We’d been feeling guilty because we already had a realtor but we didn’t use her to buy the Dragon House. We had a pretty good reason.
Whenever she showed us something, all she did was point out the negatives. She would go out of her way to find all the little things that were wrong with the place. And then she would tell us.
She’d say, “The sellers are asking too much, it’s on a busy street, and the neighborhood is run down.”
As a sales strategy, it made no sense to me. It was as if she didn’t want to make a sale.
We nicknamed her Downer Dianne because she was such a buzzkill. We really thought she wasn't the right fit for us. But she did have some great ideas.
I’d been reading the book, Multiple Streams of Income, by Robert Allen. He talks about setting up your life so you have income coming from multiple sources. That way, you aren’t as affected by things like losing your job or the stock market crashing. When one stream of income stops, one of the other ones fills in the gap.
Downer Dianne suggested that we take a mortgage out on the Dragon house to make the down payment on a second one. That way, we wouldn’t have to risk any more of our home that we lived in. It was a bit of twisted logic, but it kind of made sense, so we decided to try it.
“We’re leveraging up”, I thought. “Another stream of income!”
Downer Dianne took us on a tour of Cumberland. She showed us a few places, but they weren’t up to her standards.
Then she brought us to a newer house, a couple of streets over from the Dragon House. It was one of those builder’s specials, where a contractor buys several lots in a row and builds the same house on each lot. Efficient but a bit boring.
The numbers worked and the deal would cash flow, so we put in an offer.
To our surprise, it was accepted. We had another house.
This one came with a tenant.
Sandy was a single mom who had been living in the house for at least two years. She took care of it as if it were her own and it showed. The floors were clean, there were lacy curtains at the windows and the kitchen sparkled.
The first time we collected rent, she invited us in and we had tea in the sitting room. She sat at her desk and wrote us a cheque in her neat and precise handwriting.
“This is going to be an easy rental,” I thought, smiling to myself. Boy was I wrong.
Everything changed when her boyfriend moved in.
When you rent to a tenant you take the time to screen them. You want to be sure they’re reliable and will take care of your house.
When they invite someone to live with them, all that goes out the window. You have no background on the new guy, so all you can do is hope.
Her boyfriend seemed ok at first. He was a bit of a scrounger, bringing home bits and pieces from his construction jobs.
He used them to make ‘improvements’ to the house, often without asking first. He proudly showed us how he was drywalling the basement with scraps. It was a mosaic of a mess with more drywall mud than board.
When we collected rent, he paid with cash he pulled out of a baggy in a drawer.
Two months after he moved in, someone broke into the house while they were at work. The rent money went missing. Sandy had to use her savings to pay us that month.
We changed the locks but it happened again. This was a tricky thief. He always found a way in.
When the rent went missing for the third month in a row, she couldn’t make her payment. We knew we were going to have to serve her notice even though it wasn’t her fault. I felt awful.
Sandy decided to set a trap. One morning, she drove away as if she was going to work. She parked around the block and doubled back, sneaking into the house through the back gate. Then she hid in the spare room and waited.
When she heard noises in the kitchen, she burst out, swinging a baseball bat. To her surprise, her boyfriend was climbing through the kitchen window. He ended up in the hospital with a broken arm, charged with breaking and entering.
That baggy of cash should have been our clue.
Later, Sandy told us that he’d been using crack and needed the money for drugs. She kind of suspected that he was the thief, but didn’t want to believe it. We helped her throw him out and changed the locks again. We also reinforced her window locks, just in case.
Five months later, she let him move his sorry ass back in.
We weren’t thrilled about her decision but she assured us she had the situation under control and he would never do it again. And he didn’t.
Better the thief you know….
Lesson learned: People are full of surprises.
Next up, the tenant with benefits… and the perils of sending your husband in alone.
And a fun definition of tenant: (don’t take it personally, it’s all in jest)
Also known as “Disappointment”. One who signs a contract, to pay rent in exchange for occupancy/use of real property, with reckless disregard for reasonable rules and without respect for the owner/landlord or other co-occupants in said building.
Every time that a landlord makes a compromise in the process of selecting a tenant, it will result in disappointment.
This is a fictional series that explores the challenges of being a landlord. It also reveals the idiosyncrasies of various tenants. Some of the scenes are based on true experiences.
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