My son, Eric has been telling me he's going to write down and number my stories for over twenty years. What I'm sharing here is from the 448th volume "A Decade In West Texas/One Eighteen Months" This is not Eric's version but rather from the 1100 volumes I wrote to provide a truthful and accurate account of what happened.
I'm repeating this story here because Melissa Kruse requested it, I Want 600 Points I had made a suggestion for inexpensive roach control on one of Rich Kruse ranting land lord blogs Landlord Man Rides Again and my sage wisdom had been ignored.
House #12 was one of 15 aged, small two bedroom, one bath, wood frames stucco buildings near the front of a large trailer park that my partner and I had suddenly acquired, after I had been saying no way for nearly four years. I hadn't been in the house since our first inspection 3.5 years earlier
We had owned the property for almost four weeks, Brenda and I had been there for a week then I had taken her back to Michigan and our kids, they would join me at the end of the school year if I couldn't get everything taken care of by then. Alone with this nightmare, my partner still in Europe there was nothing I could do after lunch each day until after siesta. So each day I drove the park with a legal pad noting what needed done. I would do this each day until about three or more often until I ran out of paper.
So it was, early afternoon when I approach house #12 from the south. The house had a very short crawl space with a scuttle hole on the south side. From that scuttle hole there was a steady stream of water, I stopped and knocked at the door no answer. Not knowing where the water shut off was, I woke my maintenance man, getting him out in the noon day sun, he must have though I was English, he didn't say. He did mention mad dogs, particularly the one that lived in that house. He shut the water off at the street while I wrote a note to the tenant.
Later that afternoon, the tenant came to the office. I told her about the water leak. She responded by telling me it had been leaking for almost three years, no one else had worried about it until I had the weeds cut and saw where the water flowed. She could live without the water that night and she's have her son take the dog out for the day so that we could repair the leak in the morning.
Al, my maintenance man and I were at her door at 8 the next day. The smell when she opened the door was something terrible, a mixture of swamp and out house. The lady told us the leak was in the wall between the bath room and the living room. Al went to look at the problem, passing but never looking into the living room. I went to the living room. The floor had given out, the carpet formed a bowl, the couch was bolted to the wall on the bath room side, The carpet was wet underneath it. An easy chair near the door sat with it's front legs propped up on cement blocks. A TV sat on it's stand against the outside wall, a rope, running out one window and in another holding it upright.
Al came back he'd found the leak it would take him 5 minutes to fix and a day to replace the water soaked wall. I said we'd have to replace the living room floor and carpet. I turned to the lady and told her we'd fix the water right now and start the floor on Monday but, she'd have to get rid of the dog, it wasn't on the lease and I wouldn't re-carpet the house with it there. She said, why? I told her there had to be two hundred urine stains on the living room carpet. How foolish could I be? She said that's not the dog! He doesn't go in there! Now, I'm thinking the kids? Before, I can say anything she picked up a kids toy and throws it at the center of the carpet. The noise damn near stopped my hart, snakes! The stains were venom!
Al and the Lady found me standing in the bed of my truck. She explained the snakes couldn't get thru the carpet and if you wore shoes they venom was harmless! I made a better place available for her, at the same section 8 rent and she had family move her that afternoon.
We got rid of the snakes, by poisoning the mice. I can't remember the name of the posin, but it came in those black and yellow boxes. The posin had the mice looking for water before they die, we'd let the water drip under the house, The snakes gorged them selves on the dying mice and in about 6 weeks there were no snakes to be found.
It was about three months later when I stepped on a diamond back. It amazed me how far I could jump and run in the time it takes a snake to coil. In the next two weeks I stepped on two more!
Bill
William J Archambault, Jr
The Real Estate Investment Institute
http://www.reii.org
Bill
William J Archambault Jr
The Real Estate Investment Institute
wja@reii.org 832-259-7078 or 702-516-1569
From my past: GRI 1975, FLI 1974, Catalyst from a client 1974 an agent that makes things happen, REII, The Real Estate Investment Institute 1995.
©William J Archambault Jr ©The Real Estate Investment Institute ©REII
I started to answer a comment on one of my bloggs, and as so often happens when I'm commenting I got a little carried away. I posted the comment, but the more I looked at it the more I wanted everyone to see it, so after a short edit here it is.