[00:00:02] This is Short Term Rental Management, the show that is all about short term rental property management with your host, yours truly, Luke Carl.
[00:00:16] All right, we are going to talk about things that go wrong, the things you don't hear about on podcasts, which is not necessarily true, especially if you're listening to this one, which is Short Term Rental Management with yours truly, Cash Flow Carl, currently coming to you from the world famous Cash Cave.
[00:00:41] Wherever podcasts are hurt, Short Term Rental Management. I love you. I'm glad that you are here. So today we're going to cover some issues that I have had recently.
[00:00:53] I'm talking this week, topic number one, active termites. I had active termites at a long term rental. This was a single family home, three bedroom, two bath. I have a bunch of them in the same area.
[00:01:10] Well, several areas, to be honest. And I got a call from the inspector that there were active termites. So what happens when that happens? Well, the first thing you do is you thank your property manager because I do have a property manager on this one that is not my own property management company because I have that as well, for doing inspections. Thank you, Mr. Property Manager, for doing inspections and caring about your job. Because that is, I'll be honest with you, it's kind of rare.
[00:01:40] It's a little bit rare. So great job, property manager. Although there is going to be a little bit of a change to that story towards the end.
[00:01:50] So I called the pest control company. We used two different pest control companies in that town and I called them both and I found that one of them had an active termite bond on the home. So if you're not familiar with that, that means that they are putting these, you know, termite bait traps outside the home. They're called like sentry cons or whatever. They're those little green discs that actually go down into the ground and the termites go in there and they die.
[00:02:17] Those need to be redone about once a year and at least in that market.
[00:02:23] And I did have an active termite bond, which is basically an insurance policy. If you get termites while you have this bait station at your home, they will cover the damages.
[00:02:41] Be honest with you, I've never been through the whole bonding process. I've never gone, it's not ever gone that far bar with me. I've had termites before. We just fixed it and moved on. Or I have purchased homes with termites and you just, you know, you get rid of them and then you cut the damage out and fix it basically. Or you just, you know, you got to go in there with new studs and Sheetrock or whatever needs done. I've never been in a situation where the termites were so horrible that the home was destroyed. I do have a buddy that's going through that right now in North Florida. But you just, you know, usually you can tell it's happening and you get it taken care of, hopefully. And really what you're looking for is like flakes of paint coming off the walls is usually what you notice first. Like big chunks of paint will come off the walls. And I got some termites.
[00:03:28] And it's usually up, you know, like window height or above the windows and maybe up at the top of the corner of the room, you know, that's usually where you're going to notice it.
[00:03:40] So anyway, we got a hold of the per pest control company that had the bond on the property. I didn't even know it had a bond, to be honest. I'm sure it's on a spreadsheet somewhere. And they said, yes, we have that covered. We'll go over there and take a look. So they went over there and took a look and it was not active.
[00:03:56] So the pest control was working correctly. The Sentricon, or whatever brand they have over there's a brand name, whatever brand name they have over there was working correctly and we didn't have to do anything further with them. But now I do need to cut the wall open and fix the issue, which probably it won't be that bad. Probably just be some studs chewed up a little bit. You can get it fixed and moved on. Move on with your life. So, bravo. Great job on the property manager's account and the pest control company's account and our account for having it done correctly and making sure everybody was doing their job.
[00:04:29] That being said, the property manager did go back in their records and they had an inspection from about exactly one year ago where this damage was there at that time as well. And they never told us, never did anything about it, never told us. But that would explain why the pest control company was sent to the property.
[00:04:48] So anyway, no big deal. It's been taken care of. About a year ago, actually, they just forgot and never told us. Did another inspection a year later, saw the same damage from the year before. And now we need. We're going to go in there and resolve the issue with, you know, you.
[00:05:06] You gotta open the wall and see how much damage they've done, if any, and hopefully not much, you know, scabbing some new studs, whatever needs to be Done. And fix the Sheetrock paint and move on.
[00:05:21] Hopefully not a big deal. We don't, we don't have an end to that story just yet. We haven't opened the wall. Shouldn't be that big a deal.
[00:05:27] Had a botched job on a parking lot, an apartment building recently where this was a situation where there was no communication.
[00:05:35] The vendor, and I've worked with this vendor many times.
[00:05:38] Large jobs, big buildings. Well, big for me.
[00:05:42] And he sent me an invoice. I never even really looked at it. Next thing I know, he did the work and it was not what I wanted done. So it was. He just basically did some band aid work and I wanted a whole new re, you know, redone job. So lack of communication. But this was a very expensive job. And I'm not going to get into too much detail on this, but it was a $46,000 job I didn't want done, not the job I wanted done. I would not have done the job had I known what the job was. But we never communicated about it, which is my fault. As a leader you gotta step it up and hold yourself accountable. But in this case, it was his fault. Why are you doing that job without talking to me about it? And I never signed off on it either.
[00:06:25] You know, he sent me an invoice, I never signed it. There was a spot for it to be signed. Never got signed. So why are you doing the work?
[00:06:33] Don't you think you need to talk to the boss before you do a fifty thousand dollar job?
[00:06:38] Hello.
[00:06:41] So that one is yet to be resolved and I'm not happy about it.
[00:06:45] Yeah, tough one there. Not going to get into more detail on that one. Unfortunately also had a fire.
[00:06:53] I will be completely honest with you. The fire was not this week, but it was recently at a situation where we believe they, and I will say the fire department did not have a conclusive investigation. There was no, you know, evidence that would give them a conclusion.
[00:07:09] So there was some sort of a fire. It caught the fence, which was not even our fence. This is a rental property, not too far from the termite property.
[00:07:17] The fire caught the fence, ran down the fence, which was not even our fence. It was the neighbor's fence. Turned the corner on what looked like, you know, more of that fence. But it was our gate basically at the this said property and ran down the gate, wooden gate, and it caught the edge of the home.
[00:07:34] Luckily the fire department got there in time. Not a big deal. Paid for that one out of pocket. The renter did have renters, insurance they will not cover structural damage. So they said pound sand. I was on my own.
[00:07:50] It did go through the wall and up underneath the bathtub. So the, you know, the wall had been compromised. So we did have to rip the entire bathroom out. The shower, the, the tile and the, the tub had to be removed. Redo everything. New studs, new framing.
[00:08:09] You know, then you got to seal it up with like this special fire paint that makes it so it doesn't smell. I don't know all the details.
[00:08:18] Something similar to kills, if you're familiar with that. And then they put in, they sealed up the walls new. In other words, new Sheetrock.
[00:08:29] Then they did a new tub and tile surround and then new siding on the exterior and paint.
[00:08:37] So 6,500 bucks. That one could have been a lot worse. But still not a good day.
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[email protected] the situation a couple days ago where the this is situation number three now, I think. Or four.
[00:09:33] This be number four where the guests checked in and decided that they did not like that the sheets were clean foreign.
[00:09:43] I'm saying that in a funny way, of course, but that's basically what it boiled down to. This guest was throwing an absolute fit. Brand new rental property. Not a brand new house, but new property does. So all new linens, all new. Everything had been rented three or four times. So everything had been washed, of course. And they were complaining that there was a fragrance on the sheets and towels. In other words, they had been washed.
[00:10:07] She's still going with this, by the way. It's been three days now of her complaining.
[00:10:12] And we called Airbnb and made sure that they knew that we were offering a great product. I actually went to that house right before they checked in because I am a damn good landlord and I work hard and it was spotless and gorgeous. And Airbnb said quite jokingly, of course, why don't you send her some dirty sheets?
[00:10:29] So they, they sided with us. And we are not offering a fragrance free home. So this person can't expect a quote unquote Free fragrance, free home. They're expecting something that we just cannot deliver and we're not offering them. So I'm sorry, but this is just the way it's going to be. You're going to have to sleep on clean sheets. Sorry. Then she claimed she went out and bought new towels. And again, I'm not going to get into all the details. You know how it is with guests. It's. Sometimes it just is. It's a thing.
[00:10:59] She claims she went out and bought all new towels because she couldn't use our towels. They were too smelly. They smelled like fragrance. And I'm thinking to myself, like, well, the new towels are going to have dyes and fragrances of their own, probably more so than the ones that have already been washed professionally for you.
[00:11:17] So this one probably boils down to it being a new property being offered at a very reasonable price, probably too reasonable of a price. And you got yourself a complainer that's looking for a deal.
[00:11:27] Why in the world would you complain that the sheets were clean? You know? But in the end of the day, at the end of the day, we still care very much about her enjoying her vacation. Have a great vacation. And we are doing our best to kiss her rear end with the clean sheets.
[00:11:46] Issue number five. I had a pool pump go out. Not only did I have a pool pump go out, but my pool man is out of town.
[00:11:53] So that was kind of a bummer.
[00:11:56] Ended up calling around, trying to find some pool company that we were not familiar with, and we got some idiot to go over there, and he told the guest, oh, my goodness, I can't believe this hasn't caught on fire yet.
[00:12:10] Why you would say that to a guest, I have no idea. That was ridiculous and stupid. And I did not hire them just because they said something ridiculous and stupid.
[00:12:20] So, long story short, couple days went by, they were able to use the pool the whole time. It was fine. It was just the pump was not circulating as the way it should.
[00:12:27] My. My guy came back to town and he said, I'll be over there in the morning to fix it. It is now fixed as of like an hour ago at the recording of this pro podcast. So really, the guest did not even need to know that that was going on because the pool was still usable. But we did have to let them know because we had people coming and going. By the way, I got some new sunglasses. I thought they were pretty cool.
[00:12:53] What else? So that was what, number five?
[00:12:57] Number six, I had a beam, which was looked to be like a 4x4 supporting a roof on a front porch kind of collapse a little bit. And we were concerned that it was because the slab, which the, you know, the front porch concrete where this thing was sitting on was compromised and settling or something. So that was a long saga. That was ridiculous. We ended up sending a, sending a foundation guy over there. If you've ever sent a foundation guy to your property, can almost guarantee they're going to come up with something horrible that's wrong with the property.
[00:13:31] The solution there was that this after much nonsense and shenanigans and idiots, the solution was that the beam is not actually even load bearing and the porch itself is really just, you know, it's kind of an overhang type of a deal. It doesn't even hang over. It's just, it goes in and the front door is in there. So the roof is already, you know, it's being supported by the, the walls of the home. So this beam is actually not even needed.
[00:14:02] And it really, what it is is two, two by four screwed together.
[00:14:06] And then they put one by four wrapped around the two by fours to make it look like a 4x4, which is ridiculous. Why didn't you just buy a damn 4x4? I get it. They just wanted, it was like pre painted and it looked pretty or whatever at the time, you know, 40 years ago.
[00:14:24] So long story short, we're just going to replace that with a new 4x4 and off we go. And yeah, there was a couple cracks in the foundation step cracks kind of thing. But it's on a slab on a flat piece of property and we're not worried about it. It's not like it's hanging off the side of a cliff and has a, you know, six inch hole or something like that. So that one was a lot of fun. What else? That was number six, I think. And then by the way, this is all in one week. Except for whichever one I told you wasn't in one week. As I'm speaking in a fantastic monologue here today on short term rental management with Luke Carl.
[00:14:57] Well, I did have a tenant move out of a duplex unit. That'll cost me about.
[00:15:03] How much is that going to cost me? About 18 grand. It's a unit that has never been remodeled since it was new.
[00:15:09] Had an inherited tenant in there when, when the company myself purchased it.
[00:15:15] And it's outdated, doesn't even have a dishwasher. The cabinets are, you know, 40 years old and nasty. So we're going to rip those out because you can't put a dishwasher without ripping out the cabinets. And putting that one's going to cost me. After countertops and new flooring and paint and everything else. Cabinets, countertops, all new appliances, et cetera, that'll end up being somewhere around 19, I would guess. 18, 19 grand, maybe even 20 for a little two bedroom duplex unit that'll rent for 900 bucks, you know, but making the world a better place, right? So all in one week's work for yours truly as a professional landlord. So really none of it was a big deal. Yeah, you got to spend some money, but that's just part of the, part of the deal, you know, it's part of it. When you own rental real estate, somebody's going to move out and cost you 20 grand, you know, occasionally or you know, with the guests. It's not that. It's not that, but it'll be something in your hot tub breaks and cost you nine grand or whatever the case may be. Right? So really, that Parking Lot 1 was the worst one. And that's an ongoing saga that I'm really not happy about.
[00:16:22] If we learned a lesson today, it's that communication needs to happen all the time. Over communicate with your vendors, over communicate with your property managers, over communicate with everybody and you will have success. So there you go, Bad things happen, crap happens, pick yourself up, move on. If you're wondering, you know, why it's all just rainbows and sugar cookies, all these, you know, awesome stories you hear about the wonderful things about rental real estate. And that is true, man, that's 100% true. Rental real estate is fantastic. Especially if you hold it for a really long time. And someday when you're old and gray, you're going to say, man, those duplexes are making it so that I can live a pretty good life even though I've got health problems and everything else, you know, so buy real estate and hold it and you will succeed and be happy and very happy to share you share with you these stories today about things that can and will go wrong. Long hair, Luke, Carl saying, don't overthink it, Sam.
