These quick, simple tasks can help prevent coming home to a disaster. NEW To My Blog? I'm a Realtor, as you probably know, and so of course I think real estate is a great investment.  Until you end up the landlord to whiny renters.  Over the years the Hubs and I have acquired some rental properties plus the Hubs manages some local rental properties for friends and family who live out of state. Most of our renters are nice, quiet people who pay their rent on time and take care of the property.  Most of them have lived in our properties for years.  We love those renters.  It's the occasional annoying, bitching ones that drive me bananas and that is who I am writing about today.  (Before you start arguing with me and each other read this:  If you are a good renter then don't take offense, this post is not about you.  Actually, even if you're a bad renter, don't take offense, because this post is really only about two people specifically and not even a TYPE of renter.)

The Hubs is the one who deals with the renters when they have problems and it's probably a good thing, because I would most likely have a bunch of empty rentals. Here's the deal, it's 7:30 PM right now and the temperature is 105 degrees.  It has been over 100 degrees for something like 15 days now.  We haven't had rain in about a month.  We are drying up and melting all at the same time.  Everyone's air conditioner everywhere is begging for death and my Facebook and Twitter feeds are filled with people lamenting that their air conditioner has passed over to the other side. This week a renter called us up and told us that the air conditioner was not working properly and they were experiencing "dangerous" temperatures in the house.  We got our usual a/c guy over the take a look and he called to let us know that the unit was shot and we'd need to get a new one.  It would take a day.  We asked what the house temperature was since we'd been told it was "dangerous."  He told us it was 80 degrees and holding.  

Not so bad when the outside temp is 104.  (We keep our everyday temperature at 78 in our house.  I guess I'm only 2 degrees from dangerous territory.) The Hubs told the renter we'd have a new unit installed the next day.  The unit was installed two days ago and every day since the renter has called to complain that the house is "hot."  The first day he called we thought there was something wrong with the new unit so we sent the a/c guy back over to check.  He was met at the door by a cold blast of air coming from inside the house.  He told us the renter was trying to cool the house down to 72 degrees. I wanted to say:  Are you fucking kidding me?  There is no way when it is that blazing hot outside that you can cool your house down to 72 degrees!  No wonder my first unit died, you fucking moron, you murdered it!! Tonight when the guy called he indicated that he would like us pay for a bigger unit for the house so that they can live like sides of beef in a meat locker.  

The Hubs was so kind and gracious.  He actually listened to him and sympathized with him and tried to find a solution for this guy. When he got off the phone, I said, "Wow.  You are such a nice landlord.  I would have told him to suck a dick.  A typical air conditioner can only cool a house down by 20 degrees or so.  He should be thrilled his house is 80 degrees!"average cost to replace central ac unit Today another renter called to tell us her place was too hot too.  diy ac repair partsShe is getting a new unit tomorrow.  central air conditioning units cost to replace unitShe's another one who is trying to keep her house at 72 degrees.  What is the deal with these people?  I would need a sweater in 72 degrees!!

Her unit is a bit different and it needed to be special ordered so it took longer than a day.  She blew her cork.  She also showed her true colors when the repairman showed up and he was not as light-skinned as she would have preferred.  That's when I took a closer look at my contract with her and saw that nowhere does it say that the property is "air conditioned."  Maybe she'd prefer for me to send my repairman home and just lower the rent and call it "un-air conditioned?" Yes, I get that I'm a landlord and I'm supposed to fix things when they go wrong and of course we work hard to get things fixed as quickly as possible, but when we're in the middle of a heat wave it's very difficult to get good people to come and fix the a/c.  There is a queue and sometimes we have relationships with repairmen that allow us to jump the line, but many times we have to wait our turn.  No amount of screaming and cussing me out is going to help.  In fact, it just makes me want to move slower.

I also wonder what these people would be doing if they actually owned these houses.  When you own a house and your air conditioner can't keep up with the blistering weather outside there is no one to call and whine to.  There is no one to listen to your complaints and offer to try and help you.  You're on your own. The worst renter who has bitched incessantly about everything from the day she moved in is actually moving out.  She's bought a home and she's ready to take on home ownership.  I cannot wait until this winter when her furnace goes out on the coldest night of the year.  I cannot wait until her washing machine accidentally over flows and floods her house.  I just wish I could be there to see the chaos and watch her meltdown when the repairman tells her it will be a week before he can get to her.  (I'll also be curious to see how she explains to the dispatcher she'd only like certain skin tones to work on her broken appliances.)  I wonder what she'll do then.