I just got off of the phone with my mother. Her two renters just gave notice to move, her property manager is threatening to quit and her live-in maintenance man can not be reached. And it was all I could do to not say "I told you so."
My mother has a giant, soft heart and it gets a work-over often by wayward souls. This time it was Bob. Bob the maintenance man.
Bob and my mother lived in the same small town and he seemed like such a nice guy. She had a good "gut" feeling about him. (We all know about gut feelings right? I remind friends that 1/2 of the time that's just indigestion they are feeling...) Well, after the real estate market went south, my Mom decided to move to be closer to family and turn her home into a rental property. In steps Bob. Bob moved into her property almost 3 years ago On one parcel of land, she has a 3 bedroom house, a two bedroom house and giant shop with a studio apartment in it. Bob was looking for an affordable place to live and worked out a deal with my mom to handle the yard-care and maintenance in lieu of discounted rent in the shop/studio. Seems like a lot of onsite managers, right? Except Bob never signed a rental agreement. Bob hasn't kept up on his end of the "maintenance/yard care" deal and, well, Bob hasn't paid rent in almost 3 years.
Yes, 3 years. Heck, I oughta been her maintenance man with a deal like that! When ever I would ask about Bob and his free-loading deal, she would say "Oh honey, he takes care of the place, and I just feel better knowing someone is there keeping an eye on things..." Except, she has never been to her property in 3 years to verify he is taking care of it, despite my suggestions. And now her two renters have given notice because they can't deal with Bob and how he doesn't take care of the place and his crazy antics. And the management company also can't deal with co-managing Bob. And Bob won't answer his phone. And he's on a drinking binge....
You can see where this is all going, right? Right down the drain. Today when she said "I just can't believe this is happening!" I gently said, "really????" Her new plan of action was to take the 6-hour drive over to talk with Bob and "work this out." At this point, I had to get a little firm with Mom. "Mom... no, you're not. You're going to let your property manager give a 30-day no-cause notice to Bob and you're not going to offer any explanation to him as to why when he calls you 50 times. And after this, you're going to ask your property manager to handle all the maintenance issues from now on and no one is going to mooch off of you again."
How can this happen to my mother? She is, afterall, the parent of a child who has worked as a professional in property management for 20 years!! So this is what she felt like when I ignored her advice when I was a teenager? Karma. Ppfffftttt!
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Janell is a member of Rentec Direct, a web-based property management software program designed to help streamline tenant criminal and credit checks and the day-to-day operations of landlords and property managers. You'll find many other useful articles like this on the Rentec Direct Blog.
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