Rentfest 2013 Begins

What a busy few days it’s been. I put up the ad for Libby’s old apartment on Friday afternoon, and started receiving calls an hour afterwards. I really didn’t expect many calls due to the timing of the vacancy (middle of the month) and the season (beginning of winter). Surprisingly, I got quite a few calls and the appointments were set up for the weekend.

I woke up Saturday morning to a call from Kylie Ray. I saw the call and said to myself, “This is great. I’m possibly getting a new tenants by the end of this weekend and now I’m getting the $310 that this monster owes me!” I picked up and said hello. The following was probably the funniest and saddest words I’ve heard in a while:

“Hi, my name is Kylie Ray. I saw your apartment on Craigslist and want to see if it’s still available.”

I couldn’t believe it. The demon called thinking I was someone other than the landlord she still owes $310 to. The crazy thinking is that, when I got my new business number, I made sure she had it in her phone because we’d had so many communication problems. How stupid can she be?! So I decided to play along:

Me: Yes, it’s still available. What’s your situation?

Kylie: Well, I moved into my current place back in 2010, but the place is too small for me and my son. I work fulltime and make $16 an hour, plus I get money for my son through the state.

Me: Do you have the $400 security deposit required?

Kylie: The $400? Yeah, I’ve got it.

Me: Okay, let me call you back.

She's gonna use my $310 as a down-payment for another place. No wonder she's "having trouble" paying rent! I wanted to take it further but I really didn’t know what to say. So I wrote down a bunch of questions and called her back, but she didn’t pick up. I guess she finally realized who she was talking to. Fucking imbecile. Needless to say, I filed for her eviction Monday morning. Now that I know her plan to leave the place without notice, I want her worthless ass out as soon as possible so I can get the place ready for a human tenant that walks upright. And, with winter approaching, I may get lucky with a good tenant looking to escape the incoming high heat bills. But enough about that, let’s get back to property Beta.

I had a 10am appointment so I got there at around 9:20am, just to open some windows and make the place look better. Carver had ripped out the old stair runner and it literally smelled like ancient spirits coming back to life. The porch floors needed to be scraped and repainted, which Carver has already started. The ripped-up stair carpet looked awful and the matting underneath it is impossible to scrape out. My plan was to use the new stair runner carpet to put over the matting, then scrape out the sides to give the illusion of all hardwood flooring for the stairs. Unfortunately, the matting is extremely difficult to scrape, so I'll have to cover the ugly parts of the stairs with some type of inexpensive cloth. The windows  are extremely old, but I’m not replacing them right now. The same goes for the outdated kitchen. Then there’s the bathtub caulk which needed a serious redo. Other than that, the place is in good condition. With that said, bring on the prospectives.

The Blacks (Saturday)

The woman walked in with her 3 year old and 8 year old son. She was the spitting image of Brooklyn Mike’s sister Monet, who I had a massive crush when I was a kid. I mean, she looked exactly like her. Anyway, both her and her fiancé work fulltime jobs and they live in the area. I thought this was a great opportunity to finally have some African American tenants that looked responsible. I called them Sunday to let her know that they qualified, and she didn’t sound as excited as I expected. She was supposed to come by yesterday at 4:45pm but never showed up. Darn. I kinda wanted them more than anyone because I could've used her kids to qualify for the lead program that replaces the old windows of apartments for free.

The Homo (Sunday)

This guy was extremely gay and looked very carefully at everything. I’ve always wanted a second chance at homo tenants, and he seemed like a good fit for the place. He owns a horse grooming business. As we were looking through the apartment, we heard a crash. I thought it was one of the doors slamming shut due to the wind, so we went to check it out. We went to the porch and saw this:

The poor guy had his parked car hit by the dumb broad in the SUV, and the guy behind her couldn’t slow down so he hit her car too. How that girl hit his car in that way is a mystery to me, but what really struck me was that the homo didn’t seem too angry. It messed up his car and he was late to an appointment to show a horse to a buyer, but he didn’t seem all that upset. Anyway, I called him up yesterday to let him know that he didn’t get the place because I can’t verify his income (self-employed doesn’t work for me). Before I could say that, however, he let me know he couldn’t take the place because Carver’s dog isn’t neutered, and he doesn’t want any issues with his female black lab. All’s well that ends well.

The Kid (Monday morning)

Danny is a 22 year old kid (I feel old calling him a kid, but that’s what he was) who needed a place quickly. He had given his 30 day notice to his landlord and was about to move into a different apartment, but the tenants there decided to stay, leaving Danny with a deadline to get out and no apartment to move into. He seemed a bit off, but respectful enough to give him a chance. His previous landlord gave him glowing recommendations when I called this morning, so I told him that he qualified. He wants me to hold it until he gets paid Friday, but I can’t unless he leaves a reasonable deposit down, at least $150. So he’s taking his chances by not putting a deposit down, so we’ll see what happens with him.

The Brothers (Monday afternoon)

These two brothers were pretty cool, and I liked them. They needed an apartment closer to their job at a car wash, where they both are supervisors. One of them also goes to school fulltime. I really liked them and, once the Blacks flaked out, I called them this morning to let them know they qualified. They told me that they’d get back to me by the afternoon, in the same tone that the Blacks gave me. If they want it, it’s theirs. But I doubt I’ll be getting good news on that call.

There were others that came, but these were the four I chose to write about. There was a black truck driver who wanted to move in with his daughter and her kid. There was the woman that came who looked like a model, so much so that when she came up the stairs, I started receiving texts from the downstairs tenant Carver saying, “She’s the one” and “Give her the place! I’ll pay her rent!” I racial profiled the black truck driver and the woman wasn’t interested due to the old windows. Women love new windows.

Once Carver is done repairing the place, I’ll take pictures of the new look staircase and porch floors. So Danny looks like the tenant who’s gonna take the place. Getting Libby’s apartment rented out by Friday would be nice, just 8 days after Libby moved out. Anything under two weeks has to be considered a success.

P.S.: As I was writing this, someone called the business phone from an "unknown" number. When I said hello and my name, the person hung up. Bet any amount of money that was Kylie Ray. I can't wait to throw her out.