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The Rehab Diaries Part Duex By now you know I am a Newbie Rehabber, and you know how shocking an experience this rehabbing thing has been for me. Anyway, here’s what I’ve learned so far. Never disguise your voice over the phone when asking for advice. I made that mistake, and it really cost me. In the end I had to hire a plumber, and the plumbers bill was $6600.00 by the time they took that ‘no good galvanized garbage’ out and replaced it with this ‘low cost copper pipe’. He recommended I replace all that old electrical wiring too, and would send a buddy of his over who can do it ‘on the side’. I forgot to ask him which side, but I’ll bet it’s the one where the meter is. Anyway, after that fiasco I had to really get serious, and not listen to other peoples advice. So I determined my best course of action would be to make this property a place that anybody would want to rent. So I asked myself “What’s the #1 thing we all want to have as renters?” Then it came to me. A ‘wet bar’. With room for a full keg. What more could your tenants want. Anyway, I’m one of those lucky landlords that owns a property without any nasty encumbrances like ‘old carpet’ or ‘outdated kitchen cabinetry’. I had to replace all those thanks to that ‘Customer Service Rep advice’ I thought was Rehab Gospel. So a fancy new wet bar will certainly compliment the other improvements. On top of that, it will add thousands to the value of this place. But before I do that, a trip to the local hardware store is in order, and there’s one about a mile away. Anyway, I walk down to the ‘Nails n Pails’ and ask the guy there if I can trade this rusty sledgehammer for something that isn’t so hard to carry around. He gives me this look like I’m from another planet. I explain I’m in Rehab and I’m just tired of carrying this sledgehammer around. He opens the till, and hands me a dollar bill. I say what’s this for? He just says ‘get out and don’t bother his other customers’. I tell him I don’t need his money, I just want to trade my heavy sledgehammer for something a little lighter. He picks up this baseball bat and asks me if I want one of these? I beginning to think this guy don’t know as much about tools as he should. Anyway, I used that dollar bill for the bus fare back to my place, so it wasn’t a total loss. By now I’ve really become addicted to watching those home improvement shows. I just watched one where they added a skylite, and I thought “Hey, I should do that too”. Besides, I could kill two birds with one stone if I put one over that hole in the roof in the bedroom. So now I just need to get a skylite and a ladder. So it’s back to Home Depot. Anyway, I’m standing at the bus stop with my skylite, my new ladder, and my rusty sledgehammer that HD wouldn’t take back when the bus pulls up. The driver explains there’s no room for the ladder on his bus and I know good and well there’s plenty of room in that center isle, but he starts spouting off about these rules and regs and yadda yadda. One of the other passengers says his brother has a pickup truck and maybe could be talked into giving me a lift to my place. Another lesson learned. The next time someone makes an offer like that, I’m getting it in writing. By the time it started getting dark I thought to myself I could have walked home by now. Anyway, there I am with three things to carry, and only two arms. No problem, I’m a smart guy, I’ll figure a way. So here’s what I did. I laid the ladder down and put the skylite at one end, and the sledgehammer at the other end for good balance, and picked the ladder up standing between the middle rungs. Now, I don’t know if people were honking at me because it was getting dark, or I just looked a little out of place carrying my stuff that way. One thing I learned here was you can’t use the end of a ladder to push that little button at the crosswalk. It’s just too hard. The other thing I learned is never let a flock of pigeons land on only ONE end of your ladder, but that’s a story for another day. Anyway, in retrospect I’m wondering at this point if I should have just bought a large apartment complex instead of a junk house. Since I have a lot of ‘tenant’ experience, I would probably make the perfect landlord. Just lower the rents until everyone’s happy and you can kiss that vacancy factor ‘good bye’. Thanks for playing along. Be sure to check out The Rehab Diaries Part III Cletus
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