cleaning

House1 Turnover

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I wrote most of this post 5 months ago, but I’m going to finish it now for the longevity of what we’ve done with these rental houses. The house has been rented since September and was vacant for 43 days. She agreed to a shorter lease term, so it goes through June 30, 2026.

The tenants in this house moved in 3 years ago. They were good tenants. They hardly asked for things and were super understanding and gracious when we had the HVAC go out (granted it was their lack of filter changing). They brought a dog into the mix and tried to hide it (not well), and I eventually called them out on it to let them know they don’t need to keep finding a way to hide the dog every time I need to come over. They added a 3rd person on to their lease about a year ago. The only major issue I have is they smoked inside the house. I knew it constantly because (just like with the dog cover up) they weren’t great at hiding their evidence.

Earlier this year, I reached out that if they want to renew, I’d be raising their rent from $1200 to $1275. The girl who usually handled the bidding called me and explained they had intended to move to Georgia for a job, but they weren’t ready to move as fast as the end of the lease. I told them they could do month to month for a little, and we agreed to June 30th. I knew I had another lease ending July 31st, so I thought it would work out well that we could address the one house before the other became vacant. In theory. They ended up asking for another month, and we were busy with summer things at the end of June that I agreed, even though it meant two houses were vacating at the same time. I told them that I wouldn’t be able to extend any further though because it’ll be hard enough to rent end of August time frame, let alone into September or later.

On July 29th, they asked me what time they had to be out on the 31st. I said 5 pm. The next day, they asked me if they could have a couple more hours, but I let them know that I had already booked someone to meet them for their keys at 5 pm, and that’s all I could give without it costing them more. I was out of town for this vacancy and asked a friend to be my property manager to walk the property and gather the keys.

They ended up being out and basically cleaned up by 5 pm. I was impressed. The fridge was completely wiped down. The bathrooms were in rough shape, but overall, it was one of the cleanest vacancies we encountered.

THE TURNOVER

We had to have a friend go out to get their keys because we were out of town. I tried to get them to stay until the weekend to make it easier to move, and so that I could be the one to meet them (not that I said that), but they didn’t want to pay the per diem for that option. They ended up keeping their timeframe perfectly.

The turnover took longer than I had planned. I was working part time without a real ability to give up those hours because I had things that needed to get done, and it was summer, so we had 3 kids in the mix. Not to mention, we basically had back to back trips planned for the end of the summer. Overall, it was a learning experience.

We spent about $800 on supplies for the turnover, outside of the carpet, which was about $3,000. With the extra cleaning of the bathrooms and the time it took us to clean and paint the property, we kept their security deposit of $1,200. We could have gone after them for more because of the smoking (I have pictures from when I was doing work in the house of ashtrays with used cigarettes upstairs in the house), but it’s not worth the effort and cost.

FLOORING
Before they moved in, we had ripped out the carpet and installed luxury vinyl planks (LVP). Conceptually, the goal was to not need to work on the floor anymore. We had limped along with the carpet, especially in the living room, since we bought the house, and it just wasn’t worth it anymore. We did the install over two days back then. Now that they were out, there were several gouges in the floor and the floor was separating in some spots. Mr. ODA handled fixing the separation, and he replaced a few boards that were damaged and noticeable.

The kitchen floor was so dirty and it’s the first thing you notice when you walk in. I spent many hours on my hands and knees cleaning out the grout to make it look less dingy. I didn’t get it perfect, but it was fixed. It’s one of those things that no one will ever know just how much time I put in for it to not be perfect, but it would have been so much worse had I not done anything.

BATHROOMS
The bathrooms were a wreck. I’m so lost when I walk into homes and the bathrooms are dirty. Do you want to sit on that toilet or clean yourself in a shower that is dirty? It seems counter productive to me. Mr. ODA had to take over with Bar Keepers in one of the bathrooms to remove the staining and soap scum build up, but we did pretty dang good.

I wish I had a ‘before’ picture easily available to show, because this picture does not do justice to how much time went into this tub.

CARPET
We bought this house 9.5 years ago. The carpet was questionable when we bought it. We would have it professionally cleaned between tenants, and it would look amazing compared to what we saw at first, but the stains would always come back because they were deep in the pads. Before these tenants, we ripped out the carpet in the living room area and laid LVP because the living room was especially bad. Well that still left carpet in the 3rd floor bedrooms, hallway, 2 stairwells, and the whole basement. With the smoking by the tenants and knowing we had far surpassed the useful life, we went ahead and planned to replace the carpet.

There were delays in getting the appointment scheduled and making it all work. The lady who did the measure appointment said installations were 3-4 weeks out. That was disheartening because we had already lost over a week by having back to back trips at the beginning of August. We went into Home Depot to find something else. I ended up settling on something because it said 5 day install. Well, 5 days came and went. I was so frustrated that I had settled on this worse-off carpet just because I wanted to meet a timeline, and now the timeline meant nothing. Then suddenly, we got a call and they said “can we come install the carpet today? We’ll load it now and be there within the hour.” That they did. They installed it in 7 hours and that was behind us.

PAINTING
This took forever. Two big stairwells really take a lot out of your time. Every surface needed to be painted just to work on covering the smoke smell. While we didn’t spend a lot on the turnover (outside of carpet), this house just took so many hours from us. We painted every wall. I painted some of the trim that had not been previously painted, but it was in rough shape. We also had to repair several walls because they had sticky things to hold shelves up and they didn’t remove it.

  • MISCELLANEOUS THINGS DONE
    • Replaced the dryer door handle (that had actually broken off before they moved in, and I thought this was an insurmountable task to fix/replace… well, it was a $6 plastic piece off Amazon that popped right in. Welp.)
    • Replaced window screens that were worn away and in disrepair.
    • Cleaned out all the air filter areas for the HVAC.
    • Replaced all the rusted and broken floor vent covers.
    • Installed a doorbell because they installed a Ring, took it with them, and didn’t put the old one back in.
    • Replaced the cabinet knobs (it appeared someone had spray painted over the original 90s brass with something to mimic a stainless steal look, and they were all worn and chipped).
    • Wiped down the cabinets and walls to get them to be less sticky. Wiped down all the doors, light switches, and outlets because they were so gross.
    • Replaced the broken light in a stairwell that they broke on their move in (and reported).
    • Repaired some ceiling areas that were damaged due to a roof leak before the HOA replaced the roof.
    • Replaced a shower curtain rod that they took with them instead of leaving behind.
    • Painted the front door. It looked like someone had taken steel wool to it to clean it.

LISTING TIMELINE

We got the property to “good enough” stage so we could get it listed. There was still things to get done, but we didn’t want to wait until it was perfect and lose interest as we got further into the school year under way.

We listed the property at the end of August for $1,400. I thought we were golden. The location of this property is excellent, and it’s on a bus route that takes you downtown and to the outskirts of the city for shopping. There were two other listings for $1,500. It didn’t move. I didn’t even get productive bites.

I dropped the price to $1,350 two weeks later. I did show it a few times. I was happy that when I made appointments, people actually showed up, but they didn’t qualify. Mr. ODA hosted an open house and had one person come through. That one person was our person though. I removed the listing two days after the open house and we have it rented at $1,350.

I offered her $1,325 for an 18 month lease or $1,350 for a lease through June 30th so I could get back on a Spring schedule. She agreed to the shorter timeframe. She was looking for a quick move because her landlord was selling her place. Our house seems too big for her needs, so I wouldn’t be surprised if she leaves at the end of June and we need to find a new tenant.

SUMMARY

We knew a September listing was going to be tough, but I didn’t expect it to be that tough. When we had a property managing on this place, they always took 5-6 weeks to get it rented and it drove me crazy. At least 3 weeks from start to finish isn’t terrible, but I’m definitely used to it moving faster. It’s also nice that had my tenants stayed, we’d be getting $1,275, and now we’re getting $1,350. Thus far, this lady hasn’t asked for much. We struggled with the utilities getting into her name. For some reason, the utility companies credited my accounts and billed it directly to her, so I didn’t even need to work on capturing that money from her, which was nice.

November Financial Update

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Another month, and another delayed post while I juggle life. These numbers are mostly based on last Wednesday’s market close. I had big intentions of writing this on Thursday last week.

RENTALS

Our rental that we purchased a month ago is still vacant. It’s a commercial loan, so the first payment was just made on it yesterday. It always hurts to pay those bills without income. I’ve spent some time cleaning it. It looked fine if you just did a quick glance. But the details were terrible. I wiped down all the walls in the house and all the outlets and switch plates, which were extremely necessary. I wiped the baseboards with their first clean using the mop, but I’ll need to go back and do a wipe with something that gets directly on it. We were excited that the house didn’t need painted, but the closets are a bit of a mess. If I decide to make the time, I’ll throw some fresh paint on some parts. The bathrooms were pretty bad, and they’re about 70% done being cleaned. Maintenance wise, we just needed to replace a missing cabinet door pull, clean out the air return vent, and do a few random small fixes with caulk and screws. I’ve shown in several times. I even had a lease drawn up for one person, but it fell through.

We’ve had issues with our two new tenants getting their utilities in their name. We had one in Virginia who claimed she tried to get the water bill in her name and it just wasn’t happening. She always paid the day I sent the bill to her, so I just let it go. This past month was terrible. It took her over a month to get it paid, and I threatened to turn it off so that it would force her to get it in her name and keep me (and my property manager) out of it. One in Lexington was annoying that she didn’t get it done, and she’s not very communicative. Then the other in Winchester had to go in person to get the water in her name, so that wasn’t surprising that it took a while.

PERSONAL

Our 3rd kid got off the waitlist for preschool! Our beloved preschool closed down last year. Everyone flocked to this other preschool. I followed the “rules” and did things “ethically,” but we got waitlisted. Long story. I wasn’t pushing for him to be in preschool in the 2s year (he’ll be 3 next week, but our age cut off here is August 1st). I figured I’d push really hard in the next couple of months to make sure he got a spot for next year. This place I want him to go to has a lot more spots for 3 year olds than 2 year olds, so I had high expectations we’d get a spot next year. Well, we got the email a couple of weeks ago that there was room available for him! It’s a longer day than we’re used to, but he’s so excited to go to school. He asks to go to the playground daily, so that’s going to be nice that he’ll have TWO playground times twice a week. I can’t wait to hear all his stories.

My work schedule has me in the office for half a day on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. We’re going to look into adjusting that in January to account for the days he’s in school so that I can actually enjoy some kid free (guilt free…no strict schedules and babysitter availability) time since 2018.

We paid off the 0% interest card that was sitting at $14,000. It didn’t bother me to have that balance sitting there because it was for a good reason, but it sure does feel good to have that off our plate. Our spending has been relatively low the last few months. This month will see a small spike because I have’t preemptively bought any Christmas gifts, so that will likely be a large purchase amount later this week. We’re also in the market for camping gear since we took the kids camping this past weekend and noted a few gaps in our equipment.

SUMMARY

We’re up $1.5 million from 2 years ago, which is a cool number to see. Considering we paid off large credit card balances, I’m surprised our net worth only went up about $5k since last month. I updated the value of the houses in the past few weeks, so that’s where the hit is. Home values are expected to go down in the Fall, so I like to capture that adjustment from the higher values that appear in the Spring. Our cash value obviously went down since it went towards credit card payments and a down payment on a house (except it only decreased by $11k).

Prepping a New House

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I put more effort into this house than I usually do between the time that we bought it and the time that we got it rented. The house was almost double what we’ve bought any other house for, and I wanted to be sure we could get the rent we wanted for it. Looking back, I probably didn’t need to make it as good as I did, and it’s definitely not perfect. If I were listing it for sale, I should have painted baseboards and taken doors off hinges and sprayed them instead of cleaning them.

In the past, I’ve had to paint a room or two. We may have needed to replace an appliance. But typically, we’re buying houses that have recently been flipped at 50% effort and are good enough for a renter. Two houses have been in poor shape that needed more TLC. One we had to replace the carpet, clean heavily, and paint nearly everything. Another house needed an easy wipe down, but required everything to be painted, down to the trim. And truly, had the owner paid a few thousand to get the place painted, they probably could have gotten 10k more on the house (but the owner didn’t even pay their electric bill, so that’s not surprising).

NEW HOUSE

The house we just purchased wasn’t prepped for sale. It was an off-market deal. We came to an agreement that they wouldn’t need to come back to town to clean, refinish a floor that the dogs ruined, or paint. As such, we got at least 10k off the price. They were going to list at $250k, and probably would have gotten competitive offers and going higher than list, and we got it for a net $240k. I then put 14 hours of effort into the house.

The owners had a bedroom dedicated to the dogs. They didn’t do significant damage, but they did enough. The closet doors needed to be repainted, the baseboards and windowsills needed to be sanded, cleaned, and repainted. The floor was damaged and we thought needed to be refinished. The walls were covered in slobber, dirt, and scuffs. That was the worst room of the house. The kitchen was covered in grossness, and I put a lot of elbow grease into that. I was going to hire a cleaner, but the bathrooms ended up not being so dirty, so I figured I could glove-up and get it done.

PAINT

The whole house needed to be painted. I picked my battles and painted all of the 2100 sf except for the kitchen (which is covered by cabinets and I didn’t want to cut into all that or move the fridge), one bedroom that had the least amount of scuffed walls, and the upstairs bathroom. I chose painting over cleaning the walls because I didn’t see the benefit of cleaning. I would have eliminated some dog slobber and a few scuffs, but it wouldn’t have gotten the two years worth of dirt and rubbing and splatter of whatever off the walls. So I kept a rag with me and wiped the dust off where I could see it, but I just painted over everything else because I thought that would be the most efficient use of my time.

I repainted the closet doors in the dog bedroom. In the hallway, I repainted the attic door and the floor molding. Most of the other floor molding needed to be wiped down, and in some rooms, I painted the wall paint along the top of the molding instead of getting the white paint out or cleaning it. All of the closets needed to be painted, but I wasn’t going to put that effort in just for it to likely get scuffed again.

REFINISHING THE FLOOR

Mr. ODA handled this and did awesome. We thought the floor needed refinishing in this one bedroom. We researched how to do it and everything. Then my mom mentioned “Rejuvenate” floor product. Mr. ODA looked at the floor and concluded it was the top coat that was roughed up, and that the stain and coloring was still there. He saw such a difference, that he actually used it on the rest of the hardwood flooring! It’s not perfect, but it was the most bang for our buck in the process to address something that definitely needed to be addressed.

CLEANING

I was going to hire a cleaner, but I ended up needing a break from the hand position of holding a brush one day. I started using some degreaser to get through the dirt. The kitchen was disgusting. It’s one thing to leave some debris behind because you didn’t do a final clean as you got out the door, but this was two years of food splatter caked onto the cabinets and backsplash. The refrigerator had been cleaned, but the freezer still had food and left over explosion remnants.

I’ve never cleaned an oven. I may have wiped a couple of things out after the initial mess got made, but have never had a dirty enough oven to need to really clean it. This was horrendous. I put 45 minutes worth of effort into. It’s not perfect, but it’s good enough. In the first picture, I had already cleaned two layers off the door and scrubbed half the bottom of the oven. Then the second picture is where I left it. I’m sad I didn’t get a true before picture to show just how awful it was. The right side of the first picture is actually the dirt that was in there and not the cleaner yet.

The bathrooms were pretty clean and just needed a wipe down. I swept the whole house and mopped the floors. I cleaned multiple windows because they were bad enough that I didn’t even want to look at them anymore.

YARD WORK

I don’t know if the people who flipped the house in 2019 didn’t fix up the yard, or if this mess was really just 2 years worth. The driveway was covered in mud and leaves. I swept it all up to be sure that there wasn’t any broken glass (there was glass in the yard) and to give the new people a fresh start of clean. I didn’t take a before picture, but you can tell where there had been piles of ick sitting in this picture. I filled the yard waste container with everything that was built up on the long driveway.

Before I could mow the yard, I had to pick up a lot of twigs that had dropped. There were a few big branches that I need to come back to, but I filled the fire pit with all the twigs that I got out of my way. The grass in the backyard is in good shape, and I was able to get it looking good with the mower. The front yard is lacking on grass. I laid some seed and hoped for the best, but hopefully it will be in good shape one day.

RANDOMS

The front bedroom light wouldn’t turn on. I went to replace the light bulb, and it’s all one unit, as in you can’t get to the light bulb! We had replaced some flush mount lights with fans in the kids’ bedrooms here, so I brought one of the lights to the house. Turns out, mounting brackets aren’t all created equal, and I couldn’t install the new/old light fixture. I bought a new light to install and got that done on my first attempt.

I had to wipe down the shiplap wall that goes down into the basement. It’s a pretty feature, but it was covered in more yuck. A few trim pieces weren’t painted well by the people who flipped the house, but I didn’t want to break out my different color white paint and fix it. Hopefully it’s small enough of an issue that you don’t notice too much. If it were me living there, it would drive me crazy.

The pantry had two shelves that were stained by cans. Instead of cleaning it or trying to repaint it white (over caked on debris with white paint that always requires 3 coats), I put contact paper over them. Is it necessary? No. Does it give a little extra step to make your tenants appreciate the house and want to take care of it? Yes.

The kitchen flip wasn’t done perfectly, and the caulking was cracked everywhere. I recaulked everything along the backsplash in the kitchen. Then I also caulked the bathroom tub, which really made a difference in making a clean, fresh look. There were a few pieces of shoe molding that came apart from the baseboard, so I caulked a few of those areas too.

SUMMARY

We spent under $300 and 14 hours worth of time. Two of those hours were spent showing the house to about 10 prospective tenants during an open house. The house looked in good shape when I handed it over to the new tenants. I’m hoping that they’ll love it like a home and take good care of it, since they saw the effort I put into it. It was definitely worth putting that effort in to save the 10k+ on the cost and to avoid anymore bidding wars in today’s crazy market.