both. They are super tall and little kids are going to have to use a step stool to use them, but adults won’t hurt their knees when sitting and standing.

It would be great if we could replace the knobs in the bathroom, but the dang things are almost impossible to get off without destroying the cabinets. Since we are keeping the original cabinets, the knobs are being left in place. The sink is scratched, but clean. And since our budget is running low and the base cabinet is a non standard size, we are just going to have to address this on the next go around.

The cabinets where so extremely dirty. It took a lot of elbow grease to get them cleaned up. The former owner apparently had medical problems so there were spots of blood all over the bottom toe-kick of the cabinets. Cleaned the entire bathroom with a bleach solution and then again with soap and water to cover all the bases.

Halfway through the final coat of paint in the bathroom, I ran out. So ran to the store to get another couple of 5 gallon buckets. Took my paint card with the color on it. Took a lid from a paint can that had the color label on it. Brought them both to the counter and said give me more of the same. Got it home. Went to go paint the next wall. It’s a different color. I was so mad. So the back wall of the bathroom is going to be a lighter shade of Dove White than the rest of the bathroom. Hopefully no one but me will notice and if they do, hopefully they like it. (There goes that hopefully again.)

With that, the master bathroom is done. Everything is painted, repaired, and cleaned up. The only things that are going to go on the “Want to do Next Time” List for the bathroom is to install a exhaust fan through the closet to the outside, and replace the sink, cabinets, and knobs.

Starting the downstairs bathroom

2012-09-27T14:22:00.000-07:00

Things have been supper busy. I have been spending all daylight hours and into the night cleaning and painting. Then painting and cleaning.

This one coat paint stuff still needs more than one coat which is super disappointing. The guys at the paint section of the hardware store didn’t believe me so I had to bring them photos. He took one look at them and gave me a big discount and future contractor pricing on the rest of the paint. Which was a bit of relief for the budget.

Am almost done with the downstairs bathroom and have the first coat of primer on that downstairs red and silver bedroom.

Thank goodness the downstairs bathroom was painted BEFORE they put in the wallpaper. Since the builder never put in an exhaust vent to the outside, some of the wallpaper toward the top of the walls was peeling making the removal that much easier. And thank goodness again for that wallpaper steamer. It really was worth every penny.

The bathtub faucet was dripping pretty steadily and appears to have been dripping for some time. Over the years the drip had warn a rust spot into the bathtub that is now no longer repairable and is on the verge of leaking into the sub floor. I found a really great handyman who is both supper nice and honest by asking around at the local hardware store.

Since I can’t move or replace the tub on my own, he not only replaced the tub, but patched the tile as well. It looks good, not super beautiful as we could not match the tile exactly, but not bad. Now with the white subway tile around the base of the new tub, kids can use it as a drawing spot for soap crayons.

To fix the faucet so the new tub would not get destroyed the way the last one had been, I took photos of it with the smart phone and brought them to the hardware store to find the part needed to stop the leak.

The guys in the plumbing department where great. They told me exactly what part to get and the special tool to use. Since the gaskets are in there by compression, that tool was worth it. When the old part came out, it just fell apart in my hands. No wonder it was leaking so badly. Cleaned out the bits of the old part and put the new one in. Worked like a charm. Now the faucet in the shower works great and won’t destroy the old tub.

The thing is, for 60$ (which includes the special tool), this could have been repaired years ago and the tub would be able to be saved. Now I have to spend about 800$ to replace the tub, re-tile, and fix the faucet.

Fired the Handyman

2012-09-19T10:00:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, after talking to my husband about the handyman, I called the realtor. Had to tell him that we both had a lot of reservations about his handyman. He said that he was a good guy and was he planning on coming by that morning but the final decision on using him to do the work was up to me. He said the guy gave him an excuse of some sort of emergency which is why he didn’t show up or answer his phone the other day.

Around lunch time I took a break from the painting and sat down on the stairs to grab a bite to eat. Looking outside the front window, I watched the handyman’s truck pull up. He pulls up to the curb in front of the house next door and sits there for a good five minutes (had a watch and timed him). Nobody leaves the truck or moves a window. It just sits there. Then he drives away. Odd, but am quite frankly at that point in time I am too busy to really even care.

That evening, his helper that was with him when he first came over, comes by and tells me that he has my glass for the windows in the back of his car but needed to be paid first. I told him that I wasn’t the one that hired him and that the realtor already has the funds to make payments. He was very upset, and very jittery. I told him that I was sorry he was having problems with his guy, but I was not the person he needed to talk to. He got more upset. This next morning I called the realtor and told him about the visit last night and about his guy never coming to the door. Told him to please tell his guy to never come to the door and I would find my own handyman.

By now, the upstairs is clean (ish) and painted and ready to show. My back and feet and hands are so sore, but at least those rooms are presentable. Just need to clean the upstairs windows and the carpet and it’s ready to go. Also need to start asking around for a handyman.

The Not So Handy If He Doesn't Show Up Man.

2012-09-18T11:08:00.004-07:00

Just when a second coat of paint is in the first bedroom, a second coat of primer in the second bedroom and a first coat of primer in the upstairs bathroom, things get interesting.

The realtor came over. We walked around the house while we waited for the handyman to show up. He gave a few opinions on what needed to and not to be done. All of which was on the to-do list except for one. It was to put a lock on the water heater. I didn’t agree with that and asked him what happens if the tenant needs to relight the heater. He told me that tenants weren’t smart enough for that. (Seriously, if a tenant isn’t smart enough to relight a water heater, they don’t need to be living in my house.) I agreed to put a clasp on the water heater cabinet to prevent kids from playing with the heater, but that the adults needed to be able to relight the heater so I wouldn’t have to pay him to come out and do it at an extra expense.

After a while of waiting for this handyman, the realtor got board and started making phone calls and then said he had to go.

The handyman never did show up.

Later that evening, I got a call from my husband. We talked about what was done and what still needed doing. There was now a third coat of primer in the second bedroom, a second coat of primer in the upstairs bathroom, and started to clean the game room. The paint in the game room looked ok, so the only thing needed was a lot of cleaning with elbow grease and some Simple Green.

Apparently, the handyman had called my husband earlier in the day to discuss the costs of hiring him to work on the list I gave him when he was here. (He didn’t mention that he never showed up for his appointment.) He gave my husband his prices in labor and in material costs. They talked about the house. They talked about prices. My husband told him that I can pick stuff up for less money so all we needed was the labor. Then this guy tells my husband, “I know a great place to get paint for real cheap. It’s where contractors take all of their overages to sell, and some of it is even stolen.”

Yeah, this guy is a creep.

Prime, Paint, Clean, Mud

2012-09-13T14:04:00.001-07:00

Two more coats of primer are now on the walls of the back bedroom. The pink and green can still be seen as the colors bleed through. Now I am not sure if it is really bleeding through or the bright colors have burned into my eyes.

The sound of a train woke me up the other night. I am so not used to hearing trains. The bed got moved to the downstairs to a clean portion of the living room. This way there is only one room in the house that is a disaster area. Now it is a big room full of tools, supplies, stuff, things, and me. The rest of the house is free and clear for rehab.

After all that primer I started putting the real paint in the bedroom. My husband and I talked at great length about the color. We didn’t want to go stark white. Plain old white is boring and blinding all at the same time. So found a nice neutral cream to off white color called Dove White. Then ran to the home store and picked up a couple of 5 gallon buckets. Decided to spend a little extra on a paint and primer in one since I can still slightly see the pink and green through the primer.

Put some more mud on the upstairs bathroom. It’s going to take a couple of more coats of mud to be smooth again. So now there are two rooms drying, it’s time to start to prep the dark blue bedroom. The color in here is almost black and the kids did some silver paint graffiti on the walls with lots and lots of stickers. So, back to the TSP. Scrapped off all of the stickers,cleaned the walls, and finished masking the room for that first coat of primer.

About halfway through the clean-up of the front, dark blue bedroom realtor called. He said that he was going to be in town tomorrow and had set up a meeting with the handyman. We set a time when we could all meet and then it was back to work.

Drywall Disaster

2012-09-10T12:30:00.002-07:00

After all the handyman drama, it was time for the second coat of primer on the back bedroom. It amazes me how painting can be so simple, yet so time consuming.

While that was drying, time to start pulling down the peeling wallpaper from the bathroom. The people who put up the wallpaper on the first three walls did a great job. They painted the walls before putting up the paper and they sealed the glue to the wall and all of the edges really well. All it took was some time with the steamer on a seam and it started to peal right off. The wallpaper steamer was worth every penny. No scoring or chemicals needed. Just a little soap in the water, which is more for me than the wall paper. Held it down on parts that don’t want to peel off for a few seconds and off it comes.

The problem area is that back wall. It’s the part that is pealing and looking bad. Started by trying to peal a top corner of the wall paper and the entire side of drywall came down. No mold or mildew. Just a drywall chalky mess. Apparently who ever put the wallpaper on this wall did not paint the drywall before putting on the wallpaper. Then the wallpaper absorbed steam from the shower and soaked it into the drywall itself, destroying the paper and the drywall.

Lesson learned: Always always always put a good coat of protective paint on drywall BEFORE putting up wallpaper.

It took a whole lot of time spent on just scraping, pealing, and carefully removing as much nasty paper as possible. Then all of the holes needed patching and some new drywall put in where it had been disintegrated. After that, the first coat of mud and then let dry.

First coat of Primer.

2012-09-06T08:46:00.001-07:00

The realtor called a couple of hours after the handyman left. I told him our little of meeting and that we all needed to get on the same page. He agreed and reveled that this was not his normal handyman. His normal handyman passed away recently and we are apparently a guinea pig for this one. He said he would call him and set up a meeting so we can all get together to go over what needs to be done. He also gave me the code so I could get the keys our of the lock box. Now I can lock up the house and go grab something to eat.

After grabbing much needed food and coffee, the rest of the day was finishing up the cleaning and putting on the first coat of primer in that bedroom. It is so nice to get that primer on. Kind of cleans up the walls. Am using a one coat primer, but can still see the colors bleeding through, so looks like another coat tomorrow. Hopefully the one coat stuff will work better in the other rooms.

With the first coat of primer on in one room, it was time to start working on the upstairs bathroom. Know it sounds silly, but the first thing was to clean the entire bathroom. This is so I have a cleaner place to work, it allows the painters tape to stick to surfaces, and will make the clean up from the mess I am about to make painting that much easier.

After the bathroom was clean, it was late and time to hit the sack. Literally. The bed is a sleeping bag and pillow on a blanket on the floor. This time I was awake enough to pull out the Therm-a-Rest and put that down for some padding. The sleeping situation is not going to change until I get home.

The Handyman Arrives

2012-09-05T11:33:00.002-07:00

About mid morning the handyman came by to get a list of things to do and give us a quote. He came in with a helper and went around making a list of things he wanted to do all the while, saying “this is a hundred dollars”, “that is a hundred dollars”. By the time made it to the front door, he had spent our entire budget and none of it was stuff I wanted him to do.

Our I told him that this was a great list, but that I could do most of it myself and needed him to do a few things that I just couldn’t. Then walked him around and made him write down my list of to-dos. He noticed that I was painting upstairs and made a comment (one of many off the wall comments) on how he knew of a place to get cheap paint, but “it was in a bad area of town.” Had to laugh and asked if he had ever heard of Compton. He seems confused that he couldn’t rattle a woman no matter how hard he tried.

When we were done, he looked at my list and snickered. He told me he had a friend who could replace the glass he could hire for cheap, but would need to get costs for the rest of it. I got his number and told him I would have my husband talk to him and they could work out the costs. He then informed me that he didn’t work for us, he worked for the realtor. But he actually works for himself and would be happy to bypass the realtor. I told him we hired the realtor and that if he wanted more work, let’s see how he does with a couple of priories on this list first.

The guy left and I went back to work scrubbing walls. Didn’t like him and definitely don’t trust him.

To be continued…

Starting the Rehab.

2012-09-04T09:57:00.001-07:00

Finally made it. The drive was doable in two days by splitting it into 14 hours and 13 hours. Only made a couple of stops to gas, bathroom, and grab a bite on the road. When I arrived, the house was locked. The lock box was still on the door, so I called the realtor to get the code. He wasn’t around so left a message, went to the back, jimmied open a window, and crawled in. Then did a quick walk around, and everything looked ok.

First thing to do was to establish a place for all the tools and supplies. The carpet in the front room was dirty and had to be cleaned anyways, so that’s where everything went. I didn’t want to leave anything in the car so took everything out and put it in the living room. Then grabbed a sleeping bag, went up stairs to the cleanest room (which of all things was the game room), put down a clean blanket and sleeping bag on top and went to sleep. Was completely exhausted and slept like a rock.

The next morning bright and early I went through the house again and made a plan. Was going to work from the top down (dirt falls). Starting upstairs and working my way down. First room, the pink and green walls.

Started by covering the floor in plastic. Since the roof and trim where in good shape, the trim got a good washing with Simple Green and got masked off. Then it was time to start scrubbing the walls with TSP. I have always used TSP to prime paint since I was a kid. It cleans all the hand grease and dirt, while etching into the old paint so the new paint can stick to it a lot better. Mixing it with hot water helps cut grease. Gloves go on the hands to prevent skin from melting. And the rest is just good old fashion elbow grease.

So much has happened. Think I have to break everything into smaller posts so it’s all easier to read. And so will continue tomorrow…