Hello, I’m Cletus. In an effort to better my own clueless world, I started writing real estate investing humor just to keep my sanity from leaving a smoke trail clearly giving away the location of my tail pipe. You can never be too careful these days. I found it a good way of relieving the days’ stress, and making others laugh is always its’ own reward.

This real estate humor was written both at the top of the market, and as the market is tanking, but if you can read between the lines, it’s all relevant today.

For me, laughter has always been the best medicine. It’s cheaper than booze, cheaper than drugs or therapy, and certainly cheaper than that combination you’re thinking of right now. Personally, I’m guessing about the therapy part. I do, however, know that little blue pill that keeps me from accidentally rolling out of bed at night ain’t free. And besides, I can afford my booze, so I got that going for me.

So let’s start at the beginning…that’s as good a place to start as any I can think of.

"The Rehab Diaries Part I"

Here's my story.

I just read a book on real estate investing and the chapter on rehabbing really caught my eye. And the thought occurred to me, that since I have NO actual experience in either real estate or construction, this rehabbing thing would be right up my alley.

Anyway, I went out and bought the first ugly house I could find, and after some tense negotiations with the seller I agreed to give him his asking price just to get past this stage and on to some serious rehabbing. Being the brilliant strategist I am, the first thing I did was get the cable turned on so I would have something to do on those ‘down moments’ between all the hard work. This turned out to be a lifesaver.

Anyway, next I had to create a plan of action. Since I am new to this I and don’t have any tools, I figured Step 1 was a trip to Home Depot. I’ve never been to a Home Depot before and let me tell you they have some strange stuff in there. One of the employees came up to me and asked if he could help me find something, or should he just call the paramedics. I guess I must have looked pretty pale or something. So I told him I just bought a house to fix up and I need some tools. He asked me if I’m going to do any ‘Demo’, and I said yes. I had NO idea what he was talking about but I didn’t want to look like an idiot.

Anyway, I ended up buying this 16 lb sledge hammer, the sales guy said it would do twice the work in half the time as the 8 lb would, so I figure I’m already ahead of the game at this point if I buy it. On the trip back from the store I almost dropped that silly hammer twice, and the other people on the bus weren’t sure what to make of me.

Anyway, I get back to my place and realized in all my excitement over my new 16 lb sledgehammer I forgot to ask the guy why I need it. So I called the store, and disguised my voice so as not to let on, and asked the person on the phone what do you do with a 16 lb sledgehammer. He said he thought it was for knocking down walls and things like that. Great! Now I know how to get started. I just have to figure out which wall to knock down. This proved to be my first stumbling block. Good thing I had the cable turned on. I fell asleep during the Jerry Springer Show and I almost never do that. I guess it was just all the stress from this rehab thing. So I just went back to my apartment and called it a day.

Anyway, the next day I took my sledgehammer on the bus with me back to my rehab and settled in for some serious work. After a couple of hours I turned the cable off and figured I better get going. After looking around it seemed the wall between the living room and the kitchen would be a good candidate. So I put a big X on the wall where I would make my first blow with my sledgehammer (a little rehab lingo). They forgot to tell me that the sledgehammer works just as good on the back swing as it does on the front swing (more rehab lingo). I had my TV set up on some boxes and knocked it halfway across the living room.

Anyway, I put the TV back on the boxes only in a different spot, (I’m no fool) and went back to the task at hand. With one mighty swing my sledgehammer came crashing into the wall. What happened next came as quite a surprise. Seems the wall was full of water pipes and I found one of them on my very first try. To make matters worse the water is not only spraying all over me, its getting my TV all wet as well. I quickly move the TV to a dryer spot and search for the water shut off. Only problem here is I don’t know what it looks like, or where to look.

Anyway, one of the neighbors heard my screams and came over to help. After shutting my water off for me, he invited me over for a quick brunch, and we enjoyed a couple cups of coffee and a few bran muffins. I thanked him and went back to my place to get some work done. I looked around at the mess and thought a little TV watching would help clear my head while I pondered my next move. After a while the coffee and bran muffins kicked in and I heeded the call of mother nature. After some major relief I grabbed for the lever and nothing happened. I removed the tank lid and it seems all the water had already leaked out and left me high and dry. I hate it when that happens.

Anyway, since I know where the water shut off is I figured I’d just turn the water back on long enough to fill the tank. So I stood outside by the shut off and counted to 100 while I let the water run. This solved my original dilemma, but what I couldn’t see was all the water that was piling up on my living room floor coming from the kitchen wall. I went inside to find the plug of the extension cord for my TV half-underwater and when I went to pick it up I got ZAPPED big time. I don’t recall reading about any of this stuff in the book, maybe I had an out of date copy, or something.

Anyway, I have had a rough day up to this point and I figured the best thing to do was to take my sledgehammer, go home, and call it a day. So I did.

To be continued…

Cletus

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