September 9, 2009

1808 remodel is done and it's up for rent

Last weekend Lon stopped over to help me swap the kitchen doors so that the door handle doesn't prevent the new cabinet drawer from opening all the way. All in all it went pretty well, the doors came out and went back in fairly easily and probably swing and latch better now than they did before.

Here is the door in 1810 after swapping and sealing with Great Stuff Foam.



Here you can see the drawer open all the way with the door closed, finally.



With the doors swapped I was finally able to reinstall all the trim, hang the new blinds, and tie up all the other odds and ends that were still left. Laura was a huge help cleaning up the place, inside and out. It's now basically spotless and the yard is weed free and flower beds have a fresh layer of mulch.

It was basically ready to show Friday so I stuck the for rent sign out on the lawn. I also took a ton of pictures and put together a website to help advertise it. Check out the website at http://ck-rental.blogspot.com/ I then posted an ad on craigslist.com with a few small pictures and then linked to the webpage above so people can go look at all the bigger pictures and details.

Since Friday I've had about a half dozen calls, mostly from the sign on the lawn, and have showed it to two possible tenants and have another showing lined up for tonight or tomorrow. I could probably start a whole blog just discussing the crazy experiences with potential tenants but here are a few of my favorites so far (these are from just the last 5 days)

Potential Tenant 1 - Walk Through
Me: "I'll be checking your credit and criminal background and will check your references"
Her: "Don't bother checking...my credit is terrible and I'm declaring bankruptcy. I had a ""seizure"" blacked out and crashed my brand new SUV into a brand new Toyota Tundra...pushed it into a house and garage...and totaled the huge boat that was in the garage...I'm $125k in debt...I'm not gonna pay that."

It was hard to give her an application with a straight face, based on other indications I'm 100% certain that her ""seizure"" was drug related.

Potential Tenant 2 - Phone Call
Me: "...rent amount may be negotiable with a clean credit history, no criminal record, and great references."
Her: "I can tell by talking to you on the phone that you won't trust me...I have issues."

She then hung up.

Potential Tenant 3 - Phone Call
Him: "...that sounds like a sweet, ugh, sweet place man...do you ugh, ugh, do you check on my...ugh, you know, ugh, bills, errr, do you gotta check my financial, ugh, do you gotta..."
Me: "Yes I will check your credit and criminal history."
Him: "Oh man, we gots terrible credit but we gots jobs now...good ones...and we even payin our bills now...but ugh, ah, well you aint gonna rent to us though, not wit our credit...."

He then hung up.

Its really amazing how just mentioning credit and criminal checks makes people spill their guts like that, I'm truly impressed with their honesty. I have had a few normal people show interest but no takers yet. Hopefully this next showing goes well.