Chapter 1:  What Are You Thinking?

Don’t!!!  Just do not do it!!!!  Stop right now, toss this book away and slap yourself silly until you get all thoughts of being a landlord out of your head.  Believe me, this self-imposed punishment will pale in comparison to the ugly world you seem hell bent on entering.

Oh, I know, you think that you’ll make some money off of your investment, that investing in real estate is safer than the stock market, that you’ll lower your taxes, and an endless line of other justifications that make becoming a landlord seem like a sensible thing to do.  Maybe, maybe not.  If you’re lucky, financially you’ll break even.  Chances are you’ll lose money, and more importantly, your faith in human kind. 

So what makes us such experts to be writing a book and dissing your ambitions? After all, all those TV real estate gurus say anyone can do it.  Well, we did more than dip our toe into the rental game. We dove in full force and came out of it bloodied and battered.  We still have one single family home that we rent, but when our reliable tenant moves on, we will have none.

First, a little about our aspirations to help you understand how and why we did the rental thing.  We had hoped to buy several properties, hopefully gain the experience needed to move on to multi-unit complexes and leave conventional employment behind us.  My wife and I both have some skill in home repair and maintenance, have an understanding of business and taxes, and generally work well with other people. 

So, if you bought this book because you wanted to get advice from some professional real estate guru, well, you screwed up.  Take heart, though, I’ve read all of those books by these “qualified” characters.  While they give SOME good advice, I thought they tried too hard to sell their ideas. The business is not as easy as they claim, has substantial downside risk, and is not as profitable as they claim.  At least not for common “Joes” like us.  This book gives you the “man on the street” experience. 

Chapter 9:  Horror Stories

So, it began like this.  At first, they called wanting a motion sensor light for the detached garage in the back yard.  It was too dark, and they were getting scared at night.  In reality, I thought this was a reasonable request, so Sandy and I spent a day over there installing the fixture.

To get a feel for this day of work, let me mention that they had two very big dogs.  These dogs had an affinity for digging holes in the back yard (and in the house, for that matter: more later).  Also, big dogs make big piles, if you know what I mean.

So, after being in the house only 3 weeks, the backyard looked like Beirut, and smelled like a wastewater treatment plant.  No, it smelled worse than that, actually.

There had to be 100 holes dug in the small back yard.  The holes were about a foot wide, circular, and about one foot deep.  Rounded at the bottom of the hole, just like you would expect when paws are your main digging devices.

Between the holes were huge piles of dog manure.  I don’t know what they fed those things, but they should’ve cut back on the beans.  Whew!

The garage had an old power line running to it that had apparently shorted out, and was disconnected from the main power.  So, the first order of business was taking down this line and replacing it.  By the way, this wire had also been a complaint item.  Mr. Handyman was concerned that the line was hanging “too low” and this bothered him.  Never mind that it was eight feet above the ground and unpowered.  I’ll admit, the wire served no useful purpose.

Nevertheless, we took it down and decided to replace it with an underground cable.  This meant tapping into the electrical box, running conduit down the side of the house, and digging a trench from the house to the garage and laying wire.  Both Sandy and I took turns digging the trench due to a continual gagging reflex.  We both nearly threw up dozens of times, as we could barely stomach the stench.  You may think I’m kidding, but I am not.  It was brutal.

Anyway, the wiring went expertly, and by lunch, we were stringing up the new fixture.  We bought a very nice motion detection, double halogen light fixture.  It had more options than the Space Shuttle.  You could program it every which way but loose.  And, it was so bright that it would scare criminals a block away. 

We covered up the wiring, checked and rechecked the unit, and called it a day.  Our tenants were not home during this time, but were due to come home that night.  We left a note asking them to call us and let us know if the lights were working OK.  No calls, no nothing.

I called the next day, and they said the light worked fine, and were quite impressed with how bright the lights were.  Actually, they complained that they were too bright.  Silly me, I was expecting a small “thank you” for getting this installed so quickly and for buying such a nice unit.  Instead, they were miffed that it wasn’t perfectly what they wanted.  Tough, was my thought.

Now it gets funny.  So funny I wanted to whack myself with a hammer just to keep my sanity.

Three days later, we get a call complaining about our wiring job.  Apparently, the princess called her daddy, who supposedly is also a landlord.  (Of course, even he is not stupid enough to rent to his daughter.)  Daddy came over, inspected my work, and told his daughter to make me come fix my job because it wasn’t to code.

I stopped by, and she proceeded to read me the riot act about our shoddy work.  She repeatedly told me the work wasn’t to code.  When I asked her what the code was, she gave me the most wonderful blank stare.  She didn’t have a clue. 

I explained the Cleveland city code to her for underground outdoor wiring.  The work was perfect.  Well, it was when I left the day the work was performed.  But now, I was seeing something quite different.

You see, one of the dopey dogs apparently took quite an interest in our work.  He especially liked the way the conduit from the house went into the ground.  Yes, even the fact that it went two feet into the ground before making a 90 degree turn, and continuing on as a buried, outdoor Romax cable.  Perfectly legal, and to code, where I live.

But, the damn dog dug a two foot hole right against the house, apparently to inspect if our work was to code.

Instead of apologizing for the damage her dog had done, she proceeded to continue chastising me regarding the security of her animal.  She was particularly worried that one of the dumb mutts would bite through the wire and electrocute himself.  No such luck, I thought.

I let her finish, as I stood dumbfounded.  No thanks for the work, just bitching that I was endangering her animals.  I carefully explained that the work was to code, and that I didn’t dig the hole, but her damn dog DID.  In fact, I told her that I wouldn’t fill it in, that she was either to train her dogs to fill in holes, or do it herself.  If her dog was so stupid as to bite a live wire, well that was not my problem.

Not only that, but I also told her that she was to fill in all of the holes in the yard, as the yard was beginning to commit suicide.

The holes were filled in 11 months later when they moved out.  Only after I threatened to withhold their security deposit. 

If you liked that, this story will get so much better for you soon.  Again, I’m only hitting the highlights here.