Today's Tribunal Visit

duncan_m said:
Make that SEVEN days! :)

I turned up at the house this morning to meet the Carpet Cleaner.. he's a lovely man.. late 50's, neat, polite, thorough, the friendliest guy you could ever meet.. He's cleaned carpets for me on about 8 other occasions.

He takes one look around the back yard and says "Are you re-renting this?"... to cut a long story short, Mr ChemDry and his Wife, 2 ducks and a dog are looking for a new rental! So the property is now leased, at $15pw more than the previous tenants. And I have that trusty gut feeling that Mr and Mrs ChemDry are going to be some of the best Tenants I have ever let to.

They are moving in on the weekend! :)

The house is also now SPOTLESS.. I just can't believe how good a job the Cleaner has done.. its amazing!

Tomorrow all I have to do is empty the shed, replace 2 external doors, replace 1 exhaust fan and its DONE :)

I cant believe how neatly this has all fallen into place today!

Well done Duncan. And thanks for telling us about the experience as well. This gives me a bit more confidence about self-managing.

It's great to know that there is a nice end to the story. I believe that when you do the right things, you sometimes get rewards from unexpected places. :)

Cheers,
 
House_Keeper said:
Well done Duncan. And thanks for telling us about the experience as well. This gives me a bit more confidence about self-managing.

It's great to know that there is a nice end to the story. I believe that when you do the right things, you sometimes get rewards from unexpected places. :)

Cheers,

Hi,

I appreciate everyones well-wishes! :)

The New Tenants moved into today.. as pleased as punch they were!

The Old Tenants have spent the day getting more of their stuff out of the shed.. very sullen, surly look on their faces, lots of mean comments between the two ex-tenants.. all is not well on the homefront obviously :)

I was there replacing the back door.. the weather had got to the cardboard door that was put on either when the house was new or since.. its the weather side of the house, no awning to stop the rain getting to it.. I replaced it with a solid one.. which weighed a TONNE. Hanging a ONE TONNE door alone is pretty challenging I tell ya :) I was expecting to get squashed at any moment. But I didnt.. Its hung now.. But I'm curious to know.. Why do door hinges come in packs of TWO when every door I've ever hung needs THREE.. Call my cynical. I bought the cheap ones anyhow ;) The door was a $140 door.. but for some reason it scanned at the Bunnings Register at a much lower price.. I managed to contain the look of suprise on my face before the Checkout Operator noticed :)

Late in the day the female-ex-tenant disappeared for a while and the male-ex-tenant sidled up to me and said "Hey, if you find any Cash Convertors slips, they're mine OK.. even if they have her name on them.. dont say anything though OK? she pawned some of my dead brothers stuff.. I really need it back.. OK? but dont say anything OK".... ME: "OK, no worries" and back to work I went. Sad!

I got to meet Mrs ChemDry, LOVELY lady.. much younger than Mr ChemDry, but so politely spoken.. I also met Dog ChemDry, a fat, older Kelpie/Collie cross with a very calm temperament.. just wanted to find his new spot and rest his aching bones when he got there I think.

Mr and Mrs ChemDry have quickly moved in.. They enlisted the help of lots of family including a very elderly Mum and Dad.. Dad was great, must've been pushing 85 but happily negotiated the refrigerator off the trailer with a Sack Truck. Hope I'm that sprightly at 85. Geez, I hope I'm still alive at 85 actually! :) Go Paleo Diet and exercise!

Here's a few images from along the way.. I hope you've got a fast connection.. if you haven't.. erm sorry, consider getting one! :)

Potatoes on the Lounge Room Floor.. I'm glad I got there when I did, another coupla weeks and the stench would have been terrible.. I cant work out why they had potatoes on the lounge room floor..

DirtyLoungeRoomFloor.jpg


Junk everywhere.. The Table in the Lounge Room was the only solid peice of furniture in the place.. I think it was their computer table. Obviously they didn't have Excel to manage their budget.

DirtyLoungeRoomTable.jpg


More junk on the lounge room floor.. Note the Christmas Tree on the right.. not sure why they had it up so early in the year :)

DirtyLoungeRoomFloor2.jpg


The Stovetop.. Suprise, suprise, note the deep fryer full of congealed fat. Everything in the kitchen had that greasy film over it. I think the Deep Fryer got a LOT of use.. I suspect the fat lasted quite a while though. The Oven hadn't had much use thankfully..

DirtyStove.jpg


Ahh I love this photo.. The carefully arranged toilet paper to sit on. The artful pile of used rolls and bags. It was the last thing I cleaned up when I emptied the house.. everyone who visited got taken down to be shown the toilet. It was a hit! :) Everyone thought it was a hoot.

DirtyToilet.jpg


I cant work out why they smoked so much in the bathroom.

DirtyVanity.jpg


This is how I found the vanity.. I didnt open the cupboards.. they were already open.. stuff flowing out.

DirtyVanity2.jpg


In the Laundry they actually swept the muck into the middle of the floor.. thanks! No washing machine to be seen though, the ex-Tenants-Dad told me it got pawned months ago.

DirtyLaundryFloor.jpg


This filthy cat "cage" or Cat Kennel, what ever you call it.. It was obviously used by the cat because I didnt find any suprises anywhere else in the house.. disgustingly it obviously hadnt been emptied in months. I'm not a great fan of cats at the best of times, but at least they crap in the same place with a degree of reliability, unlike dogs :)

DirtyCatCage.jpg


Junk everywhere, all through the house, every floor, every surface.. just like this room.. the beds in every bedroom were covered in junk.. I cant work out where they slept. I think they might have slept on the couches in the lounge-room..

JunkInBedroom.jpg


Here's the kitchen benches. No room to prepare food on.. note the white chopping board.. it had some kind of sticky rubber mat underneath it to secure it to the kitchen bench.. I guess if you're chopping veges with a machete or something it might come in handy, I suspect potatos was the only action it saw though. I had to get a screwdriver to lever it up.. I thought they'd glued it for a little while.. the bench cleaned up OK though.

DirtyKitchenBench.jpg


More messy bench. Most of those coffee cups had promising new anti-biotics growing in them.

DirtyKitchenBench2.jpg


I honestly thought the lino in the kitchen was a write-off.

DirtyKitchenFloor.jpg


DirtyKitchenFloor2.jpg


And after my Cleaning Dream Team had been thru:

A lovely toilet

CleanToilet.jpg


A clean, usable vanity.

CleanVanity.jpg


A pleasant family room

CleanFamilyRoom.jpg


And from today..

The tailgate of my trailer made a great fence to run my circular saw down to cut my ONE TONNE door to size.

TrailerFence.jpg


Mr ChemDry's Carpet Cleaning Van! If you're in the Southern Area of Adelaide and need Carpet Cleaning.. be sure to call ChemDry (number on the van).. Ask for Lee!

MrChemyDry.jpg


Ahhh.. and at 3pm today, new tenants in.. new door up, new lease signed, bond/rent in advance in CASH in my back pocket. I did a run to the bottleshop to get my usual bottle of bubbly for incoming new Tenants..

And for me.. the end of about 2 weeks stress and hardwork.. Parked out of the front of the house.. a hard earned thirst needs a big cold beer.. and the best cold beer is..

Finished.jpg
 
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Well done, Duncan, 'cos Duncan's me mate!

Anyways, mate, at least 'your' cat had it's ... er .. heart! in the right place.

Daughter's lovely townhouse has cat cr-p along the floor / wall in the main bedroom. Looks good on the carpet. Footprints ON THE CEILING (hiking boots, by the look of the print), evidence of a cat, a bird and guinea pigs, the smell is pretty good, nothing had been cleaned since when? So much for Donna Reid! and the courtyard is full of junk including a 20kg bag of popcorn - to eat, no doubt, while watching Foxtel which they connected to one bedroom and the lounge.

The neighbours told me that the feral twenty-something son sans girlfriend had moved in about Christmas, and remember we had a Warrant back in November, at least when Donna was there by herself she at least played at 'happy families' and did the housework. The kitchen floor resembles your 'before' photos.

The moral of the story? Zero tolerance. Pay up or else. We will now engage the Sherriff to pursue the unpaid rent, with the bond going toward the cleaning and rubbish disposal. But the walls will need repainting (don't ask!!), so guess what I'm doing over Easter?

Good on you Duncan, the house looks great and I hope Mr & Mrs ChemDry are the tenants of your dreams.

Lotsa love

Kristine
 
Kristine.. said:
The moral of the story? Zero tolerance. Pay up or else.

Hi Kris,

Very sage words indeed.. I was driving home this afternoon thinking.. What did I do wrong over the course of this Tenancy? I came to the conclusion I'd tried to be TOO helpful.. I went back over my notes, 3 seperate payment plans agreed to.. all eventually failed.

I'd had a number of Tribunal "triggers" that I'd postponed because they appeared to be sticking to a payment plan.. plans that eventually failed..

Next time, they get 2-3 warning phone calls then I'm off to the Tribunal, no more mucking around. I'd had SO much trouble with that Tenant.. in the few weeks leading up to the Tribunal I was burning up a lot of emotional energy chasing the rent. What a waste of time that was.

Thankfully, I'm on a very even keel Tenant wise now, no problems on the horizon and all properties now have long term Tenants in place.

Dunno why but I have that "Hot water service is going to blow up next week" feeling, its been altogether too quiet on the Hot Water front lately :)

I've got a big finance restructure to do over the next few weeks, but with that sorry saga behind me I feel quite reinvigorated and energetic now! :)

Hopefully your Daughter gets her place back on the market quick smart! Is she doing the clean up herself or is Mum getting roped in too? :)

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
 
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Duncan -

Is daughter helping?

Well, when the children were born (not all together, mind!) I decided that the main duty of a parent was to raise adults, not children, and I frequently told them that I expected them to be intelligent, articulate, independent adults, capable of hitchhiking around Europe when they turned 18.

Aaaaah!

Be careful what you wish for etc

So darling, skinny, beautiful daughter is off tomorrow ... to spend a month ... hitchhiking around ... Cambodia!!!!!


Aaaaa-aaaaa-aaaaah!

Oh, and by the way, that means that I get to Do The House all by myself! Hence the paid help in the way of the cleaners, window washereres, rubbish disposers and carpet steam cleaners.

Want to send Mr ChemDry over this way?

Cheers

Kristine
 
duncan_m said:
It seems the images arent showing up in this post properly.. Dunno why.. they work for me..

Here's the same posting on my blog:

http://www.duncanmargetts.com/blog/index.php?p=470

With working images..
Hi Duncan,

Awesome story, love your style & class :)

I use Firefox and was curious why I couldnt see the images in the post above, but I can see them on your blog.

So I did a bit of "view source" and lo and behold, some slashes are the wrong way around in the post above (but they are correct on your blog).

To fix it, edit your post above, and change the backslashes to forward slashes for the jpg urls in the IMG tags. e.g.

Code:
change

http://www.duncanmargetts.com\scrote\CleanFamilyRoom.jpg

to

http://www.duncanmargetts.com/scrote/CleanFamilyRoom.jpg

Looks like FireFox is not as forgiving as some of the other browsers, with regards to standards compliance.
 
mmerlin said:
So I did a bit of "view source" and lo and behold, some slashes are the wrong way around in the post above (but they are correct on your blog).

Thanks heaps for taking the time to dig into that! Fixed!
 
Beauty Mate,

I'll just sit back down on my couch and hope the clipsal 500 is on tv today :)

I might even have a couple beers myself,

And the best cold beer is;

1986s_Greatest_Beer-med.jpg
 
Thanks again Dunc.

I find it mindblowing to see how people can live in that sort of self created mess. Un-bloody-believable. As already pointed out, quite often animals know how to behave in a more civilised manner than human beings. Quite sad when you think about it.

All the best
Marty
 
Beware the Fish

Mr and Mrs ChemDry rang me to tell me about a strong smell they'd noticed a few days after moving in.. a bag of fish bait left in the ceiling space, right near the manhole cover.. a goodbye present from my feral-arse Tenants..

Mental Note to self: After future evictions.. check ceiling space for presents from feral Tenants.
 
duncan_m said:
Mr and Mrs ChemDry rang me to tell me about a strong smell they'd noticed a few days after moving in.. a bag of fish bait left in the ceiling space, right near the manhole cover.. a goodbye present from my feral-arse Tenants..

Mental Note to self: After future evictions.. check ceiling space for presents from feral Tenants.

Their whole tennancy seems to have been a bit fishy from the start.
 
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