Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Nothing to Report....well, sort of

I can honestly say this week that I haven't been concentrating on the house. I've actually been resting for once. Oh, we're still talking about stuff while lying in front of the tv of course, but not moving from the reclining position.

We received a panicked call from Thadeus, our 2nd floor tenant this week. It seems he's being overrun by mice. I have to tell you that we have not one mouse here in our floor. The upstairs tenants have very bad habits and they have called us before asking for the exterminator to come out. They leave bags of rice on the floor and garbage on their back porch with the back door wide open all the time. Their stove is caked with food. It's a virtual fiesta for a mouse. Hell, if I was a mouse, I'd live there.

(Disclaimer: The only reason we renewed their lease is because we have alot of work to do in their unit and we wanted to wait until next year to do it.)

We have talked to him before and told him he is attracting the critters but we are going to have another strong talk with him again and this time we will bring in outside help. We have used bait and traps in the past. Steve told him no more storing garbage on the back porch and he agreed.

I told Steve that, "these tenants do nothing but jeopardize the integrity of our building." They do things that can keep me awake at night worrying. The best way to deal with things such as that (for me anyway) is the "it's only temporary" mantra. It works like a charm, really.

But never fear, some plans are afoot here and after we get things figured out a bit more, I'll post about it.

In the meantime, it's business as usual with slow deliberate steps toward completion of
the entry, kitchen minutiae, and the pantry Stay tuned...

3 comments:

Greg said...

We are both reluctant landlords. I am so thrilled about my next tenant. Her name is Heather and she will be moving in on the 24th. I was talking with Heather’s co-worker and I mentioned that I knocked $25 a month off the rent to make it more affordable for her. Her co-worker seemed surprised and I explained that I know I won’t have burn holes in the carpet or problems with her at all. Her co-worker than said, “You’re right, I mean, she’s Heather. She will make the perfect tenant.”

Derek said...

Luckily we haven't had any mice in the house yet, even though we've had a gap under the basement door for long periods of time. We have rats in the garage though, they live under the barn floor. I thought I got them all, since they stopped eating the poison, the poison is all gone again, so they're back. There was a dead one in the garden a few weeks ago.

Jocelyn said...

kk: I try not to think about that!

greg: we used to have tenants like that...sigh! It will happen again.

derek: eeek rats! I have a good rat story, but not sure I should share it, maybe another time.