Feel Like Complaining

I am now the proud owner of a cute little townhouse rental unit near the Experimental Farm in Ottawa. I have heard many people say over the years that owning rental properties is a smart investment and that it's easy money. I am very sorry to say that THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS EASY MONEY! Let me summarize my experience thus far. And by the way this is not my first rental property so I am not suprised by any of the following events....

I placed an offer on the house sometime around the 4th or 5th of November. I picked a closing date of December 1st ,2009. On second thought I realized if I wanted to rent it out I should take possession sooner so that I could have it ready for someone to move in on December 1st. So I asked for an ammendment to the closing date. Those busy lawyers could not seem to read my fax until I called and harassed them enough that they decided they could approve an earlier closing date but not as early as I had originally requested because a week had now passed since sending the ammendment and no legal work had been done on it. The earliest closing date they could give me was November 25th. Good enough - I took it! On November 25th I land at my lawyers office one minute before closing to pick up the key for my nice new townhouse. I immediately drove over to the house to make sure it was still the way it was when I saw it with my realtor. Well unfortunately the key that was given to me by my laywer was definitely not the key for this particular house. Standing there on the fron step I knew where my key was though....in the lock box on the door that had not yet been removed by the realtor. So who's key did I have then? Was someone else standing outside their new home with the wrong key or no key at all?

I really needed a key for the house because I had made arrangements for painters to come first thing the following day to start painting and prepping the house for my tenants who had so graciously agreed to give me until December 5th to have the house ready for them.

Oh ya, my tenants. As soon as I purchased the house and my offer had been accepted I placed an ad on Used Ottawa, Kijiji and Craig's List listing my house for rent. I received several replies via phone and e-mail. My realtor was nice enough to open the door one Saturday afternoon so that all my potential tenants could come and take a look. 10 people showed up that afternoon and many seemed interested even though the house was in pretty rough shape. A very nice lesbian couple demonstrated particular interest in it and I really had a great gut feeling about them. They appeared to be clean, organized, educated, employed and driven. They did mention that they would be buying a home for themselves in a couple of years. They just had to pay off legal school loans first. Admirable, I thought. The second couple on the list to show interest was a white woman and a black man. Polite, nice and not much else to say but that. It was clear that the woman wanted the house. She couldn't even have cared if I painted and cleaned the house or not. She had been living with her 2 children and likely various boyfriends in a 2 bedroom appartment for the past 4 years and all she wanted was a house! She didn't care about anything else. She even offered to pay me 1st and last months rent right there and then. I declined her offer and told her to fill out a rental application for me with all applicable information so that I could perform some reference checks on her first.

I have already been through the bad tenant thing in the past and I have learned that you will not end up ahead if you pick any old tenant to fill your vacancy. My last tenant at another property I owned cost me over $10,000 in the end. I would have been better off to leave it empty and pay the mortgage myself.

Well in the end out of all of the 10 people who looked at my house only that white woman and black man, Roxanne and Patrick, followed through with the rental application. I even called the lesbian couple and told them I liked them the best and was wondering if they had made a decision or not. They said they loved the place but they were accepted into co-op housing the very day after they viewed my property and they were going to go live there for 1/2 the price. Can't blame them I guess. So I went ahead and checked out Patrick and Roxanne. The first thing I saw on thier rental application is that they have both held the same job for 4+ years and have had the same address for 4+ years. There is something to be said for stability. I called her current landlord but was unable to reach her and Roxanne was not able to supply me with a number for her landlord before that because it was so long ago now that she did not remember the name or the number and it was a private landlord much like myself versus a large company or management company. I googled her and found some dirt. There was something posted on some website that said she was charged with theft for stealing $5000 from some elderly people in an old age home that she had worked in. I contacted her immediately and confronted her. She claimed she suffered identity theft and could provide me with letters from the courts and her lawyer. I did indeed ask to see those letters. On the day her and Patrick came to sign the lease and give me the rent deposit she provided me with both letters she had promised and they were definitely legit. My gut told me she was likely not the cleanest person on the planet but she would be good for the rent. Furthermore, leading up to the acceptance of the lease, she had been a peach to deal with.

House repairs and renovations wnet pretty much as planned. There were a few problems along the way:

1) The water had been shut off in the house because no one was living there. When I turned it on I discovered that the hot water tank leaked and that the pipes under the kitchen sink leaked as well. Direct Energy did come to fix the hot water tank but not until December 11th. That means my tenants were without hot water for a week. They did not complain one bit though.


2) The furnace broke. Direct Energy came to give it a cleaning and told me it was an older furnace but that it was in great shape and I would get a few more good years out of it. Well the very next day it broke AND Direct Energy did not come to fix if for 3 days! That was the emergency team by the way. But again my tenants did not complain.

So let's just tally up the bill so far. I paid roughly $2500 in land trasfer and legal fees, 2 visits by Direct Energy - one for $165 and the other for $185. Painting contractor and other supplies came to $2500. Electrician $265. Duct cleaning $313. So that leaves me minus $5928 from the starting blocks. No problem. I am prepared for all of this!

Now my tenants are in. They have more shit than you can imagine. I don't know how on earth all of their stuff fit into a 2 bedroom appartment but whatever...Since they moved in on December 5th I have had a phone call, on average, about every 3rd day. First was an inquiry about when the hot water tank would be fixed. Second was for the furnace being broken. And now she calls me and tells me there are cockroaches in my house! No fucking way those cockroaches were there before she came. I cleaned that place on my hands and knees. I cleaned every nook and cranny and I know there were no bugs of any kind in that house. So I ask her flat out if there were cockroaches in her other appartment and she tells me no. In fact, she tells me she's never seen one before in her life and she had to google it to confirm they were cockroaches she was seeing. So today I go there with Abell Pest Control and pay $260 to get rid of the cockroaches. Roxanne's two kids are home from school today. They tell me that thier mother slept in today and did not take them to school. Not to mention the fact that the house is a total disaster. Open food everywhere, mess all over the floor and today was garbage day but I guess she slept in for that too so I picked up all the garbage from the house, the front lawn and the back deck and loaded it into my van to bring home for my garbage day. The pest control guy, Chris, tells me that his work will be useless if the place is not kept clean. So I ask the kids where they have seen cockroaches and they tell me they always run in and out of the TV. Just to confirm I ask them if that happened in their old house too and they confidently reply "yes". That's funny because Roxanne juat finished telling me that she has never seen a cockroach before even though she lived in an appartment builiding prior to this that is notorious for cockroaches (I just found that out yesterday!). Oh ya and she also said on her rental application that she was a non-smoker yet there are ash trays everywhere in the house filled with cigarette butts and even some butts that have not quite made it into an ash tray!

But wait, this is not the worst of it. I go upstairs to tell her that I am done with the pest control guy and that she must keep all food in the fridge and must keep the kitchen clean in order to avoid return visits from cockroaches. She then asks me if I know the history of the house. Where is this leading I wonder? No I don't know the history of the house. It was built in 1955. I wasn't even born! God only knows how many people have lived in that house. She and her boyfriend who are still in bed, by the way, at 2:30 p.m. proceed to tell me that they think my house is haunted. I tell them I hope it's a nice ghost but to let me know if doors and things start slamming. If there is a ghost I hope he/she is on my side and just wants the nasty tenants out. When I was there working away til the wee hours of the night I never had any problem so I am assuming the ghost likes me. I am fine with ghosts. Perhaps I will use him/her to screen my tenants. He/She (can ghosts be classified by gender??) can scare away the bad ones and keep peace with the good tenants.

So that is where we are at and I have owned the house for less than a month. So please don't let anyone ever tell you that being a landlord is "easy money". Cause that's a load of bullshit!