The past week or so has been very active with the Apopka house.
I gave two of my tenants who were renting a room a date to either pay or vacate. They were going on four months behind, and I wasn’t even asking them to catch up completely. I asked them to pay $950, which is one month’s worth of rent, or leave.
The date came and they still hadn’t paid, so I sent the guy a text and said, “Hey, I don’t think you really have any intention of paying, so I’m gonna need you to leave the room and the house.”
He gave me a sob story about everything he had going on and basically said the whole situation was embarrassing and that he thought he should just leave. He asked me to give him until the 9th or 10th.
I told him he had until the end of the weekend.
Even then, he stayed an extra day and didn’t leave until Monday.
I finally decided what I’m doing with the roof.
While all of that was happening, I was still getting quotes for the roof. I finally decided on a construction company that’s going to finish the job I started and pull the permits.
That’s gonna be $10,000 right there.
The house is also having drainage problems. The front has been flooding pretty badly, and some of that water is now starting to penetrate the house.
I had another contractor come out and look at it. We’re going to try putting a water pump at the deepest part of the property. Hopefully, when it rains heavily and the water starts building up, the pump can shoot it back toward the street and away from the house.
They’re also going to work on the door to keep water from getting inside and try to grow grass in some of the areas where it’s currently not growing. Right now, those areas turn into mud when it rains, and then all that mud ends up around the front of the house.
That’s no bueno.
Then I went upstairs to look at the tenant’s room.
The same day I met with the contractor, I was supposed to collect the keys the tenant left behind. After we finished walking around the property and going over the game plan, I said goodbye to the contractor and went upstairs.
I know tenants destroying rentals happens all the time, but this is the first time it’s happened to me.
I tried to open the bedroom door and the door just fell.
I’m like, “Wow. This is crazy.”
The room wasn’t really messy. They just destroyed a bunch of shit.
The main door had been ripped off the hinges, and it looked like somebody had been trying to kick it down or force it open. Then I looked at the bathroom door. That one was broken too and hanging on by one hinge. The closet door was also broken and hanging on by the middle hinge.
All three doors were broken.
I texted the guy and said, “Yo, what happened to the doors?”
He told me the screws were coming out one at a time and eventually the doors just ripped off.
I’m like, “For all three doors? Really? Because this looks like somebody kicked or tried to push the doors down.”
He didn’t respond to that.
This is also why I don’t like having these conversations over the phone or face-to-face. I’d rather communicate through text so I have a record of everything that was said.
Then I started finding more damage.
The room was furnished, and the bed I left for them is broken too. It looks like there’s a hole in the wall inside the closet. There are scratches and chips all over the walls that look like things were being hit against them.
The bathroom vanity cabinets are messed up too.
I don’t know what the hell was going on in there.
I originally thought this room would be a one-day turnaround. Now I have three doors to deal with, a broken bed, damaged walls, the bathroom vanity, and whatever else I find once I really start working on it.
He still owes me $1,900.
A few days before all of this, I told him that if he paid me $1,500, I would accept that as settlement for what he owed and wouldn’t take him to court.
After seeing the damage, I reminded him of the offer. He can pay the $1,500 and settle the debt. If he doesn’t, I’ll take him to court for the full $1,900 plus the damages.
I was giving these people a chance because they’re young. Then I walk into the room and find all of this.
Some people, you try to give them a chance, and they end up biting the hand that feeds them. It’s crazy how life works.
Anyway, that’s what’s going on with the real estate side of things right now.