Rental houses

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 In Grand Rapids, owners of rental houses must keep them in safe, livable condition.  I think that is a reasonable thing. This gets done every 4 or 6 years. It usually is an expensive pain even when the landlord maintains the property well, because the fees are very high!

We have gone through 2 of these this year. (out of 5)

 The first inspection was for a 4-plex. We had minor issues in 3 of the apartments: issues that were quickly dealt with. These apartments have great longtime tenants who keep things clean and report small issues in a timely fashion so that I only need to fix small repairs. We received a 6 year certification.  Hooray!

The second is a single family house. The current tenant has been in there for 10 years. She has 3 older children and 2 grandchildren living with her.... and two pit-bulls! 4 years ago we had many repairs...many including replacing or repairing 4 doors.  Some other repairs were her fault but some were due to the age of the house. There were also many, many housekeeping issues. After we took care of everything, we got a 4 year certification.  

Now 4 years later we had a new inspection. The housekeeping issues are still there but apparently that is not a code violation. I wish it was. I attempted to include her in the preparation for the inspection hoping that would make everything go more smoothly and I think it worked. Her 24 yr old son did most of the repairs needed. He has learned to use a drill as a screwdriver and to google the instructions that he needs. They also had three doors replaced but she got the repairman and covered the cost.

 I decided to pull the carpet on the stairs because it was torn and dirty. Instead of replacing it, I cleaned them and painted them.  The last coat had nonslip grit in it to keep them safer. The most difficult part was pulling all the hundreds of staples! Crazy!  

The inspector was kind and the repair list was short. We have 2 weeks to report back to him with pictures or videos when we’ll find out if it will be a 4 year or 6 year certification. 



Later, I decided to pull the bushes that were in front of the house. Day one, I filled my car with branches that I clipped off.  The second day, I cut as many branches as I could with a sawzall and filled the car again.  I now need a chain saw for the stumps and larger branches but it has to come with a strong son to do the deed, lol!




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