P.I.G.S

Over the 4th of July week, we went home to Ohio. We have a rental property there that we bought in 2010 and the tenants were moving out so we wanted to see the home and make any repairs that we needed to. 

This home was suppose to be the home we lived and started a family in. It was never suppose to be a rental property, but due to buying the house in January of 2010 and Mike deciding to join the Marine's in April 2010, we didn't live in it to long. It is on a really quite street that doesn't have a big turnover on neighbors. Everyone is older, quiet and have lived there forever. 

This house was a flipped house when we bought it. It is an older house, but everything was new so it was nice that it was turn key. I love this house. It is a perfect starter home.

Wanting to be smart about being landlords, we hired a property management company to help us with making sure everything runs smoothly. Living in Hawaii it was just impossible to be available to tenants.  

Our first renter was a single older guy. He had two cats. He payed his rent on time and lived there for two years. When he moved out, my sister, brother-in-law and mother helped us by going over there and making any repairs that needed to happen because the management company charges 4x more to do repairs then if you do them yourself. Mom said it smelled like cat pee so the carpets were professionally cleaned twice...mind you when he moved in the carpet was only 7 months old.  Mom also said it was pretty dirty (being a single male) and my brother-in-law and sister made some pretty significant repairs. A couple was the tenants responsibility but others were ours, like a hot water tank and new paint. I'm cant really remember the dollar amount that the repairs ended up being but it felt pretty normal. 

This go around with the new tenants were a different story. So, the first tenant (single male) moved out in the beginning of winter. That time is the WORST time to put your home up for rent or sale. We were worried. It is hard to pay mortgage and rent and all of our other bills on one paycheck. 

The management company let us know that they had a 3 young guys that wanted to sign a 18 month lease. They all had jobs but only one actually had credit...it was good though. So, we crossed our fingers and hoped for the best. 

After about 8 months of them living in the home and paying rent on time, the management company contacted us and told us that the guys got in a big fight and one moved out (the one with the good credit) but the two others were going to still be making the full rent payments.
After he moved out everything went down hill. 

They never payed the full rent amount and were always late. They didn't like to answer or return phone calls from the management company. Our option was to evict them, or take the partial payments from them and receive a lump sum of what they owe at the end of their lease. We decided to do the lump sum. Eviction sometimes takes months, so once again we would be paying a rent and mortgage and we were in the process of moving from Hawaii to West Virginia so it wasn't a good time.  

Well...here we are. Their lease was up at the end of June and these boys owe us a lot of money in back rent.

Mike took leave for us to go home to see family, friends and take care for whatever needed to be done at the house to get it rented again. 

To our surprise...or maybe we shouldn't have been so naive, we pulled up to our loving home that had been completely destroyed. 

We were at a loss for words. 

The grass was 3 feet high.

Our front railing was missing. 

Cigarette butts everywhere. 

The houses siding had been hit by a car.

It looked like a homeless house. :( 

Let me just show a couple photos to back up my words.

This was just half of the trash in the garage.
Mind you..the bill for garbage pickup (mattresses. trash. furniture. old food) was $375

Smells like a bar and a kennel.

Burn marks...not fixable, only replaceable.

I had fun walking around the yard picking up cigarette butts. Beer bottles even on the roof.
I bought that plant pot  :(

Door was kicked in.

Never changing the air filter. I hope they had fun breathing this in.

Imagine this amount of dust on every baseboard, carpet, window sill and counter top.

 Florescent light from the basement broken across a tree.

More nastiness.

Holes in bathroom tile.

Two bedroom doors both with huge holes punched threw, one with knife holes also.
Basement ceiling that covered plumbing had holes punched threw.
Over 20 light bulbs had to be replaced.
Broken cement.
4 broken windows.
Broken screen.
Toilets that have never been cleaned.
Broken railing.
Dirty oven, fridge, every kitchen cabinet and draw.
Did I mention the grass was 3 feet high!

I was just so embarrassed.
Embarrassed for my neighborhood.
A few of the neighbors came over and told us it was the party house.
They called the police a couple times but that didn't help.

I apologized immensely.

I am just really pissed...and I don't really no who to be mad at.
These stupid pigs that lived in our home or the property management company that we pay every month to do nothing. They are suppose to be keeping our house nice.
What are we paying for then???

The cost that the property management came up with that the tenants owe us is over $3,000 ( not including back rent)
Of course as a property owner we have to pay for things also...ex.paint, tree trimming.
So we spent every waking hour cleaning and fixing our home.
We stayed up past 2 am trying to get things back to being right. We have cuts and bruises.

It took 8 days from sun up to sun down to fix what was done to our home that we loved.
And it still wasn't all finished.
The front railing was not completed.

This home might look small from the outside but it is surprisingly really open. 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, walk in closets, huge basement with a bar, crazy amount of storage...if anyone wants to rent it let me know...lol

New shower tile

I cant believe how much there was to do.
I never want to see a can of paint ever again.
Blood, sweat and tears were definitely shed this past week.

Just for fun, this is what our home looked like 7 yeas ago when we lived in it.

I know no one is going to love my home like I do. I just hope this time around we get a normal person that respects the home at least.
Also, all of my surrounding neighbors have my number and I expect them to use it if there are any problems.

Wish us luck with collections.
Back rent $ and damage $ we are coming for.
These pigs have not seen the last of us.
They deserve to get consequences for the way they treat others property.