|
kissekatt posted:You have no soul. I'm cool with that. I can sleep at night.
|
#
?
May 17, 2014 20:34
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 14, 2024 22:07 |
|
|
The area I'm in is filled with: a) More houses than people b) Students This is a recipe, apparently, for lots of minimal-effort renting places popping up all over the place renting out very old houses. The place I'm in now is better than average (kitchen was redone a few years ago when the old one was taken out by, the renter claimed, a tornado), but it's still filled with really sloppy and lazy work. - The old roof leaked, and completely ruined the ceiling, so they replaced the roof. But it was too much effort to repair or even repaint the ceiling, so they just hung a drop ceiling a foot below the actual ceiling and called it a day. All the (mismatched) light fixtures are just mounted to the drop ceiling tiles, not secured beyond that. - Despite the house having 3-prong outlets, most of them don't have attached grounds. I can only presume that the place was built before grounds were required by code, and broken outlets were replaced by 3-prong outlets without expending any more effort to run grounding wires. (I got 'lucky' and the renovated kitchen does have grounded outlets, so at least I've got a place to plug in sensitive equipment) - The grounding of the window air-conditioning unit was solved by cutting an outlet hole in the floor (?!?!) and, presumably, grounding directly to the earth.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2014 23:16
|
|
|
SocketSeven posted:Roaches can be kinda cute; when you compare roaches to bed bugs. Those little fuckers nearly drove me insane when they infested my apartment. Management couldn't kill them. They would come through the walls, then crawl up the walls at night, while I watched them as they plotted to dive bomb me and suck my blood the moment I closed my eyes. At my current apartment, the rental agreement (and apparently Florida law) says that if I get bed bugs and the exterminator can't eliminate them because I wasn't "cooperative" enough (IE I didn't immediately burn all my belongings) I would then be liable for the cost of exterminating all the bed bugs from the entire building.
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2014 04:20
|
|
|
I thought of another story. When I was a child living in the midwest, we had a nice 2-story house built. Overall, very decent, but there was one incident. The master bathroom had this huge mirror, let's say five feet tall and twelve feet wide, that covered all of one wall above an equally wide countertop. Well, the house was built and everything seemed fine. And then, like two months after we moved in, one evening we hear this giant crashing sound and go upstairs to find that the mirror has unceremoniously just fallen off the wall and shattered, filling the entire room with glass shards and destroying the countertop. The funny bit was that we knew exactly who had done a lovely job gluing the mirror to the wall, since while dispensing the glue, he'd apparently spent some time writing his name in cursive with it. 
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2014 07:34
|
|
|
Railing Kill posted:
Hah, I have the Turkish flag covering one wall of one room. All the other rooms have that annoying "feature wall" syndrome in different themes but nothing as bad as yours luckily.
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2014 14:51
|
|
One of the bedrooms was painted 
traffic cone orange
|
~Coxy posted:Hah, I have the Turkish flag covering one wall of one room. When I moved into my house, one of the bedrooms had lavender walls with pastel lime green doors. And the kitchen had a wall with a fake brick facade (like, thin slices of brick were glued onto the drywall)...which had been painted over with pastel lime green paint. The stairway and upstairs hallway also were painted dark brown and had no windows or lights (well, there was one light, but you had to switch it on at the bottom of the stairs). Painting that area white made it vastly brighter.
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2014 14:58
|
|
|
When I bought my place it was under renovation and they did not expect the sale to go so fast as there where a bunch of unfinished things the contractors just left the second the loan closed (probably at the request of the previous home owner despite stating that the place would be finished). Among that list includes; - They attempted to remove the bathroom fan box with a pair of tin snips piece by piece as opposed to just going in the attic. - Walls are painted, but not a single door or piece of trim has been painted (per-primered) - They rehung the window blinds that where all broken and taken off. - Looks like they painted the bathroom in a non glossy paint in about 10min as its the worst paint job I have ever seen in a room, but dont worry as they fixed this by replacing all the lights in the bathroom with red heat lamps so you couldn't tell at first glance. - They tapped the water line under the sink to run to the fridge but did not run the line around the brand new cabinets... they also tapped the hot water line. - The water was off as the hookup taps to the washer where not attached as they where sitting in a home depot bag under the hookups. - 3 extra adapters where added to the stove gas line hookup and it was slightly leaking gas. The quality of the work is such a joke, chances are the contractor was not licensed as there was no lean on the property which is the normal thing to do when remodeling a house for sale. I see things that are going to be such a nightmare in the future like the spots for the stove,fridge and, dishwasher literally have millimeters of clearance between the granite counter top and the appliance meaning if I ever want to change anything I will run into a big issue of cutting the granite.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2014 17:47
|
|
|
ColHannibal posted:When I bought my place it was under renovation and they did not expect the sale to go so fast as there where a bunch of unfinished things the contractors just left the second the loan closed (probably at the request of the previous home owner despite stating that the place would be finished). Jesus. I hope you got tens of thousands of dollars knocked off the price for putting up with that kind of crap. 
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2014 18:10
|
|
|
ColHannibal posted:When I bought my place it was under renovation and they did not expect the sale to go so fast as there where a bunch of unfinished things the contractors just left the second the loan closed (probably at the request of the previous home owner despite stating that the place would be finished). You should fire your real estate agent. There is no excuse whatsoever for not having that in writing and/or having an escrow to ensure completion. ColHannibal posted:chances are the contractor was not licensed as there was no lean on the property which is the normal thing to do when remodeling a house for sale. Lien. And no that's not a normal thing to do when selling a house, as the title can't be transferred with a mechanic's lien on it. Seriously, your real estate agent is a moron and whoever they hired to do the home inspection is also a moron.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2014 18:17
|
|
|
ColHannibal posted:When I bought my place it was under renovation and they did not expect the sale to go so fast as there where a bunch of unfinished things the contractors just left the second the loan closed (probably at the request of the previous home owner despite stating that the place would be finished). ...and this is why you always schedule a walkthrough of the house immediately before closing.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2014 18:30
|
|
|
TooMuchAbstraction posted:Jesus. I hope you got tens of thousands of dollars knocked off the price for putting up with that kind of crap. I actually got to pay $2000 over my initial bid as the place was a steal at $/sq foot. Real estate agent was a ditz who did poo poo and she supplied an inspector she had "been working with for years". The big issue is they went in and broke things in the 2 weeks post inspection. I did not even get a final walk through, I had to drive to the place a week after I was the owner to get somebody to give me the keys.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2014 19:21
|
|
|
How Not to Buy a House 
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2014 19:22
|
|
|
Bad Munki posted:How Not to Buy a House Hey, I fixed most of it in about a month.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2014 19:36
|
|
|
ColHannibal posted:Real estate agent was a ditz who did poo poo and she supplied an inspector she had "been working with for years". One of the biggest scams in todays real estate market is collusion between a real estate agent and an inspector. That inspector was not working for you, he was working for the agent to get her the sale. I personally world have fired them both the minute she pushed for her own inspector. I wholeheartedly recommend hiring an inspector who advertises "don't loving trust realtors" as part of their advertising. That's not to say don't trust your realtor, but you're not getting an inspector who is in the agents pocket. We hired a guy who refused to talk to either party's agent, did a 4 hour inspection and provided us with a 20 page binder with photos of all the deficiencies as well as the steps need to correct them. We still bought the property, but I knew exactly what the issues were and what I needed to do to fix them.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2014 19:50
|
|
|
I thought I was paranoid and being a bother for insisting that the tenants in the house I bought get moved out ASAP with enough time for me to check up and make sure they didn't do something horrible that didn't show up on the inspection. I'm glad I did. I wonder if those renovators actually got paid for their work. The way I see it is that they were probably unlicensed and realized that whether or not they did a decent job had no bearing on whether or not they got paid. So they may have either taken the money and ran or just cut their losses and gave up when they realized the owner wasn't going to pay up. Has anyone ever done demolition on their home and ended up being impressed by or even satisfied with the quality of workmanship and materials? I'm sure if you could ask a Byzantine general contractor from 350 AD Constantinople, they'd complain how the incompetent original Greek builder bought the crappiest materials available at Oikos Depot and half-assed the install.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2014 20:42
|
|
|
canyoneer posted:Has anyone ever done demolition on their home and ended up being impressed by or even satisfied with the quality of workmanship and materials? Yes. And on other people's homes. Most homes are just fine. Because it's most of them, this isn't notable nor something to be brought up. If you think differently you're suffering from some groupthink brought on by what you're reading here or elsewhere.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2014 21:02
|
|
|
Motronic posted:Yes. And on other people's homes. Depending upon where you live, some homes may have been standing for 100+ years, so something was done right at some point. Every home has something that could have been done better, or has fallen apart over time. It comes with the territory. What we're talking about here are the extreme cases where someone who had no clue/didn't give a poo poo did something "good enough" and kicked the problem down the road. My house and garage are a rock solid structure and have withstood a beating over the last century. It's poor maintenance that has been it's undoing, and only a few places are in need of major repair (rotten sill plate, where a previous owner removed the siding and let it sit exposed).
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2014 21:11
|
|
|
I'm a poor-rear end poo poo who was raised in mobile homes converted into permanent housing, so I guess I'm personally a little more inclined to believe a house is intrinsically faulty in some way, but it does make sense that a house probably doesn't remain standing for 50+ years without something having been done correctly, and surely not all builders are scammers, probably.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2014 21:58
|
|
|
My current place has been standing long enough that there was a gas lamp fixture still attached to the main gas line in the basement when I moved in. So here is a code violation for you guys! On the subject of gas, I was doing my laundry one day and caught a whiff of natural gas. I had recently sealed up the drafts down there, so I figured I had caught a whiff of the water heater clicking on or something. Well, the laundry finishes up and I catch a whiff of gas again as I'm unloading the dryer. At this point, I go sniffing the gas lines for a leak. I use my mk1 nostrils and track the smell of leaking gas down to a fitting connecting to the water heater. The fitting is covered in MIGHTY PUTTY!  I call the gas company and report a leak. I'm told to go wait outside, don't touch anything, no bong rips before I leave, etc.The gas company guy shows up with his sniffer, I point him to the leak and sure enough, it's the problem. The dude takes out a pipe wrench and gets about 10 full turns out of the fitting before it tightens down completely. 
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2014 22:02
|
|
|
Motronic posted:Yes. And on other people's homes. Unfortunately, a thread that people could bump whenever they don't find something horribly horribly wrong with their house would, in theory, have a lot of posts, but it sure wouldn't be very interesting. Bad Munki posted:Had a major wind storm last night, lots of rain too. House didn't blow down, everything inside is still dry. That is all. v Bad Munki posted:The wiring in my house seems to be up to date and reasonably well installed. Huh. Bad Munki posted:Had some company over, we ate dinner on the deck and it didn't collapse.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2014 22:57
|
|
v
|
Bad Munki posted:Unfortunately, a thread that people could bump whenever they don't find something horribly horribly wrong with their house would, in theory, have a lot of posts, but it sure wouldn't be very interesting. House didn't murder me today. Hooray!
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2014 23:10
|
|
|
As a work in progress, my mother has just had some sizeable cracks appear in her ceiling and cornicing, that happen to be perfectly perpendicular to the exterior walls. Thinking that the contractors who installed her solar system had cocked something up, I took a quick look in the ceiling. Every single framing truss has started to fall apart with the gang nailers peeling back from the wood. Called her builder (the house is only 20 years old and has a structural warranty) who sent an inspector out "Oh, yeah, we've been seeing a lot of that lately. We will repair the trusses, but you are on your own for the plaster work". At least the slab isn't shifting I guess.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2014 23:20
|
|
|
Dragyn posted:House didn't murder me today. Hooray!
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2014 23:47
|
|
|
xlr82xs posted:Called her builder (the house is only 20 years old and has a structural warranty) who sent an inspector out "Oh, yeah, we've been seeing a lot of that lately. We will repair the trusses, but you are on your own for the plaster work". That is extremely abnormal that any group who still considers themselves responsible is a) around and b) interested. That's pretty sweet, really.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2014 23:55
|
|
|
Bad Munki posted:In my experience, people who aren't career landlords and are just renting a place or two that they have can make the best landlords ever. Undoubtedly, they can also make the worst landlords, but when you find the right one, it's awesome. I had four landlords between the college dorms and buying my own house. Three of them were "incidental" landlords, they were all loving awesome and those places were great. One was a semi-career landlord, and he was a huge dickwad and I would never rent a place from him again under any circumstances. As a soon to be incidental landlord, may I ask what makes a cool landlord? A lovely one? My wife and I just sold her co-op we had previously rented out and buying a larger home to move into. Our current home will be rented and is located about 1/4 mile from the new one. I am doing my best to repair and document everything I can before renters move in, and I know poo poo will break, but I would like to have a cordial relationship with my future tenants.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2014 00:03
|
|
|
Hmm. I guess I would say: 1) Be reasonable. If something breaks that you would expect to wear out in your own home without abuse, fix it and don't be a jerk about it. Did the flapper on the toilet give up the ghost? Fix it. Is the fireplace giving them trouble? Have someone look at it. And don't wait a month before addressing something. There's no reason you can't call someone within 48 hours of your tenant reporting a problem, or a little longer if they call after CoB on a Friday, but in that case, be sure to line something up first thing Monday. 2) Don't be stingy dealing with routine stuff that happens between tenants. Paint rooms that need painting, shampoo the carpet basically no matter what, make sure all the bulbs are working, make sure the plumbing is working properly (no slow drains) etc. Those things are something you should accept you'll need to do between tenants, so just do it. If you keep the place in good shape that way, showing care for your property, you'll be able to attract tenants that will exhibit the same care. 3) On that note: the safety deposit IS NOT A loving CLEANING DEPOSIT. If you require a $500 safety deposit, that is ONLY for damages above and beyond normal wear and tear. It seems to be a 100% correlation between lovely, dickhead landlords and trying to claim 100% of the deposit so they can have the place cleaned (and then they probably won't actually have it cleaned, but that's a different bullet point altogether.) Since you assumed you're going to shampoo between tenants (which costs basically nothing, especially if you do it yourself), you only need to deduct from the deposit for the holes in the walls or the intractable stains on the carpet. THAT is what the deposit is for. 4) Be available in a timely manner, but don't hand around the place. In every case of "awesome landlord" for me, the landlord or a representative lived just minutes away. That can be bad, if that person decides to hang around the place all day. The tenants are there for the home, not you, so don't try to be a part of it. However, it's VERY nice if you're available when needed. Anecdotes: I had a landlord that built a threeplex, it was a perfectly reasonable place. He lived down the road and across the street for a while, and we almost never saw him except when we called. It was great. At one point, he moved into one of the spots, but that was fine too, as he mostly kept to himself and wasn't always knocking on our door. So it can be done perfectly well both ways, just don't hover. Another landlord, also a good one, he lived like 40 minutes away but his parents lived just down the street (he used to live in the place, but got a job out of town so opted to rent it out.) Since they weren't directly interested, the most we ever saw of them was if we all happened to be walking the dogs at the same time. However, when something as minor as the toilet continually running happened, we just rang up the landlord and his dad was over within an hour, took a look, ran to the store for some parts, and everything was fixed that afternoon, no questions asked, no complaints, not even a grumble, it was really great. And when the gas fireplace wouldn't light one fall, dad came over to look at it that day, we poked at it together for a while, and when we couldn't get it going, he called up a professional who came out within a couple days, replaced a rheostat or something, and we got it going. That place was nice because when a pro had to come in to fix something, the dad (acting as a rep for the landlord) would come over as well to be there while the guy was working, so someone was there with actual authority over the home while work was being done. Umm, what else... I guess 5) Don't try to fix everything yourself. Some things you can, that's fine. Little stuff you would normally deal with as a homeowner. But don't be the landlord that busts out the duct tape and bailing wire when he should be calling a professional. I think the tl;dr: version of all that would basically be: the deposit is for exceptional, abnormal damage; treat the place like you still live there; be available for every day things and make sure your tenants are comfortable asking you about that stuff; and don't hang around like you still live there or want to be your tenants best buds. Unless it works out that you become the tenant's best buds, but that's highly unlikely, and if you think it's happening, you're probably wrong. 
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2014 00:29
|
|
|
Bad Munki posted:Hmm. I guess I would say: This is really useful. Thanks for taking the time to write it all out. Like I said, I am pretty handy, but I do know when to call for help. I will keep this stuff in mind.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2014 00:41
|
|
|
So I thought that my 60 year old house was built well and it was just the yahoos who owned it in the meantime were the ones that screwed up all the things wrong with it since then. Well, last summer I was repairing all of the cracks in the concrete on the outside. After 60 years, the concrete foundation of my house had cracked at all 4 outside corners where it met the brick, and injected some polyurethane into every crack to keep them from going anywhere. Anyway, my back door is partially cut out of the foundation and I noticed cracks on either side of it too. So I started cleaning out the crack, getting it ready to shoot in some more polyurethane, when a whole chunk popped off the surface, followed by another one. When I removed them all, I found this: The problem is, I have no idea how I should go about fixing that. I did clean out the crack as best I could and caulked it. Honestly, the caulk for all the cracks wasn't absolutely necessary right now, I just wanted to keep a little problem from becoming a big one in the future.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2014 01:20
|
|
|
canyoneer posted:I thought I was paranoid and being a bother for insisting that the tenants in the house I bought get moved out ASAP with enough time for me to check up and make sure they didn't do something horrible that didn't show up on the inspection. I'm glad I did. By 350 AD Roman generals were commissioning walls of rubble masonry that were then plastered and painted with red squares to simulate earlier Greco-Roman rusticated ashlar masonry. Full on cyclopean or lesbian masonry of earlier Greek walls was way out of their budget and resources.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2014 01:32
|
|
|
Found in one of the basements at my job. I have an entire folder of stuff like this.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2014 01:59
|
|
|
Terrible Robot posted:I have an entire folder of stuff like this. Don't be shy now. 
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2014 02:02
|
|
|
Terrible Robot posted:Found in one of the basements at my job. I have an entire folder of stuff like this. That's two supports, right? Not an Ibeam ripped between the flange and web.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2014 02:32
|
|
|
Bad Munki posted:Don't be shy now. Well, ok, have some more. This is one of the walls of the stock-room.   kelvron posted:
It's a single 2x4 and then two 2x4s nailed together for additional support.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2014 02:43
|
|
|
Mercury Ballistic posted:This is really useful. Thanks for taking the time to write it all out. Like I said, I am pretty handy, but I do know when to call for help. I will keep this stuff in mind. To add to what the other guy said (all awesome stuff, btw) - take very detailed pictures of the before-tenant condition of the place. Everywhere. Not saying you're going to need it, but if you do, there's no substitute for that kind of info. If they wreck the place, you want to be able to prove it was them. Also - if someone feels "fishy", IMO don't be afraid to not rent to them... trust your gut. You don't want a bunch of banjo-playing sister fuckers using the bathtub as a roasting pit.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2014 03:14
|
|
|
kastein posted:To add to what the other guy said (all awesome stuff, btw) - take very detailed pictures of the before-tenant condition of the place. Everywhere. This absolutely applies as well to tenants: go nuts taking pictures of a place you're about to rent. Pictures are cheap now that everything's digital. You can take a thousand of them, drop them on a usb drive, and forget about them until you move out. It is one of the best insurance policies you can have against a sneezy landlord trying to dick you over for your security deposit. I've done this to every place I've lived in, and to be honest, it also helped me filter the landlord, at least the ones I didn't know beforehand. In the one case, the guy who was a shitlord, he was all, "Wow, you're uh, heh...really thorough! Oh yeah don't worry about that hole in the wall!" In another case, the awesome guy, I think it helped lock me in as his #1 pick because it showed I cared about the place. Bad Munki fucked around with this message at 03:24 on May 20, 2014 |
|
#
?
May 20, 2014 03:22
|
|
|
kid sinister posted:When I removed them all, I found this: You found a structural brick. What's the problem? Just parge that section again. And, yes, filling the cracks is necessary unless you want all of it to end up like this, although I'm not sure why you're using caulk. Chisel the cracks out - remove material until it's a V. If more falls off it was going to fall off anyway. Then use mortar. Your repair method is the most "not up to code" thing you posted.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2014 15:08
|
|
|
You have just described every dick bag move my previous landlord's have pulled and I would give me first born child to have a chance to be your tennant. Never ever rent from a lawyer, they know how to fuckin you 6 different ways before you even move in. Do you enjoy paying $3,000 to repaint and replace two light bulbs? Want to have your locks changed for no reason while you're out of town? I would rather live on the street than be a lawyer's tennant. I have had one good landlord. The place was a remodeled hotel where they actually did a very nice job, the rent was a little more expensive than most other places but they actually fixed poo poo the next day. The best part was, like Kastein in mentioned, they went around with a dry erase board and took pictures of everything. Write the date and other info on the board, set it in frame and take a picture. That landlord said I did a great job cleaning and to this day it's the only place I have got a deposit back instead of a bullshit bill.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2014 17:34
|
|
|
Motronic posted:You found a structural brick. What's the problem? Just parge that section again. Oh good. I just thought my "structural brick" looked very... improvised. I used caulk because these weren't severe cracks at all aside from this one. In fact, this one is the worst by far. They were hairline cracks on the inside with some chunks popping off the surface. I ended up doing damage more severe with the chisel when I tried it on the other cracks. So just pull the caulk out and mortar it all over?
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2014 18:05
|
|
|
kid sinister posted:I ended up doing damage more severe with the chisel when I tried it on the other cracks. That was my point. It's like rust: what you can see is only the tip of the iceberg. The "damage" was already done, you were just pulling off weak spots that were already bad. You didn't do that damage: water did by getting into the cracks. kid sinister posted:So just pull the caulk out and mortar it all over? That depends on how far gone it is and what you desire as an end result. If you want to fix it for real get in there and pick all of those cracks apart into "V"s. Let whatever fall off that's gonna fall off in the process. When you step back and see a bunch of nicely prepped crackes with a couple sections like your photo, sure.....patch it up with mortar, let it cure, then paint it. If most sections are just falling apart then dig anything else off that you can (or actually chisel and hammer it off) and reparge the entire thing, let it cure, then paint. If this is only supposed to last for 5-10 years then just do what you've been doing.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2014 18:17
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 14, 2024 22:07 |
|
|
If all the bricks are just stood up like that, sideways, and they aren't interlocked, it's going to have weaknesses. That's what I thought the crappy construction tale here was. If that's just a filler because of the interlocking meeting the doorframe, no problem.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2014 18:36
|
|