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October 2009,
I received a call from our renter stating that the man was hurting her and she would need to move out. No negotiating on my part was needed and I told her that the lease would not be a problem and to leave as soon as she could. It took several weeks for the man to vacate the property after stating that he could not afford it without the lady paying her part.
While talking with the man, I felt that it was vitally important to keep the lady’s safety in mind. Don't let any "he say, she say" stuff emerge into any conversations with a man that you suspect is abusive. Until I saw the house for myself there is still doubt as to who is telling the truth, but felt that I should err on the side of caution during any conversations. I'll post another entry with some advice on how to deal with such situations.
Once we got into the house the proof was all over the walls in the form of 10 fairly large holes. Three of them went trait trough to the other side. One of these was the size of a boot.
If your reading this, you probably already know that wall in a mobile home are made of prefab. drywall-like material with wallpaper manufactured on top of the material. Most of the wall paper covering is made of a vinyl and would need to be painted with a special primer before painting (if you can repair).
In our case, several panels needed to be replaced all together. One at the end of the hallway and one in a closet behind the hallway, and two in a bathroom (the bathroom seemed to be his favorite target). The "drywall strips" need to come down first, then the old panels, then new drywall panels installed, then puttied just like normal, sanded, primed, then finally painted.
The other holes could be repaired with hole kits and putty. You will need to paint the whole area to match the repaired area. Remember that in mobile homes, you'll need to prime the whole area before painting. Else your paint will not stick properly. Check your primer before you purchase it to make sure that it sticks to vinyl. You may also come across textured wall covering. Use your best judgment when it comes to a textured area. In this case, the renter had already painted the area once (he was trying to cover up another hole) so by the time we patched the other holes and painted again the texture was not as visible. In this case we could get away with having some areas that where not textured. The texture itself just wasn't that noticeable.
The renters moved out of this home on the first of August 2009, leaving us with a smelly disaster. The repairs consisted of ripping out the carpet, two coats of kilz on the sub floor and baseboards, new carpet, new stove (old one was only 18 months old), new hood, two new door frames, new laundry flooring, repairing garage door, replacing garage door glass, replacing dryer duct, trenching up french drain, cleaning run-off drain, repainting cabinets, replacing two fans, replacing kitchen faucet, repairing three bath sink faucets and one shower faucet, window repair, electrical outlet repairs, septic enzyme balancing, repair of dog bites on door frames, repainting exterior door, treating linoleum for odor, replacing 10ft of ductwork, and professional duct cleaning.
This is what can happen when you get really bad renters.
Walking into our rental for the first time took our breathe away, literally. The odor consisted of heavy smoke and animal urine (both male cat and dog). The house was literally saturated with it. There was no way of telling where the smell was coming from. We had hoped that the carpet would last one more year, but realized immediately that there was no way we would be able to rent this house in this condition. It was beyond unsanitary, to the point of completely unhealthy. I do not have allergies, but was feeling sick after only a couple of hours in this condition.
The following are the steps that we had to take to clean, sanitize and neutralize the odor.
Rip out carpet. We had to do this ourselves because no one would give us enough lead time to kilz between ripping it out and replacing it. If you look around enough, maybe you can find someone to do this for you.
Dump carpet. Some places may charge you for this. Our bill was around $45.
Kilz sub floor. The urine had soaked through the carpet, through the padding and saturated the sub floor. Make sure that all the spots are dry. One bad spot took three days to dry out. We used the original oil based kilz brand. Give yourself plenty of time for this step. We put one coat over the whole floor, let it dry for 24 hours, close up the house for another 24 hours, then check to see if the odor is still there. If you smell anything, repeat. We had to put two coats in this home, but its not a bad idea to put two coats regardless.
Kilz baseboards. Male cats tend to spray, meaning that it's more than likely on your baseboards.
Odoban Linoleum. The odor can penetrate linoleum. I found it on amazon.com. This product was recommended to be by a friend that works for an apartment complex. I added 32oz to 1 gallon of water in a sprayer, sprayed the floor, let it sit for at least 10min., then wipe it up.
enzyme spray. Spray around wall below baseboards. Spray enough to soak into crevices. This should "eat" any bacteria.
Replace carpet with liquid barrier padding. We chose to go with the more expensive padding with the liquid barrier, this prevents any future incidents from getting to the sub floor. It also puts a barrier to keep the remaining odor at bay.
Have duct work professionally cleaned. We used Clean Duck duct cleaning from
Several years ago we where having problems with carpenter bees around the eaves of our house. It was so bad that it was hard to enjoy our deck in the summer time. We had contacted our pest control company and after several attempts to control the problem they informed us that there just wasn't anything else that they could do. I then found a company on the internet that supplied homeowners with professional products for pest control. I ordered some supplies and was very pleased. I really wasn't interested in do my own pest control at the time, just wanted to get rid of a particular problem. Years later we moved into a house that already had a roach problem. Very strange considering that the house had been vacant for two years. Once again, I called our pest control company, explained the problem and they came out to take care of it. I ended up having to call them back out three times while the roaches where literally multiplying before my very eyes. I was told that I needed to keep my crumbs to a minimum and there was nothing else they could do. I once again went to www.doyourownpestcontroll.com and found a product by DuPont for German roaches, followed the directions and within a week we had no more roaches. We've recently moved into another foreclosure that has been vacant for two years. This yard is inundated with ants. It's really an unsafe environment for the kids and pets. I found some ant products on the same website and immediately put the granules out, waited a week and a half then sprayed the entire yard with on-spot. By the time I sprayed the yard 90% of the mounds where already dead. I'm talking about probably 50 mounds to start with. We had gotten an estimate for someone to do this job and they wanted over $500 to get rid of our ants. I have yet to be disappointed with any purchase from this company.
Warning signs that a septic system may be failing include slow drains, a wet drain field, particularly during dry weather, the sound of gurgling in the household plumbing, the presence of bacteria in well water, or odors and surfacing sewage. We started having problems with the drain lines at one of the houses about two weeks ago. The tenents started seeing standing water (sewage) along one of the lines. The household plumbing had been sluggish for some time. Before we could do any work we had to have DEHEC come out to take a look and issue a purmit (it took a week for them to even show up). They suggested that a lecky toilet could be the problem, so our first duty is to give it a couple of days after it was fixed to see if the problem is corrected (I highly dought it, since the tenant's water bill isn't that much higher than ours was when we lived there).
After several hours of research, I discovered the problem could be fixed by flushing the system with enzymes and bacteria products and putting rootx into the system. The theary is that after so many years without adaquate bacteria in the system due to using clorox or harsh cleaning chemicals a sludge can build up in the tank and drain into the field. After awhile this sludge can build up in the ground around the drain field and will get saturated. Once this happens, the ground will not hold any more fluid from the system. The sludge can also clogg the drain field. Flushing the system with sludge eating bacteria will actually clean the ground around the drain field. I got 3 half gallons of bacteria from Lowes and asked the tenants to conserve water for a couple of days while they added the bacteria to the system at a rate of one per 24 hours. I also asked that they use clorox and other anti-bacteria cleaners spairingly. I then ordered 3 - 2lb containers of rootx from a website.
The renters moved out shortly after we added the lowes product. After they left, I added some products I purchase off the internet (BioMat-X - Ultimate Septic Cleaner BioMat-X1G and OxyCal - Oxygenating Compound ). Everything looks great, grass is growing back in the drain fields and the sluggish drains are running well. I had also heard from a neighbor that the renters had a large number of people in and out of the home on an almost constant basis, which would contribute to a failed system. The system will have a month and ahalf to recover before new renters move into the property. Right now, it looks as if the problem is salved.
One of our many priorities is to make this home as energy efficient as possible. When we first looked at the house, one of the main selling points was that it's a well built house, but already had some things going for it as far as energy efficiency. First, the large overhangs that shaded the windows during the South Carolina summers. Second, the house has a very large oak tree perfectly located to shade the bedrooms during the summer. The house has two large concrete areas located within in interior that utilize thermal cooling. One of the large areas has an exhaust fan that could be used to circulate the cool air through the house and the other thermal mass can easily be utilized with an addition on a small fan above the doorway. In addition, the fully brick home was well insulated and has a minimum of glazed areas. The largest percentage of energy goes to heating and cooling the home and the HVAC system had to be replaced before we could close on the house. Luckily for us, the new cir regulations had been in affect for several years. The new system is a 13 cir heat pump system (any higher doesn’t save money due to the higher cost of ownership). The third highest percent of energy goes to refrigeration. We had the opportunity to purchase a brand new refrigerator because the home didn't have one, so we spent the extra money on a high efficiency model. I've been extremely pleased so far. The new dish washer is also an energy star model. Taking out the tile in the entry and hallway and replacing it with carpet helps insulate the floors. We also replaced most lights with the new high efficiency ones. Our energy bills have been $131.76 for March 21 to April 20 and $129.77 for April 21 to May 20. To put this in perspective, we moved out of a 1400sqft home and our bill averaged $141.26, we now live in a 4100sqft home (WOW!!!) We have plans to do other things to the home, but also have plans to fix and use a hot tub and a swimming pool. Our hope is to keep the energy bill below $170.00 per month.
After running the A/C off and on for about three weeks, we discovered that the sump pump was not working. The condensation for the A/C was piped into the sump pump and the whole was filling up fairly quickly. Rus ran out to retreive a new shiney one and quickly installed it. It worked beautifully.
We then turned our attention to the downstairs shower.. discovering to our delight, that the hot water did in fact work. When we returned to the utility room we discovered that the septic holding tank was overrunning and water was coming out of the drain in the floor.
OMG!!! what was happening for our basement??
Rus ran BACK out to lowes, found a Septic pump and proceeded to replace it. This turned out to be a much more complecated job than the sump pump. Seeing that there had not been raw sewage involved in the first job.
This website proved to be very helpful:
http://www.plumbersurplus.com/Buying-Guides/Sewage-Pumps-Systems-Buying-Guide/11
While Rus tackled the pump issues, I was in the backyard located and unpluging the drainage pipe.. Actually a pleasure compaired to his job.
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January 7, 2009
Everything was going fine with the purchase of our new project.... ie home. The inspection didn't reveal any new surprises. Some borderline moisture readings in the basement that the inspector felt would fix itself once the systems where running and the house was occupied. And, of course, the obvious stuff... loose fixtures, water damage under the sink, some windows had lost their seal, things of this nature were not really a concern for us... after all it's a foreclosure that had been sitting empty for some time now. Oh, and the termite letter. There was evidence of termites, but they had not reached the floor joist. A good termite treatment would do the trick. The holding bank had already agreed to take care of the mold and the termite treatment, so not a big issue. We also found out that the basement heat pump was not in working order, but we had already suspected this would be the case and were happy that we wouldn't need to replace two units instead of the one. All and all, we where actually pleased with the inspection.
The termite treatment was January 6 and the mold remediation started the same day (this was a three day job). That very day, we received a call from our bank, stating that there was a problem with the loan. Not caused by our credit or credentials, but by the house itself. The underwriters were concerned with the swimming pool, spa, and heat pump (only one of these items was a concern to us.) For two days, we didn't know which way to turn, new contract, new bank, lawyer, what? They may not even be willing to loan us anything for this house. Oh, and the appraisal. The appraisal came in a lot lower than I could have ever imagined. Come to find out, they were using the market value method of appraisal. Yeah, that’s the same method used by realtors to set the price of a home when it goes on the market. I was stunned. This is the same appraisal that I could have gotten for free from my realtor (and we had to pay over $300.) This, of course, did away with any hopes of getting an equity line after closing. Why would I ever agree to pay a licensed appraiser to do what I could get for free from my realtor? A bank value, by definition is different from a market value, otherwise why would there be appraisers? Banks would just hire a realtor for half the price. To add salt to my wound, our representative read off some of the specs that were used, not even in the same neighborhood. We had looked in the county records ourselves and found several homes that sold in this neighborhood last year, why weren’t these used?
We finally got the call from our bank around 4:30 Thursday afternoon. They would fund the purchase if everything on the inspection AND the appraisal was taken care of before closing. This would require a new contract with the holding bank listing all the repairs and with a higher price to cover all the repairs. Not only was this not conducive with our plans or finances but it would have taken at least 2 months. Once all repairs where made, there would have had to be another appraisal done to insure that all work was done correctly. Did they not realize that this was a foreclosure?!?
Earlier on Thursday, I had scheduled some estimates to be done on the heat pump and pool liner. We are now considering trying to add this to a new contract with an addition to the offer. Our realtor immediately got us in touch with a new lender and I will go to one of our banks in the morning to explain the situation and see what they could do for us. The good news is that this contract is good until the end of the month, instead of the 16th (as I had thought.) Overall, this little adventure with First Citizens cost us $800 for nothing. We will need a new appraisal done and maybe a new inspection. A new appraisal after the mold is remediated (as it should have been scheduled by First Citizens) and a new inspection for good measure.
Friday, January 9, 2009
The mold remediation is done and looks wonderful. Our realtor (Kelli Voss), stopped by to see the job and agreed that they were very thorough. At this point I would absolutely recommend Flagship PDG and project Manager Doug Phelps. Great job guys!
I also ran into the pool man. He came out to do an estimate on the pool liner today.
As far as funding is concerned, I spent about an hour with Founders FCU in Fort Mill. They were so helpful and we think that they will be able to help with this problem we're having. I also talked to a broker for a Chase product. His suggestion is to go for a 80/15/5. That's a 80% Chase, 15% 2nd mortgage, and 5% down. I'm doing homework to see who would be able to do the 15%. As it stands right now, it looks like Founders will be the way to go. This 80/15/5 plan would eliminate the need for an insurance underwriter which is what we'll need to go forward. The Founders product is in-house and will not have to be backed by Fannie or Freddie, so they go by their own rules.
It looks like right now (with the mortgage crisis at hand) everyone I've talked to can do an 80/10/10, so if we could finagle the extra $10,000 we would be good to go with this plan. But, seeing we need to do some things that would not be included in a repair list to the holding bank, I don't see us being able to do this.
Monday, January 12, 2009
I drove to Founders after dropping Brandi off at pre-school and swung the ax on the 3yr arm. We'll see what happens. Everything seemed to be going fine, until I got a call stating that Founders would not loan us the money because we already have a primary residence financed by them. We had thought that since the home we are living in is a primary and we will be moving into a primary that this would be ok. Apparently not. Back to the drawing board with financing.
In the meantime, we sent Ocwen a new contract with the heat pumps being financed. The estimate was for $8,200 to replace the two outside units and one inside unit. Seeing that we will need to do a lot of other fixes and repairs before moving in, this could have been a show stopper. That was signed quickly and we were now free to move on.
On Friday, I contacted Pauline Reardon with Country Wide. After going through our credentials, she has said that this wouldn't be a problem. After about two weeks, we were told that Country Wide would not escrow the funds for the repairs. This means that we can't use our HVAC person because he requires 80% down to start work. We have to use someone that can get paid at closing. We also can't use Lowe's for the carpet for the same reason. We got in touch with some companies that would agree to get paid at closing, but get this, it's going to cost us around $3,000 more! Yeah, that's right! We feel like we're getting a good deal with the HVAC, only $800 more, but we're getting another inside unit in the deal. Not bad, right? The carpet is what's going to hurt so bad. Twice as much as the Lowe's price for the same carpet.
On Friday, January 30th, 2009 we received a list of questions from Pauline's underwriter. Most were typical. "Who's your insurance agent?" "What are these deposits?" Things like that. What struck me as unusual was they wanted a 1 year lease for this house. We do intend to rent this property, but we don't even have a closing date, why would we advertise it? Much less already have a signed contract? I understand that banks are being conscious right now, but they want us to carry all the risk. Risk, meaning what would happen if we had a signed lease and something else happens before closing? Oh, and speaking of risk, the holding bank has sent us a waiver stating that if we don't close, we are responsible for all the repairs. I'll be taking this one to our lawyer and let them know that we would not sign this until we have a final approval from Country Wide.
February 14th, 14 days of "we'll know something tomorrow". Pauline is putting us off and we don't know a thing about our loan. I visit Rosaline at her office to find out what exactly is going on. I was informed that our package had only recently gotten to her, like yesterday. This option was also eventually turned down by the MI underwriters. The reason this time, being the "soft market" in the area and our credit scores, which by the way, are not bad. It was during this time that we also found out that Pauline was also sharing our personal information with Pam (the selling realtor). Pauline suggested that we run this through a FHA loan, we agreed and on February 19th we received a notice of approval of underwriting. We were the last to know, by the way. Pauline felt that she could just contact Pam regarding our approval. WTF? I then contacted both Pauline and Rosaline to see what could go wrong at this point.
Pam reminded our realtor (Kelli Voss) of the waiver. We had gotten some advise from our lawyer saying to change some verbiage to say that we would pay if we pulled out but would not pay if we couldn't close by no fault of ours. Pam apparently has been sitting on this for three weeks. She didn't even bother sending this to the holding bank. Great. We went into the weekend of the 21st again not knowing what was going to happen. Pauline had informed me that all repairs needed to be done and inspected 48hrs before closing. I got our lawyer involved again. He made a call to the selling bank's lawyer, but I don't know what else he did for us. We figured that there would be no way we could close before the 27th. Lo and behold, Monday morning we where informed that the HVAC was in the process of being installed and the inspection would be done that afternoon. Great! I immediately scheduled the carpet to be installed.
Wednesday, February 25th.
No one knows where our loan package is, or when it would be signed off on. Come to find out Pauline had been sitting on the inspection since Monday evening. It had not even made it to the underwriter until Wednesday at 4:00. I was informed that everyone involved had been trying to contact Pauline regarding this, but the only one she bothered to call back was Pam. I finally spoke to Pauline on Thursday. She said that she had not received the inspection until Wednesday. No one has heard from the underwriter regarding our close. We started the process of yet another extension and rescheduled our closing for Thursday, March 5th. The carpet was finished on Friday, it looks great. A big hardy THANK YOU to Tim and Carrie Blue at Palmetto Flooring on Hwy 521 for your patience, willingness to work with us, and accepting the carpet allowance at closing.
Tuesday, March 10th.
We're having a problem getting a closing date before our contract expires. Ocwen is threatening not to give us an extension. Late Tuesday our lawyer fit us in for March 18th. Thank you so much, James Honeycutt. It looks like we might actually pull this off.
March 18th,
This morning we received a call from the attorney’s office. Come to find out, we are having a problem with the deed. Looks like no one knows where it is. %$#@! No other news until we get to the office, we sign all the paperwork and exchange money and still no deed. Looks like there's a problem with the seller’s attorney who holds the deed and will not turn it over until they get their two hundred dollars cancellation fee (never mind that we haven’t canceled anything) %$#@! So, we have just participated in a dry closing, everything is done but we don’t get the keys.
March 19th,
James R Honeycutt saves the day. No extra money to the selling attorney along with a signed and witnessed deed. We should finish this job tomorrow at 11:00.
March 20th
DONE!!
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The Journey part 2 begins December 9, 2008. We found this home in Fort Mill, South Carolina. This is a forclosure and has been empty for about 2 years. We know that at one point the home was occupied by a potential buyer that had agreed to a short sale and the home went into forclosure before the buyer could close. We suspect that this was when the existing updates where done. At another point this home was occupied by katrina victoms. Our plan is to start our renovations with four basic Items: New appliances, paint interior and exterior, carpit the bedrooms and hallway, some new light fixtures and new HVAC system. The Pictures below where taken during the first and second showings. 
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Some finishing touches. Chris patched some major holes in the kitchen due to the electrical work. The inspection passed. The windows in the laundry where trimmed. All the quarter round throughout the house was replaced. The Kitchen cabinet doors where finished. The Bath tub was enameled and the new lights were installed in the kitchen, den and master bedroom.
Ready to rent
The interior was repainted by Chris. Then I spent several days cleaning up. Chris added one more coat of poly to the floor. It was time to rock and roll.
April
The kitchen and laundry gets a new floor. The flowerbed gets a face lift. The backyard gets cleaned up and the laundry room gets new walls and mudded.
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The house got its new kitchen delivered and installed with new dishwasher, stove, disposal, and microwave wired and running. Rus, Dwight, Nelson and Chris all worked extra hard to get the kitchen looking great. The laundry got a LEVEL floor using a self leveling sub-flooring. The new tile backsplash was installed at the end of the month.
February was extremely productive. The Laundry room was gutted and a HOLE was found in the floor and repaired (thanks to Dwight). The hole in the roof was repaired and the ceiling rebuilt. The rewiring job was started. The hardwood floors where sanded down, stained and protected. The Entry got a new tile floor thanks to Richard. The kitchen was gutted and a dumpster was rented, filled and hauled away.
8.24.08
The first task at hand was financing. The home had nearly doubled in value since I purchased 10 years ago. So, we decided to take funds from the equity to do the needed improvements. After contacting the bank, we had to get the overgrowth under control, paint the interior and exterior before we could close on the refinance. Sounds easy enough, but to accomplish this in the middle of the holidays and with very limited funds was the trick. We got professional help (Chris Koehler) with the exterior and I started working on getting the wallpaper off the kitchen, bath and master bedroom. Special Thinks to Lisa Westberry for all her help with this task. The trimming was the easiest of the first tasks.
October 2007 found our little charlotte house empty and it was time for some major overhauls. The house had been rented b the same family for three years and had fallen into disarray. The surrounding area has improved dramatically since I had purchased the property ten years ago. Homes in the neighborhood where being remodeled and kept up nicely. We also felt that if we could update the home, we could demand more rent and find renters that would take pride in the home. This is where our journey begins.
I found the exterior in desperate need of a new paint job. I also found the landscaping overgrown and in some areas out of control. The backyard had two large circular crevices where the renters had kept two pit bulls chained. The interior was dirty and roach infested. The laundry room had leaked, causing the plywood and insulation to rot. The house was in need of new wiring and an updated kitchen. The cheep carpet that we had put down seven years ago needed to be ripped out and the hardwood floors refinished and protected.
