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Today’s edition of the Carnival of Real Estate Investing is now posted at Real Estate Perspectives.  This week we have quite an entertaining read, with our host playing up an entire baseball theme.

I’m third up to bat and playing left field.  Always wanted to catch one of those super high major league fly balls.  I remember doing that as a kid and the impact of the ball hitting your glove when you catch it sure stings, but the sting is erased by the fact that you actually caught it!

Enjoy the carnival.

I will never do Section 8 again! I know some people love the program and believe that the supposed “guaranteed” rent is worth it, but not me. I just had a very long time Section 8 tenant that I inherited with a building move out. Finally. We could have evicted her many times for violating the terms of her lease, but we never did because we knew her apartment would need to be completely rehabbed after she left. Well, that day is here.

She gave written notice in November that she’d be moving out the week before Christmas. Contractors were lined up, and we had a verbal committment from a new tenant for January 1. Of course a few days before the move out date, Section 8 Cindy calls to say she’s not moving out right now after all because her new apartment is not ready for her yet.

My property manager told her this was fine, as the January 1 tenant didn’t appear to be panning out anyway and this would give us a little more time for the contractors to do their work. It was the holidays after all.

So Section 8 Cindy moves out mid-January. It was made perfectly clear to her social worker that we would not be prorating the rent. They’d pay for the full month. Also discussed was the condition of the apartment and what would be expected upon move out. The place was trashed and we wanted the county to chip in for part of the rehab expenses. The security deposit was not going to make a dent in the expenses required to bring the unit up to rent ready again. The social worker said that we could work something out and agreed to oversee the move out and the subsequent cleaning.

Well, three social workers later and post move out, here is what we have. We have a lovely medicine cabinet full of personal effects. I can’t help but notice all of the deoderant that is being left behind. This might be related in some distant way to the fact that the bathtub has been full of laundry for the last x number of years. Yep. That means no bathing. And the deoderant is piling up and is seemingly not wanted enough to take it along upon exit. Hmmm.

Then we have the rest of the bathroom that has been “cleaned.” You must understand this really is clean compared to how it looked before. She gets an E for effort but $0 in credits toward getting her security deposit back.

Behind door #2 we have the kitchen. The refrigerator has never been cleaned, and now certainly wasn’t an excuse to do it for the first time.

Let your eyes wander to the kitchen cabinets and walls and you’ll see a full array of food splatter that reaches proportions beyond the wildest cooking I’ve ever done.

Also note the condition of the floor where the table used to be.

Finally, back out in the main room we see a small sample of the furniture and garbage that was left behind.

The current social worker has indeed been to the apartment and has confirmed that it is cleaned to her satisfaction and that a full refund of the security deposit is warranted. It’s a classic case of the blind leading the blind. I charge $50 if a mere coat hanger is left behind, not to mention furniture, trash, food, feces, and years worth of dirt and grime.

Apparently the conversation about the county sharing in the rehab expenses was not passed along to the latest social worker. There has been no consistency, no action, and no educated response to anything we’ve put into the black hole of the county Section 8 establishment.

The rehab work is underway and I should have some new photos of it and a breakdown of money spent soon.

Josh at Bigger Pockets hosted this week’s Carnival of Real Estate Investing this week and… drum roll please…

he liked my tip about the landlord locks! Thanks for the recognition Josh. It is a great tip and I’m having two more of those locks installed this week.

Be sure to check out the carnival for a bunch of other great real estate investing articles and please, get involved if you’re a blogger. We’re all at the edge of our seats waiting to hear what you have to say!

I have to tell you about one of the greatest inventions of all time!  About a year ago I started to change over all my door locks on my units to a new type of lock.  These door knobs come with an interchangeable cylinder in the center that you can quickly swap out at any time.  You keep one extra cylinder on hand at all times, and when a tenant moves out, you simply take your spare cylinder and put it in their lock.  This way, exiting tenants never have access to their old apartment after they leave, even if they’ve made extra copies of their keys and didn’t turn them in to you.

As the landlord/investor, you have one master key that fits all the cylinders.  Or, you can arrange it so one of your master keys works in all the locks at one building, all the locks at all buildings in one city or state, or all the buildings that one manager/management company manages - however you want.

Gone are the days of having the huge key ring full of keys!  Or going to the apartments only to find that you forgot to bring the right key.  You can just keep the ONE key on your car keys and you have it with you at all times.  This system is awesome.

What I like even better is that the company who makes the locks keeps your ordering information on file.  You don’t have to order all the locks you’ll ever need at once.  Each time you place an order, they will send you more locks and cylinders that will work with the master key you already have.  Or not.  However you like.

This lock system has saved us a ton of time, aggravation, and money.  It also decreases our liability and gives us peace of mind knowing that ex-tenants cannot access any of our units.  Here’s the website where you can find the locks I use.

Tomorrow night I’m hosting a call that I want to invite everyone to join.  This call is going to be a bit different than most that I do, and I’m particularly excited about this topic.  It’s about Hello World, which is a revolutionary new streaming media technology that allows you to communicate with other people over the internet.  Hello World brings video, voice, clickable graphics, and Powerpoint presentations to websites and emails.

Businesses are using Hello World to communicate with clients, vendors, and coworkers.  Families are using it to see and talk with one another.  The great thing I like about Hello World is its simplicity.  It’s very easy to use and the people on the other end don’t need to know anything about the technology underneath.  Hello World is viral like YouTube and has been featured in Time, Fortune, and Wired magazines.

Our call on the evening of Tuesday, January 16th will show you the technology and the business opportunity it creates.  Real estate investors and entrepreneurs will be excited to learn about the new stream of income that can be built with it.  My speaker has a 90-day plan that when followed, can set you up with a residual income stream for years to come. 

Go to my teleseminar site to get more details, as well as the time and phone number for the call.  Click here.

The latest edition of the Carnival of Real Estate Investing has been posted over at Sadie’s Take.  There’s a diverse set of posts to read this week.  Some really interesting writing.  Check it out.

After a break for the holidays, today’s edition of the carnival of real estate investing has been published on Cash Flow Treasures.  There are some great reads this week.

If you have a blog and want to get involved in the carnival, just go to the carnival site and submit your post and volunteer to host.  It’s fun, easy, and brings a bunch of new readers to your blog.  Selfishly, all of us blog readers also get to find out about new and interesting investing blogs, so please consider participating!

It seems I’ve been tagged by Landlord Shmandlord. Hmmm…. tagging is new to me and I’m enjoying reading everyone’s posts. The idea is you share with your readers five things they don’t likely know about you.

1. When I grew up, my sister and I were limited to using three squares on the toilet paper roll per use in order to “conserve and save.” Today I use gobs and gobs just because I can.

2. My favorite musical instrument is bag pipes. I love to hear them in parades and they bring tears to my eyes every time. I’ve never played them but have played all versions of the saxophone, clarinet, and piano.

3. I’ve had a recurring dream at least weekly for the last ten years. Someday I’d like to consult a dream analyst and figure it out once and for all. Maybe that will make it go away.

4. I’ve watched The Young and the Restless since about the age of five. I’ve barely missed a day since the VCR was invented. I’ve learned a ton about business and relationships. I will always be grateful to my mom for this.

5. I’m planning to climb to Mt. Everest basecamp this year. Notice the careful use of the word “planning.” My mind has not fully committed to it but I have every intention of doing it. I watched a Discovery channel documentary this weekend and it was motivating and scary at the same time. I could not stay awake long enough to see if anyone died.

To keep the fun going, I’m passing the tag along to:

Lording the Land

Financial Phoenix

Shaun’s Real Estate Adventures

Escape From Cubicle Nation

Transparent Real Estate

Have fun with it boys and girls! (more…)