The Ghost of LL

When I was a kid my mom used to call me DD, which stood for “damned dumb”. It was probably well-deserved, but up until this year I gave myself a new moniker. I was LL, which stands for “lazy landlord”. See,I made a mistake in calculations. I was stupid to believe that the turnover for property Chi’s upstairs one-bedroom apartment would be the same as that of property Alpha’s three-bedroom apartment. Also, Gary and Ira only stayed at Chi for about two months while Lex and his stable of Indians were there for almost a year. So there was more work to be done and, unfortunately, that’s where my second mistake comes in.

When I rented the upstairs unit of property Alpha to Lex and the Indians last year, the apartment was not in a finished condition. There were holes in the wall, bad patch jobs, and mold on the bathtub tiles. They didn’t really care, and lived there without a problem. When they left, the apartment still has the same issues and they must now be fixed. If I weren’t such a lazy bastard back then, I would have fixed up the apartment before Lex moved in. Had I done that, I would have been able to rent that apartment out this weekend. I might have even been able to rent it out to someone moving in the middle of the month with pro-rated rent. Instead, I may have to wait until next weekend while I get the place ready.

I’m trying out one of the handymen referred to me by the REIG (Real Estate Investors Group), a guy named Alfonso. He said the right things and his price is in range with what a professional would charge. Sha’s guys would probably do it for half the price, but fuck everything up and leave the job half done. Alfonso has to mud and sand all the holes, clean the mold off the bathroom grout and seal it, replace the bathroom floor, fix the leak in the bathtub faucet, and replace the bathroom sink and vanity. After he’s done, I go in and paint everything, polyurethane the floors, and then I’m done. The timing of this is good because the bank job has hired someone new, which means that everyone goes back to 40 hours next week. This gives me Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday to get the place painted and polyurethane all the floors.

Having good tenants make for fast turnovers. They keep the place nice and clean so that you can rent out the apartment very quickly when they leave. Gary and Ira did that in property Chi, so I was able to get a new lease signed less than 48 hours after I put the ad up. Lex and the Indians did a good job cleaning the place—the problem was that the apartment had pre-existing cosmetic issues that my lazy ass never took care of. I hope Alfonso works out. I’ve had bad luck with almost every handyman I’ve ever hired, so I’m watching this guy like a fucking hawk. If he can do his job and finish everything by the weekend, I can get the place painted and ready to rent by next week Friday.

When I was a LL, I made so many mistakes; from moving my old tenant Laurie into property Chi to taking forever to get an apartment rental ready. (One of my mistakes, my old tenant Annie, just called me and asked if I have anything available!) I have to prevent the error made in the past from causing any further damage now—yet another mistake I have to clean up from the lazy landlord I used to be.