Author: mrsonedollarallowance

House 2 Turnover & Flooding

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This is long; I understand. It’s a detail account of our experience dealing with a catastrophic event and navigating the insurance process and tenants.

Over the winter, I received a call from one of my tenants letting me know that water was pouring out of the house next door (that’s also ours). The tenants had turned off the heat… when it was 6 degrees for 3 days straight. The water heater is in the attic and a pipe cracked during the freeze. When it started to thaw, the constant water running filled up the house. Our property manager went to the house and found two inches of water throughout the entire house, along with a collapsed ceiling in the master bathroom. Over the next two days, the ceiling in the adjacent laundry room and the master bedroom also collapsed. 

We took immediate action on the water remediation process. The clean up company had to put several fans throughout the house and crawl space after sucking out the standing water. The next step was to purge the damaged drywall, insulation, cabinetry, flooring, etc. However, the tenant was in our way.

TENANT ACTION

The tenant’s renters insurance was responsible for removing their belongings. They created quite the speed bump, and the tenant’s items weren’t removed for 5 weeks. FIVE! The insurance company [supposedly] was requiring the use of a specific moving and storage company, who had no availability. Eventually, the tenant had the insurance company agree to them removing their own belongings to begin moving forward. They finally got their belongings out a week or so after that process started.

When we started going through the process of remediation, the tenant asked to speak with us over their concerns regarding mold. We refused because we have a property manager, and the relationship is between her and the tenant. We asked them to write us an email expressing their concerns, and we’d respond to that. They didn’t write the email. We told the property manager to relay the message that we want the house restored back to the condition (or better) that we kept the house in, and we have no expertise in this area, which is why we hired a remediation company to handle it, and I’m to trust that they do their jobs correctly to dry out the house. After that message, they didn’t push any further on the subject.

There was a nuance in the lease that if there was a catastrophic event, the tenant could choose to be let go from the lease agreement with 14 days; after that timeframe, they’re still considered responsible for the lease. The tenant read this and wrote us an email to enact it about 6 weeks after the event. Technically, we could have held them to their responsibility. However, there wouldn’t have been anything good to come from that. The tenant went from being understanding to quickly being nasty and unreasonable; it was best to cut ties.

We had told them not to turn off any electric (they were worried that water and electric don’t mix, so they shouldn’t keep the electric on; we shared that we need the house kept a reasonable temperature, so that’s not the right answer). However, they did turn off the electric shortly after that conversation. They ended up not getting their security deposit back to cover the utilities incurred and lost rent for their lack of payment through their notice. We also charged them for leaving the refrigerator in poor condition and us needing to get extra cleaning for that (which didn’t work and we ended up needing to replace it, but that wasn’t within enough time for us to know before the security deposit notification was due).

REMEDIATION CONTRACTOR

We hired a company to come out and dry out the space right away. I don’t know the details of this process because I trusted the company to know what needed to happen. They sucked up the water and put big fans throughout the house and crawl space to dry everything out. Their process was at least a week long.

They submitted their bill and dry logs to the insurance company for about $22k. The insurance company rejected their process and everything they did, and they agreed to pay out about $16k. The contractor balked at it, but we said we didn’t know how to help, and he had to speak to the insurance agent himself. They went back and forth for weeks. The contractor submitted a new invoice for $25k (why more than what it was originally?!). The insurance company eventually agreed to their $22k figure.

I tried to pay him in July for work done in January (that’s how long it took!). My bill pay system flagged the check because of the amount, but never told me. They claim it was quickly released and delivered as expected and on time, but the company never received it. I had my bank place a stop payment on it. Then I went to the bank to get a cashier’s check and mailed that to the company. That was 3 weeks ago, so I’m assuming he got the check since I haven’t heard from him.

REBUILD CONTRACTOR

We received three quotes for cleaning out the damage and rebuilding those parts of the house. None of the quotes were close to what the insurance adjuster gave us as an estimate. One of the three companies that gave us a quote asked to speak to our insurance company. They went through all the line items, and the insurance adjuster agreed to the contractor’s price for the work, which was about a $6k difference. 

The initial contract with this company required 50% of the estimate up front. However, we didn’t feel comfortable handing over $25k. I spoke to the contractor, and he agreed to three payments. Their first payment was allowed via credit card, so we were able to capture $340 worth of credit card rewards on that $17,000 purchase. The second $17,000 was due upon flooring completion, and it had to be paid via check. The final amount was due upon substantial completion.

I spoke to the contractor about the vinyl floor in the bathrooms, and he actually said they’d be willing to lay the luxury vinyl plank for the rest of the house through the bathrooms also. While I’m sure it cost them less to handle such a change, it was nice that he didn’t charge us for a contract adjustment.

Once the contract was executed, we had to pick out all the replacement things. This sounded overwhelming, but it was pretty straight forward! I only had to tell him the paint color I wanted, and then pick out the cabinets and flooring. I went with a white cabinet for the lowers in the kitchen and the bathrooms. The upper cabinets in the kitchen are a brown, but I wanted to “upgrade” where I could instead of trying to match the existing. I figure eventually the upgrades will come if we ever want to sell, so I may as well do it nicely now and only have to change a few things down the road.

There were a few more selections during the process – little things like knobs and light fixtures. Again, I chose nice light fixtures, even if they didn’t match the brass that was already in the house.

There were some hiccups along the way. They painted the house the wrong color. I specifically discussed changing the color from the what was there since the whole house was being painted. The original house was built with brown carpet and yellow walls. We kept it the same color all along because we didn’t want to go through the effort of changing it (cutting in, two coats, etc.). This was our chance to change it to the color we’re using on our houses to make it more consistent. With a grayish floor, it worked better to have a light green than a yellow anyway. They also threw away our bathroom vanity counter tops, so they had to replace those at no charge to us because they were supposed to be salvaged.

All in all, everything went well with the contractors.

OTHER REPAIR WORK

Our previous tenant had burned the kitchen countertop. We decided to just keep the burnt counter and re-rent it for the time being (we didn’t have a good amount of time to add another contractor into the mess we were cleaning up at that time). Well, with the bottom cabinets needing to be replaced, here was an opportunity to replace the counter. I asked the rebuild contractor what he could charge. He was going to charge over $2k to replace the two bathroom counters and the kitchen counter.

He made the mistake of giving me the link to the countertop he would use for the bathrooms. It was $119. He charged $221.50. He also had a labor charge, plus a 10% charge for overhead, plus a 10% charge for profit. Once I saw all those details, I was put off. We said we’d just keep the bathroom counters and sinks – they were cultured marble, so they were fine, just more yellow than white. Then his guys ended up throwing away our counters by accident, and we ended up getting new bathroom countertops and sinks anyway for no charge to us.

We asked our handyman if he could do kitchen counters. He was able to get the new countertop installed and the sink set for under $500.

INSURANCE COMPANY

Our insurance company was actually really difficult to work with. They were willing to hand out money, but they weren’t there to communicate. Several voicemails and emails were left unanswered. Sometimes we’d get a random email that would say “I put a check in the mail,” but mostly, we just kept making phone calls that went nowhere.

Depreciation

As someone who worked in finance, the term depreciation makes no sense to me. The insurance company kept about $6k of our total amount they agreed to pay on the estimate. Once all the work was completed, we provided receipts of the work, and they paid out the rest of the estimate.

Because we had the rebuild contractor not do some of the activities from the original estimate (the washer and dryer were thrown away, so they weren’t hooked back up), or we had our handyman handle some of the items because they weren’t getting done (hooking up the dishwasher), the final estimate was lower than the original amount. Then I included the invoice from our handyman for the work that he accomplished. The total between these two invoices ended up being more than the original estimate from the rebuild contractor, which I expected was our loss, but the insurance company actually paid out on it.

Lost Rent

The insurance policy covered the lost rent for our vacancy. They took our lease agreement, determined the per diem amount, and then agreed to cover until the work was completed. There was a disagreement on when the work would be completed (they took a date off some paperwork that we had never seen, while we were told by the rebuild contractor that he’d be done by April 20th). Once we got that sorted, they sent us a check to cover all of March and most of April. We were able to get the house rented at the end of April, so it was only truly considered vacant for 3 days of the year, which I find impressive.

Utilities

The tenant turned off the electricity about a week after the incident (although we told him not to). Luckily, I have a program set up where the utilities aren’t actually ever turned off, but they’re reverted back to my name. We submitted receipts to the insurance company, who agreed to pay the excess amount of charges due to the house being open to the elements (missing ceiling and insulation). Their calculation was based on an average of bill total. Mr. ODA is a math wizard and didn’t accept that. He performed a calculation that equated to an average daily use of electricity, along with separating out the bills by days (because one of the bills was half a month of normal activity and half with the house open). The insurance agent said he wasn’t going to fight us over $50, so he just sent it to us. It was an interesting statement, considering all the calculations Mr. ODA did was in the original submission, and he decided to do his own math instead of accepting what Mr. ODA had said in the original email (granted, looking back, he may have never even read the email because that was the norm).

The water was turned off at the street when the initial report of an issue came in. Once everything was dried out and we had the pipe repaired (a $350 activity caused tens of thousands of dollars worth of damage .. gosh), we needed the water turned back on. That was a horrific process with the City of Richmond that ended with me screaming at a lady on the phone in some random street in my neighborhood during a walk. In order to speak to the City, you have to wait on hold for at least an hour; you can’t schedule water to be turned on via an online account. So after waiting 90 minutes for the first time to get it scheduled and being told no one needed to be home, they showed up, no one was home, and they left. There was no notice. No phone call. No voicemail. No email. No note on the door that they were there and tried to get in touch with us. Nothing. I was livid. So I called again. I waited over an hour. Then the woman who answered was very much not helpful. The conversation went quite poorly. I yelled, she wouldn’t give me a supervisor. Horrific. I finally got a new time scheduled for days out (and their window was 8 am to 5 pm – a lot of anger for that). They unlocked whatever it was that needed to be unlocked and our contractor handled it from there because it was done so poorly in the scheduling sense.

NEW TENANT

We actually struggled to find a new tenant. We were able to list it while the final clean up was happening. We had a lot of interest, but not a lot of people qualified. A neighbor had watched the rebuild happen, and she wanted the house. She didn’t qualify. And instead of accepting that information (and we’re pretty lenient), she started threatening us for not selecting her. Our initial choice fell through – and that’s why you should always be nice. She may have been a runner up, but she squandered all opportunities because of the way she handled herself and treated us. The new tenant was able to move in at the end of April. At the time that she moved in, she had two jobs. Unfortunately, she was laid off unexpectedly in June from one of the jobs, so she has struggled to pay rent in July and August. I’m understanding, but I didn’t appreciate that we had to ask where the rest of rent was and she didn’t send the late fee. Again, I’m lenient and understanding, if you’re nice. We had another tenant say that she needed another week to pay August rent because sickness kept her out of work, and I had no problem with that and waived the late fee. She told me up front; I didn’t need to go asking questions and wait all day for a response.

The new tenant did complain upon move in that the house wasn’t clean. We knew that may be an issue. The contractor’s cleaners didn’t do a great job, but the house was generally clean. The new tenant did mention that there was just a little too much dirt from the renovation to be acceptable, so we hired a cleaner to come in and get it done. Other than that, we haven’t had any maintenance requests or complaints from her.

For how big of an issue this was, I’m impressed by how easy it felt to come out the other side. We were lucky to have insurance cover lost rent and expenses, and they didn’t give us a hard time on nearly anything (we’re currently trying to manage a claim on our own how that is far from easy). We were able to re-rent the house for $150 more than it had been rented at. So while we had the house vacant and being worked on for 4 months, it really wasn’t too bad.

Rental Work

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We’ve owned rentals since February 2016. There have always been ebbs and flows on action needed by me to manage the rentals. Until this year. Suddenly we’re having a regular influx of maintenance needs; some are small like a leaking tub, while some are big like a tree falling on a house. So here’s the update of actions we’ve taken in 2023, with costs for each job (which is something I used to do and haven’t been on top of).

House 1

Roof Repairs

A wind storm came through at the beginning of March and caused extensive damage. There were shingles missing from this townhouse’s roof. The last update was that the roof was being repaired at the end of June, but I haven’t been by to see that yet. This is $0 to us, as our HOA insurance for the townhomes cover it.

Plumbing

The tenant called to complain that the tub in their second bathroom no longer would let hot water out. Hot water was coming out of the sink in that bathroom. I called a plumber, and he said it was going to be $600 to change the cartridge. Considering we’ve done two bathrooms and I had to buy a cartridge, I know that the cartridge is somewhere around $100. I called Mr. ODA while this man was in the house with the quote, and he agreed that was a crazy uncharge and labor charge. The man standing in the bathroom agreed with me and didn’t even charge me for the service call. ha! I called another company, and he came out to change out the cartridge for $245.

House 2

Burst Pipe

At the end of December, a pipe burst and the house flooded. This sounds like a really big deal. But it turns out, this big of a problem is handled relatively easily since insurance is covering the expense and there are companies that handle the whole ‘kit-and-caboodle.’

Our property manager had to manage the day to day activities for us. At first, it was finding a company to clean up the water. The water reached every single room of the house. The clean up of the water was about $22k.

Second step was finding someone to do the repairs and rebuild. The insurance company estimated the repairs around $40k. Our estimates came in well above that. One company said “give me your insurance agent’s contact, I’ll handle it.” That was amazing. They agreed to an amount for the work to be done, and the next we heard, our insurance agent said they’ll cut us a check for the remaining amount. The company was really easy to work with. I selected the flooring, cabinets, and paint color. Everything else was boiler plate otherwise (drywall repair, insulation, lighting installation). They quoted us to put sheet vinyl in the bathrooms, since that’s what was there, but they agreed to install the LVP all throughout the house (which was likely a cost savings to them anyway) at no charge. They also agreed to let our contractor go into the house to install new kitchen countertops (the previous tenant had burned our counters (drugs?!), but it was a hassle to replace them at that time.

We had a few hiccups along the way, but the company didn’t fight us on fixing them. For instance, they threw away the bathroom countertops, even though they were supposed to be put back in place. They painted the house with a paint bucket that was left over from our July renovation, even though I had given them a different color name to paint it (and then when I explained that in no realm would I have bought the paint for them to use when they’re charging me 10x the price of a bucket through the renovation because insurance is paying it); they repainted everything.

They allowed us to pay the first installment via credit card, so we received $340 worth of credit card rewards from that $17,000 purchase. Then our final amount paid (as reimbursed from insurance) was about $51k.

The insurance covered our increased costs for utilities (since we had to heat the house with no ceiling and insulation) and covered our lost rent for that period of time (I shared the tenant nightmare part of this in previous posts).

The cleaners the repair company used were awful. We waited to see what the new tenant thought about it, and she ended up complaining. So we called in another cleaner, which cost us $200. The refrigerator was disgusting and we ended up replacing it, for $760 (our choices were extremely limited to keep the cost down and to find something in stock since a new tenant was moving in 2 days later). We also had our handyman install new locks, new toilet paper holders, and two new blinds (none of that was covered by insurance), which was $180.

House 4

Tenant Turnover: Painting and repairs

We had a tenant move out of this house. She had lived there since 2018. She finally decided she needed more space (it’s a very small house) as her toddler was growing. I checked on the house a couple of years ago, and things seemed to be in order. She had said that she never wanted to move, so she treated it like her own house. She struggled to keep a job, although always seemed to have one to move on to. Well, over the last two years, she started making “improvements” to the house that weren’t improvements (like painting half the trim in the house black). We had to put a lot of work into that tiny house, and it isn’t even to my standard really.

Our handyman had to paint two coats on all the walls (after removing an excessive number of command hooks and such), 3-4 coats on all the trim to get it from black to white, install door knobs she had removed, and epoxied the bathtub and blue tile walls in the bathroom. That was $3,732.

House 9

Water Heater

The hot water heater stopped working. We had it installed less than a year ago. We called the company to come look at it, and they agreed. Then that morning, no one showed up. When our property manager called to ask where they were, they said they don’t do that anymore. We called another company to come fix it, and they pointed out that it was installed incorrectly and the wires were rubbing, creating a short. We had that company fix it, and then I called the original company and asked for a reimbursement. They agreed, but it was a two month process before I received the check. That was $200 out of pocket, but was then paid back to us in full.

House 10

This one. Goodness. They build up their maintenance needs and then lay a bunch of problems on us at once. It’s frustrating, especially when it involves leaking water. They also pay their rent at 2 am on the late day so it’s technically late, but not worth me fighting over. They don’t maintain the house very well, and we’re just ready to be done with them.

Ceiling Fans

I have our handyman going out to fix two ceiling fans. One has a screw missing from the blade, and one has disconnected from the ceiling. I don’t know his cost for those items yet.

Plumbing

There was an issue with water leaking from one of the tubs and following the pipe system into the basement. A plumber fixed the leak from the tub faucet for $425.

There was a back up in the HVAC condensate line that we had our HVAC tech go out for, and that was $125.

House 11

Pests

We had to have pest control come out to address swarming termites, which has been a longstanding issue in this house, unfortunately. That was $98, which was truly just the renewal for the termites warranty. Then we had another issue with powder post beetles, and that was $185.

Honestly, this is where having several houses creates a benefit – we use this company for all our houses and all our partner’s houses. We didn’t pay the termite warranty for a few years on it because I actually didn’t get that paperwork (the $98 fee), and they let me pay up the years I missed to cover treatments currently). I had called at another point to schedule an inspection, and they said I had a balance so they couldn’t schedule anything until I paid the outstanding balance. Again, an issue with paperwork getting to me. The lady even said “we know you’re good for it, and we’d get in touch eventually.”

HVAC

Over the winter, the HVAC unit wasn’t heating. On March 2, the HVAC technician went out and discovered a dirty filter and had to clean the flame sensor. That cost us $223.

Then the HVAC wasn’t cooling this month. The same tech went out and discovered the condenser needed replaced. He did that, but then he left town without invoicing us, so I don’t have that invoice in hand yet. But now we’re having an issue with the house “sweating” that he’s going to look at this week.

House 12

Storm Damage: Tree removal, shingle replacement

The wind storm at the beginning of March took shingles off the back of the roof. Mr. ODA got up there and replaced about 12 shingles, which is a new skill set! As part of that storm, a small tree at the curb of the house fell over, so Mr. ODA cut that up and got it ready to be picked up. That cost us our time and $37 at Lowe’s on shingles.

Wildlife Removal

When I first met this tenant, she told me about how she had a raccoon in the attic. The property management company came to remove the animal (supposedly) and patch up the entrance point. They didn’t do a great job; the animal came back. She said she hadn’t seen it, but she has 5 cats (yes, lease violation) that are very alert. We hired a company to set a trap. After a week, they didn’t find an animal, so they patched up the hole. Setting the trap was $279, and patching the hole was $150.

House 13

Storm Damage: Siding repair

During another March storm, a piece of metal siding came loose on the house. Mr. ODA was able to go put it back in place, so this didn’t cost us anything except the mileage and time.

Electric Work

The tenant complained that one outlet wasn’t working. That didn’t add up. I had Mr. ODA go check on the electrical box while he was working on the siding, but he also saw that nothing was tripped. I had an electrician go out there. Turns out, there’s a second electric box on the house, and that breaker was tripped. You win some, you lose some. He charged me $100.

Tree Removal

The tenant had a tree fall along the back fence line. It took down some wires. We had the power company go out to check on it all, but they confirmed they’re not power lines and they’re cable lines. Since her internet/cable is working fine, it’s not a priority to remove the tree. I had a tree removal guy go out and look at it. Most of the tree is on the other side of the fence. He tried contacting that owner (there’s a rental sign outside the house) to gain access to remove the debris, but they haven’t responded. We had a huge storm come through a few weeks ago, and that has put her tree removal even lower on the list. Plus, she was rude to the tree guy, wouldn’t put up her dogs, and wouldn’t clean up the dog poop in the yard, so it’s not high on my priority list to get her taken care of either. Be a good person.

House 14

Tree on Roof

That big wind storm at the beginning of March took a tree down at this house. I struggled to get someone to help us. I finally posted on the local mom’s group, and someone spoke up that her husband’s business prioritizes trees on structures and would get there tomorrow. And that he did. He had the tree gone in a few hours and cleaned up the yard great. We then had to wait for the insurance adjuster to come out. Once they cleared us, we were able to repair the roof and gutter. For how big the tree was, the twiggy branches at the top was all that hit the house, so the damage was fairly minimal. This was all covered by insurance, so it didn’t cost us anything.

Water Leak

The tenants reached out to me that their water bill went from $50 to $400. They’re pretty self-sufficient and handy, so it was definitely a problem. I trusted that they were able to diagnose a running toilet or leak under a sink. It turns out the link was at the main water for the house. The plumber had to excavate the front yard and replace the entire pipe from the street to the house. I just got the bill, and it was $3,060.

Others – With no costs incurred yet, but will need action

House 6 has repairs that are needed, but the tenant hasn’t been available for the repairs and she has 2 or 3 big dogs, so we really need her home for us to enter the property. I also received notice from the insurance company that they want a railing installed on the front steps, so our handyman will handle that also.

House 7 has a flat roof over the laundry room. Before we bought the house, someone built a room on a covered deck – very poorly. It has leaked several times, and we have tried to find a roofer to help, but they don’t want to handle flat roofs. Mr. ODA shoved a bunch of silicone at the roof line, and it actually held for over a year. It finally leaked again recently. We started making calls and very explicitly stated that we don’t want the flat roof repaired, we want it built as an actual roof (because no one will touch a flat roof, and I had someone come out for a roof replacement and we didn’t know enough at the time to realize he wasn’t going to touch that part of the roof). We finally got two roofers to give us quotes. One seemed to completely not understand the request, and the other said $3,800. So we agreed to that quote and will hopefully have this behind us in the next month or so.

The Quiet Ones

House 3 has had to pay rent late a few times, but they always let me know in advance and I always waive their late fee.

House 8 has required zero effort. They pay rent in the final hours it’s due consistently, but they never need a reminder or follow up. This house isn’t in great shape, so it’s mildly concerning that we don’t hear from them for months on end, but I have enough to keep myself occupied at the moment.

I plan to do walk throughs and address a few issues at some of the Richmond houses later this summer. The last time I went through some of the houses was July 2021, and there have been instances that say tenants need to be checked up on. While many houses have had our handyman in it recently, I want to be more consistent on checking on them and letting them know I care what is going on.

That’s almost $10k that I’ve paid out so far this year on rental properties, with more invoices waiting to come in.

Here’s to hoping the second half of the yard is quieter than the first.

July Financial Update

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I looked back to last year’s July to see what was going on.

We had just bought our new house, demoed the master bathroom, and started painting a bunch of the new house. We were transporting two toddlers back and forth for all the work to be done. I was also talking about a vacant house and being rid of a non-rent-payer. The tenant that moved in then caused tens of thousands of damage with a burst pipe, and now we have a new renter in there.

And now…

We had a big wind storm come through on the 2nd. It knocked down several trees, including one on our deck. We’ve had 4 companies come out for quotes for replacement, and we’re waiting on the adjuster this week.

I have a whole separate post regarding all that’s going on with the rentals, so I’ll leave that for a separate post.

Most interesting to me is that in the last year, without any major moves (like purchasing a new rental house or paying off a mortgage), we’ve increased our net worth by over $300k. Looking back at July 2021, we’re almost $900k higher than then.

Since last month, we paid out a $22k bill that was owed from January for cleaning up the house that got flooded (there were several delays in insurance agreeing to the company’s invoice), but the market increases have netted us a gain of $16k still.

Medical Bills – Part 2

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I went to the emergency room on November 15, 2021. I resolved a bill from that day on June 30, 2023.

The provider submitted a claim to my insurance company immediately after my stay there. The submitted charges were $1526. My insurance adjusted the amount, paid about $1100, and said I was responsible for about $60. My explanation of benefits (EOB) even included a copy of the check they submitted to the provider, which is not typical. The check was date December 21, 2021.

The provider submitted a second claim, exactly the same as the first one, to my insurance company in December 2021. My insurance denied the claim because it was a duplicate. Simple enough.

The provider only received the denial, and not the check nor first EOB.

I received a bill from the provider in March 2022 for $1526. That didn’t make sense. I knew my insurance should cover most of a claim. I looked through my insurance coverage and confirmed I would only owe my co-insurance since our deductible had been long met. I reviewed my EOBs and noted the duplicate submission, so I called the provider. I told her the story, but she kept talking over me and not hearing that the denial was because it had first been paid. She said she was going to call my insurance company. I filed the paperwork and assumed it would get handled or that I’d receive another statement prompting me to take action.

In August 2022, I received a letter from a collections agency. I was pretty mad. Not only did I not receive information from this woman who had a job to do, they never sent another invoice/statement/bill to me.

On September 1, 2022, I called the collections agency as the letter told me to, plus I wanted a record that I had acknowledged the collections notice. The collections company told me to detach the part of my letter that had my information and mail it back to them asking for details. I did that immediately. I later received a letter that said “physician says you owe $1526 for services rendered on 11/15/21.” Thanks; that’s useless.

The same day that I called the collections agency, I called the provider. The man I spoke to told me he took my account out of collections status and would look into it. He told me to send an email to them with the EOBs and an explanation of what happened, which I did immediately that day.

On October 13, 2022, I hadn’t heard anything. I had sent two more emails since that time, trying to avoid a phone call, but at this point I had to call. I figured at any given moment, these people would just send my account to collections instead of put any effort in. The person I spoke to this time said they’d escalate this to the posting team for review, and they’d need 45-60 days to research it.

Nothing.

In December I called again. I asked for a supervisor immediately to avoid having to explain the story once again, but they made me explain it again. I got through to a supervisor who finally understood the story that there is a check out there for them. She said she sees that the issue is that the PO Box was wrong for where it was sent. She said she would contact my insurance about it. She emailed me the next day to say she tried 3 times to get to my insurance and couldn’t. That’s complete bull. I’ve never not been able to reach someone at my insurance agency via their 800 number.

I responded to her email 3 times asking for an update through December and January. At the beginning of February, I finally called again. This time, I called my insurance company and asked them what can be done. She called the provider via a 3-way call. The man said they’d resolve it and he escalated it. Same. Old. Story.

I gave them another 60 days and called them in April. Nothing different. This supervisor told me that she could see it being worked on and moving through the system. She said she really needed to allow it to work through the system and to give another 60 days.

I called on June 29, 2023. I was able to get through to the same supervisor as the April call. She kept me on hold a majority of the time. After a half hour, she came back and said “I’ve escalated this to the posting team. I appreciate your patience, but I really need to give them another 60 days.” No. Unacceptable. I’ve wasted hours of my life trying to get this resolved, and it’s not even my problem to resolve. It has only become my problem because they sent me to collections. I told her to send me to someone higher than her, and I was done being thanked for my patience.

A new person got on the phone. I said the only acceptable outcomes at this point are 1) you wipe the slate clean and call it a wash because you’ve had more than enough time to ‘find’ the payment from my insurance company, or 2) you call my insurance company and get them to stop payment on the previous check and reissue payment somehow. She said she’d look into it with the posting team. I said “clearly, the posting team doesn’t know how to do their job, and I’m tired of being told for an entire year now that we’re waiting on them to find the payment.” She agreed.

She looked at some screen and something clicked. She said that the payment was processed through a third party, so they take a cut of the check from the insurance. All this time, they’ve been looking for $1100, but they should be looking for something less than that. She called the company that processed the payment, found out the amount they sent to the provider, found the payment amount in suspense, and applied it to my account.

That left a balance of $60 owed from me, and she graciously zeroed that out for my troubles. I didn’t have a problem paying $60, but I did have a problem with their way of handling this issue.

I had heard from someone two other times that sounded like they were actually going to help me. I had no faith that this was the end of the road when I hung up the phone on 6/29. I started to look for alternative courses.

I submitted a claim to the Better Business Bureau. They accepted my complaint within a few hours, but I ended up calling to withdraw the complaint on the following morning since this woman fixed my issue finally.

I called the Federal No Surprises Help Desk. Truly, I didn’t think this counted because it wasn’t “surprise billing.” However, they have a system that asks you questions and gives you a course of action. In my case, they said to call and start a claim. Unfortunately, I did call, and she said that since the date of service is before the No Surprises Act was established, she couldn’t help me.

She suggested I call a number in Kentucky for my issue. I called and left a voicemail, but that felt weird. I looked up some options specific to my state, and there was a way to file a complaint with the Attorney General. I submitted that complaint, which I need to figure out how to withdraw now.

I’m skeptical that this is over. The lady I spoke with said she will send me a zeroed out statement in the mail, so I’ll be holding my breath until that actually shows up.

There are so many times where I, as a consumer, am just stuck. I don’t understand. The consumer has no help or protections that are easy to find or take advantage of. I just have to keep calling this company and hope that eventually they resolve it. Yet they could send me to collections and completely ding my credit worthiness, even though this was their issue and fault.

Nineteen and a half months after my date of service, I may actually have this resolved. This was a bill for $1526. A lot of people don’t have that kind of money to erroneously hand out. I hope that someone reads this and thinks before they pay their next medical bill to ensure that it’s accurate and truly the amount that’s owed.

Medical Bills – Part 1

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About once a year now, I have some major fight with a provider over my insurance coverage and how they’ve done something wrong, and then I share about it here so that others know to be more cognizant of their billings. Here’s two quick ones, and I have a lengthier one that I’ve been working since November 2021 that I’ll share separately. I have a post that goes into the details of reading your insurance benefits, so this will just be the stories of what went wrong and how it got resolved.

On May 17, 2022, I received an email from my doctor that said:

We have recently learned that several insurance companies … have sent inaccurate information that [we are] now out of network for their members. This is not the case and is incorrect information. We currently are in network … and we remain in network with all the same insurance companies we have been contracted with since 2021. If you receive a letter like this from your insurance company and have questions, please call our Patient Services team.

About a month after this email was sent, I received a statement for an obstetric appointment that said I owe $330, even though maternity benefits should be covered in full for routine care. It said it applied to my deductible, so I was really confused because we met that in January. I finally saw that it said it applied to my out of network deductible. I called the 800 number they gave in the email, and the woman who answered acted like she had never heard of such an issue with the insurance.

Since she was no help, I called my insurance directly. It took a few moments for that lady to get what I was saying – that you go to the doctor every 4 weeks, if not more often, when pregnant, and I’ve seen this provider both before and after this one claim, she had always been in network, so there’s a glitch. Thankfully, she could handle it for me. She worked with the provider to get the claim resubmitted and reanalyzed.

I made a couple of follow up calls and finally made real progress in February 2023, for a claim that was dated April 2022. Last week, I received an updated Explanation of Benefits that showed the claim was covered in full. My statement on my provider’s website still said I owed $330 yesterday. I called them, and they were able to see that the updates were being processed; sure enough, today my balance is listed as $0.

My dad went to the emergency room. They ran some tests and then observed him for a few hours before allowing him to go home. He received a bill from the hospital that said insurance denied the claim because it was for observation. He called the insurance company. The lady who answered never actually listened to what he was saying. She assumed he was wrong and misinformed, and she just kept talking over him.

First she told him that it wasn’t covered because it was in-patient and out of network. When he pushed back, she told him that it was covered, but it’s two dates of service (on the in-patient concept). That’s actually not the first time I’ve dealt with that annoyance and an emergency room. Once, I went to the ER at 10 pm and was charged for two dates of service even though I was released from the ER around 5 am. My dad had gone to the ER around 7 pm and was released in the morning. When he pushed that even if they were seeing it as two dates of service, he’d be looking at $300 (two copays) and not $2200, she came up with another excuse. She said it wasn’t covered because it was observation care. He said “I walked into the emergency room. I hope I was being observed.” She never once said “it sounds like the provider didn’t code the billing correctly; let me look into it.”

My dad eventually hung up on her. Seriously, if you’re not being heard and they’re talking over you, try again with a different person. I’ve had some people answer the phone that are the sweetest and most helpful customer service workers, and I’ve had some that are completely the opposite as if it’s your fault this is their job.

He set it aside to deal with another time. Shortly after, he received a voicemail from this lady where her tone was completely different and she said they were going to look into the coding of his visit. A week later, he received a voicemail from the same person, who said they reviewed it and determined the billing was done incorrectly and it was fixed. Instead of owing $2200, he now owed his $150 copay.

It’s important to know what your coverage is, how your insurance applies to your deductible, and your payment responsibilities. Do not assume that the billing codes were done correctly or that the insurance read it correctly. Neither the provider’s office or the insurance are going to think that they’ve made a mistake, so it’s likely going to take some persistence to get your story across. Don’t be afraid to advocate for yourself.

June Financial Update

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Gosh, where did I leave off?

Our savings account is still earning over 4% interest. Therefore, bills are being paid as close to the due date as possible, while we manage to keep the savings account balance higher. Back in December, we had a pipe burst in a rental house. The insurance quickly paid out on the estimated damages, but we didn’t need to pay the repair company in full until last week. Additionally, there was an issue with the invoice from the company that cleaned up the water, and so that was only just set to be paid today.

When we have large purchase(s) looming, we look to open a new credit card with rewards and 0% interest. We opened one last Fall, and I pay $500 towards it each statement cycle. I believe we have until October to pay in full before interest begins accruing. I’ll continue to pay $500 until I need to pay it in full in a few months (or if we need to reduce our debt usage because another house purchase is to be made … not that we have any plans to, but Mr. ODA is always looking).

We have a few projects lingering out there that will cost us a decent amount to accomplish (e.g., water main line repair, tree removal, new roof). We also don’t have any plans to make big financial moves in the near future (e.g., no home purchases, no loan pay offs).

The market has recovered in the past few months, so our net worth has made a jump. It’s the first decent increase in a while. Our cash has decreased, logically, since we were holding cash that was for accounts payable. Our credit card totals have decreased substantially since February as well.

Hiatus Update

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Over the past year, I tried really hard to stay on top of sharing content here, until I finally had to throw in the towel. It started because we were renovating a house while I was pregnant and had two kids to take care of, so my posts dwindled down to just the net worth updates. Then Mr. ODA started investing in treasury accounts. There was so much movement of money in so many different accounts, that I couldn’t quickly update our net worth anymore. Other than updates of the net worth and rental property work, my last post was August 2022. I feel like I have the bandwidth to finish several posts that I’ve started, so I’m back.

NEW HOME

In May 2022, a house went on the market in our desired area of town. We weren’t ready to leave our house since we hadn’t owned it for two years yet, but this was an opportunity that was hard to pass up. We closed on the new house in June 2022. We floated the down payment through a Home Equity Line of Credit that was paid off through the sale of our house.

We spent the whole summer traveling back and forth between our then-current house and the new house because we had a lot of work to do on the new house. We demolished the master bathroom and started rebuilding that. I painted almost the entire house. We did a lot of little projects. It was a tiring time that culminated in having to do the physical move in the Fall and get the new house organized and set up.

NEW BABY

I was pregnant through all of the home renovations and move. Our son came 3 weeks early on Thanksgiving day. He was generally healthy, but he required extra medical attention than we weren’t used to with the first two. On top of that, he wanted to be held to be asleep; babies sleep a lot. Mr. ODA and I were taking turns holding the baby and sleeping. The two older kids basically survived on tv shows and chicken nuggets during this blur of life. Going from 0 to 1, and from 1 to 2 kids was pretty easy, but this 3rd kid was a new ballgame. Once he was 5 months old, I started working on getting him to sleep independently. Now that he’s 7 months old, he sleeps well in his crib for his naps and through the night; he’s happy during the day and plays well; and now I feel like a new person for actually getting rest and not being tied to a couch all day everyday. Mr. ODA took a lot of time off to help me through that phase. As he started working again, it was an adjustment for me to learn how to manage all 3 kids and the household.

PERSONAL

We had several trips last summer on top of the renovations that we were working on. Those created delays in us having the house ready for us to move. Then our oldest got sick and it turned into an issue in his leg so he couldn’t walk at all for about 2 weeks and couldn’t walk right for about 8 weeks. It was a rough time. He got better just as I was about to have the baby.

As we started to get into the swing of things with all 3 kids and coming out of winter, my mom got sick. She went downhill quickly in March and ended up passing away on my birthday this year. That was unexpected and emotionally draining. We just got back from a trip to see my family, and I feel like I’m more put together than I had been over the last 3 months.

In April, we had to submit our taxes. This is always a several hour process. I had documented in the past, but I just didn’t have time to juggle it this year. I have to verify that I’ve recorded all expenses, that I haven’t recorded expenses that aren’t supported by documentation (e.g., receipt), that my summaries are logical, and then it takes Mr. ODA and I 5-6 hours worth of entering data to actually submit.

Then we added swim lessons and soccer for the kids. We quit soccer early because it just wasn’t fun for our oldest (or us), and 3 months of swim lessons are over. Now our only commitment is whether or not we want to attend library story time for a half hour each week, and I’m appreciating the open schedule.

BUSINESS

The rentals have required a lot more than usual attention from us in the past year. We had a house flood from a burst pipe, so that had to be cleaned out, renovated, and re-rented. We had several plumbing and HVAC issues among multiple houses, as well as a raccoon removal issue. We had roof damage to a house, a tree fall on a house, and another tree fall in the yard of three different houses, all because of storms. We had to turnover a house, where the tenant had lived there for several years, had made changes that were not appropriate, and would not communicate effectively on her status of leaving. It has been a lot more than usual, requiring a lot of time to manage.

On top of the maintenance requests and the usual management of the properties, I also took over the management of the properties that are in Central KY in February. I was spending so much time managing the property manager, that it was finally time for me to just handle it.

Not that you needed all this background, but I felt weird just jumping back into content. We’ve been very busy in general, but adding a 3rd kid into the mix was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I finally feel like I can manage everything again, and I’ve had more and more thoughts for things to share.

March Financial Update

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I purposely waited to update our net worth for this month. Two months ago, we had incurred a significant amount of expenses on our credit card. We purposely held off on paying that amount until today, which is that statement’s due date. Waiting to pay the card meant that $25k sat in our savings account earning interest during that time, as we “floated” that money. It was extremely stressful for me, so I’m glad those due dates are behind me, and I don’t have to manage that timing and coordination anymore.

Speaking of “floating” money, we also have our 0% interest credit card that we opened last Fall when we were incurring expenses on our new house. That still has a balance over $6k on it, but we just pay $500 towards it each month. We’ll pay it in full when the 0% interest runs out this Fall.

I don’t even know where to begin on what we’ve been managing with rental properties. We’ve learned the world of insurance claims. Prior to this month, we only had one claim because an intoxicated driver (on a Sunday morning) ran off the road, through a fence, and over our HVAC outdoor unit. I’ll have a separate post with the details that we’ve been managing, but here’s a run down.
– I still have a lease that needs to get out for signature, and then information on that house sent to our property manager so she can take it over.
– We had a tree fall on a house here in Lexington. The tree was removed, but getting the adjuster out to see the damage is taking 3 weeks, and we can’t do any repairs until he sees the damage.
– The house that had a burst pipe is nearing completion. Walls and ceilings are back in place, insulation is back in place, and cabinets are installed; they still need to do painting and flooring. We’re going to have our handyman install new counter tops when the insurance contractors are done with their steps, and then we’ll need to get it rerented.
– We had roofing damage on 3 of our houses in Lexington from that same storm that knocked a tree on a house. Mr. ODA fixed one roof himself. Another one is under the purview of a townhome HOA, and hasn’t been fixed. And we’re biding our time on the last one because it’ll end up being a full roof replacement; only a few shingles flew off, but the roof is so old and so steep that it wasn’t an option to repair.
– Frustratingly, I had 2 overdue tax bills. Our jurisdiction’s taxes are due by 12/1 each year. If you pay by 11/1, they give you a 5% discount. I paid the bulk of the bills in October. There was a supplemental bill due to an increase in the Board of Education tax. When I received the supplemental bills “off schedule,” I just filed them. It didn’t occur to me that there was a second tax bill in the year. They sent that one notice. Didn’t send a second to say “you didn’t pay early, but by the way, it’s due now.” So that was due by the end of February. I didn’t pay it and received the “delinquent tax notice” last week. There was a 5% penalty assessed on the balance due. So all-in-all, I cost us an extra $11. Not the end of the world, but kicking myself that I missed it. Also annoying, they sent it to our old address instead of our updated address that’s been in place since November.

We haven’t done any big projects around the house because of newborn life. I just painted the wood parts of our stair railing and treads black. I’ll then paint the spindles white (they’re already white but need touched up and a whole new fresh coat). I already had that paint on hand. We’ve also cleaned up the yard from that big storm earlier this month, along with some odds and ends that needed to be done in the landscaping. We got the first mow in and some new bushes with mulch in the front yard so that it’s looking nice for my family coming into town this weekend.

No net worth calculation update. I’ve done the majority of the account checks, but just haven’t been able to pull together the final bit timely.

February Financial Update

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Well, Mr. ODA didn’t like that I shared I didn’t know where our money was last month. They’re all kinds of Treasury accounts, and I’n just logging the transactions and leaving him to it. 🙂 I don’t have a lot of bandwidth these days, but I’m learning to juggle 3 kids and our finances.

PERSONAL FINANCES

We bought a new van this month. We’ve been wanting a new one for a while now. We bought our 2017 Pacifica in September 2020. It was a great deal, and it was a necessity as we were about to spend 7 weeks “homeless” and AirBnB/couch hoping. The car had some defects. We decided we’d keep an eye out for a newer version. Suddenly, Mr. ODA found a good deal on a 2020 Pacifica that had more options than we were actually looking for. We drove to Ohio about 36 hours later. They made us a good deal for our trade-in, and we went home with a new van! We put some of the purchase on two credit cards and then the balance with a personal check.

We’re currently paying close attention to credit card deadlines and our savings account. Where I used to pay a credit card bill almost after the statement closed so that it wasn’t hanging out there and I wouldn’t accidentally miss a deadline, I’m now leaving money in our savings account as long as possible. Our savings account is now earning 4% on the balance, so we’re seeing a significant amount of interest each month. I’m juggling managing our bills as close to their due date as possible, while also projecting future bills necessary since there’s a limit of 6 transfers out of the savings account per month.

All that was to point out that our credit card balances are high right now because of the van purchase, but the credit card statement hasn’t closed yet. Instead of paying the credit card balances down right now, the money is sitting in savings earning interest for 4-6 weeks between the purchase, to the statement closing, to the statement’s due date. More directly, we put $3,000 on one credit card for the van purchase. That was on 2/7. That statement, once it closes, will not have a due date until 4/20. That means that the money put on the credit card can sit in savings earning interest for about 70 days.

We also had to pay the initial payment for the restoration services on the rental that had a burst pipe. So while the insurance company sent us a check to cover the cost of this work, it’s still $17k sitting on our credit card, not being paid until the last minute. I should also note that our cash balance is inflated by about $50k because it’s the money from the insurance company that we’re waiting to pay the contractor as milestones are completed.

Had I seemed nonchalant about the plan? Because I’m definitely not. 🙂 I need to stay on top of how many transfers happen per month out of the savings account (while Mr. ODA randomly pulls money for investments), and not miss any deadlines and cost us interest charges or late payment marks on our credit. It’s stressful! Since we’re not doing anything that requires our credit to be pulled right now, it’s fine. If we were having our credit checked, having multiple cards nearly maxed out would be a problem. But we know we have the cash available to pay off all the credit cards if we needed to.

RENTAL FINANCES

I finally got through to someone on the issue with the improperly installed water heater. He says he submitted all the paperwork to send us a check for $200 to cover the plumber we paid to fix their issue. I haven’t seen any paperwork, nor have I received the check, but I’ll keep it on my radar and follow up in a couple of weeks.

I made all the decisions on the restoration of our flooded house. We’re expecting to hear a timeline for work to start next week, and then it’ll take about 40 working days to get the work done.

I paid a warranty for termites on another house. We had an infestation when we purchased the house, but we didn’t pay the warranty information. Our tenants found swarmers, and when we called to ask about treatment, they said they’d let us backpay the warranty and invoke that. We have a good relationship with this company and appreciated that offer, so we’re staying on top of the warranty payments now. The payment is $98 per year.

We received a surprise in the mail – the tenant had turned off the electric in the flooded house back on January 12th. The power company is supposed to notify me. I received an email on February 6th notifying me of an action on the account. So this was in my name from 1/12 to 2/1 for me to be billed $255 without my knowledge. Not to mention, there’s a bill hanging out there from 2/2 until the present that I’ll also get billed for. Mr. ODA sent our property management excerpts from the lease indicating that the utilities must be in their name for the entirety of the lease, that they’re responsible for this bill, and that they must get it back in their name immediately. We’ll see how that plays out.

RENTAL WORK

I picked up the keys from our property manager for the 3 houses I took over managing. I also worked on a rental here in town this week, which took about an hour including travel time, and I have another to work on later this week, which will be about 2 hours worth of work.

I sent a prospective tenant the pre-application we have, which he passed, so I sent him the application to submit. If all goes well, we’ll have that house re-rented with no vacancy period.

We have 3 leases that end at the end of April. We put a requirement that tenants give us 60 days notice, or that we give 60 days notice of any changes. That means that these leases need acknowledgement by the end of this month. So I ran the analysis on those 3 houses. We decided to increase the rent on 2 of them by $50 per month, each, and we’ll keep another house the same since it was increased last year. One house actually had an increase last year, but that house is well below market value, so we’re offering them to continue the lease with an increase because if they were to move out, we could get even more from the house based on it’s size and demographics. The 2 houses we’re increasing have a property manager, so she’s responsible for notification and signing an addendum before the end of the month. But once again, I need to manage the property manager and ensure we have action on time.

NET WORTH

Rental Work

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Every once in a while, I’m juggling a few rental property items, and I like to share the effort being put in. While it may be taking some of my energy now, it’s not something that happens often. Usually, Spring is our busy time because we have to manage leases ending or renewing. We have upticks in maintenance requests at the change of seasons each Fall and Spring (usually a plumbing or HVAC issue). For most months though, we don’t have to do much. I’m currently in a season (somewhat self-imposed) where we are busy and the rentals are requiring more-than-usual attention. Here’s that story.

RENT COLLECTION

One of the houses that I took over management for didn’t pay rent. I had to reach out to her on the morning of the 6th. She then asked to have until the end of the day. I told her that was fine, but if she didn’t pay by the end of the day, she’d have to pay a late fee (which is technically required after the 5th); she paid a few minutes after that message.

Another tenant let me know that they were sick last month, so they needed more time for rent. I let them know that was fine, and not to worry about the late fee. They paid a day earlier than when they expected to be able to pay.

LEASE ACTIVITY

Interestingly, several lease-related actions have been taken. I had to get 3 leases executed because I took over management of those properties (more on that below).

I had one tenant let me know that she won’t be renewing. She has been in that house since July 15, 2018. She sent me a text letting me know that she’ll be moving out on April 30th. Funny because her lease goes through June 30th of each year. But since she’s been there for so long, gave us ample notice, and so politely picked the end of a month, we’ll just go with it. It’s a 2 bedroom house, so we were surprised she spent as long as she did there. The first tenant we had in this house put us in contact with the current tenant. Ironically, the first tenant had recently asked if we had any 2 bedrooms coming available. At the time, I didn’t. But now we have the same house coming available, so I let her know. The person she knows looking for a house is interested in living there, so we’re going through the application process now!

I had another tenant tell me that they want to renew for another year. It’s for a house that I just took over management for. Since I don’t know them at this point, I didn’t want to agree immediately. Their notification deadline is March 31st, so we’ll revisit that renewal next month.

Then I had another tenant ask if they could renew. Their lease term isn’t up until April 30th, and their notification deadline is the end of February. Every year, they let me know their status some time in January. We reviewed their lease terms and decided to keep their rent at the same rate for another year. We typically increase $50 every two years, and their increase was at the beginning of this current term. She did play their hand and tell me they wanted to stay because rent is so expensive elsewhere, but we’re nice people. 🙂

WATER HEATER ISSUE

At the beginning of January, we received notice from a tenant in VA that their hot water wasn’t working. Being that it was really cold, it wasn’t surprising. However, the unit was installed in August 2021, so we weren’t happy to hear that. We called the company that installed the unit. They scheduled an appointment for the next morning. When the tech didn’t show, our property manager called them and was told they suspended all plumbing jobs and the scheduler shouldn’t have scheduled the job. So our manager got another guy out there that afternoon and discovered that the wires weren’t installed correctly. His report stated: Dispatched to home due to home not having hot water. Found burnt wires in electrical access due to improper installation. Two unlike wire materials, not joined together correctly. Cut and removed burnt wires and reinstalled the correct way.

Now I’m trying to get in touch with someone at the installation company to address this. We’d like our $200 reimbursed for having to call a different plumber out. I called to complain on 1/20. I was told that a service manager would have to call me back. No one did. I called this morning and was told I’d get a call back in a half hour. No one called this morning. At 1:15, I got a call from some guy who poorly introduced himself and wanted into the property right now. Um, no. I politely told him that I didn’t appreciate the way he was talking to me and that I’d speak with someone else. I called someone back in the office, and she had a different guy call me. I emailed him the paperwork from the other plumber. He agreed to process the reimbursement, and am now waiting on that confirmation.

PROPERTY MANAGEMENT

We’ve had some issues with our property manager in KY. Perhaps their actions are completely normal, but they haven’t met our expectations. We were asked to reimburse a tenant for a high water bill because they dragged their feet on timely fixing it, and then took two attempts to even fix it. Our contract deleted the automatic 10% uncharge on all contracted services (meaning, if they hired a plumber, and the plumber charged them $100, then they’d charge me $110). We argued at contract negotiation that their hiring of a plumber is covered in their monthly management fee and removed it from the contract. Their system automatically adds the 10%, which is understandable, but I would have to review every single invoice and ask for the 10% to be returned. That’s a lot of managing-the-property-manager.

Then we had a huge issue with them last May. I covered the first part of the issue through the Tenant Abandonment post. The second part of the issue was how their accounting manager handled the rest of the conversation. They took their management fee off of the security deposit. I had questioned this on the last property turnover, and they agreed to give me that money back. I thought it was the same across the board – that it was an accident in their system, with it counting as “income” so they took their share. The conversation disintegrated from there. They claimed that since the security deposit was being applied as rent for the month the tenant abandoned, so they could take their share. I said that a security deposit’s purpose is to cover damages, and there was A LOT of damage that I need to pay for, so I shouldn’t be at their whim to decide how the security deposit is going to be applied (not to mention it was their lack of management and effort that created the vacancy). He then started to claim that their level of effort was more than the $90 I was arguing over (1. false. 2. that’s not how my paying you works… what about all those months I paid you $90 for you to do literally nothing). It turns out that I put all my effort to respond to this person’s initial statement of “This security deposit for the tenant has been applied toward rent.” While he said that, that wasn’t actually the reason they took a fee from it, and in actuality, our agreement would have allowed them to take their commission out of the security deposit. But where the relationship really went sour was when this accounting manager started looking through all our charges and decided to hit us with two $500 charges, that we had already paid. We got the owner involved, stating we didn’t appreciate this “desk audit” to try to “get us” on something, even though we had already paid it. Mr. ODA went to meet with them, and everyone apologized for this one person’s brash actions, but that was the last straw for me.

We now live here, so I can take on management of the houses instead of paying people who I have to argue with every time a charge comes in. Unfortunate for the timing, we then purchased a house that we put a lot of work into over the summer, and then I was very pregnant, so we didn’t terminate the agreement immediately. Mr. ODA decided that the beginning of the new year would be a clean break, but by the time I got the letter out, it didn’t terminate until January 31st. They’ve been great about turning over all the finances and information thus far.

So as of February 1st, I took on 3 more properties to manage. I had to establish my own KY lease agreements, which meant referring to the leases currently in place through the property manager and my own templates from VA. I then had to meet the tenants for their signatures. I went to each of the houses, which was a reason to see their living conditions. I didn’t call it an inspection, and I didn’t require a tour of the house. I simply used the initial experience as a gauge on how they’re treating the property. For one, we turned it over after the tenant abandonment, so we didn’t expect it to be too bad. But we hadn’t seen the other two houses since 2019.

Over two days, I met with the tenants and executed the new leases. Two of the meetings were a half hour each, and one was a while longer because we were talking about some of the issues they had with the management company’s maintenance. Of course, meeting with tenants in person usually ends with a to-do list on my end. So once I got home, I put together their leases and the to-do lists for me. I now need to schedule going out there to do their fixes.

BURST PIPE

On December 27th, I received a call from one of my tenants letting me know that water was pouring out of the house next door (that’s also ours). The tenants had turned off the heat… when it was 6 degrees for 3 days straight. The water heater is in the attic and a pipe cracked during the freeze. When it started to thaw, the constant water running filled up the house. Our property manager went to the house and found two inches of water throughout the entire house, along with a collapsed ceiling in the master bathroom. Over the next two days, the ceiling in the adjacent laundry room and the master bedroom also collapsed.

The tenant’s renters insurance was responsible for removing their belongings. They created quite the speed bump, and the tenant’s items weren’t removed for 5 weeks. We finally got their things out, and now we’ve been working with contractors to get the house put back together. We agreed to a contractor who worked with our insurance to get their full amount of work covered (there was about a $6k difference between the insurance adjuster’s estimate and the contractor’s estimate). The insurance company agreed to the new estimate.

We’re now working on the contract with the company who will put the house together. The initial contract required 50% payment up front, which we didn’t feel comfortable doing. Now we’re waiting on an updated contract with a new pay schedule that will split the payment into thirds.

Our next step once the contract is executed is to pick out all the replacement things. On top of them fixing the bottom 2′ of drywall throughout the entire house and all the ceilings that collapsed, along with replacing insulation, fixing the crawl space, etc., we have to make selections for new bottom cabinetry in the kitchen, new vanities in the bathrooms, and new flooring throughout the whole house. I’m hoping that once these selections are made, it’ll be smooth sailing. The contractor is 3 weeks out to begin, and the contract says it’ll take 40 days to complete.

While there’s a lot of things being juggled right now, it’s still not equivalent to a full time job. Since insurance is paying for the replacement of damaged items in the one house, it’s not a high spending month. It’s just requiring more brain power than usual.