Welcome to Chez Cliff!

First off, I’m sending a shout-out to former "Oakley Girl".  Thanks to her generousity, I’ve got a brand new ceiling fan to install in the second house.  Price tag for this little treasure:  FREE!  I like ‘free’.  ‘Free’ is good.

Now on with the carpet.

At the behest of a co-worker, I made a voyage to Anaheim to check out carpet.  The carpet place in Santa Ana that my real estate agent told me to check out is closed today.  But, this store in Anaheim was open so I figured that I’d go and check it out.

I met my new best friend today while in Anaheim.  His name is Mike.  When I approached Mike, I already had it in my head that I was going to negotiate with him.  My objective was quite simple:  I wanted $16/square yard.  To do this, I planned on telling him what my budget was and then challenge him to meet my budget.  Since I have 50 square yards, I figured my budget to be $800.  Actually, I had a budget of $1200 planned out initially.  But I remembered a conversation I had with my mentor.  He told me "Cliff, it’s not how much you spend but how much you keep."

He’s right.

So when I talked to Mike, I told him I was on a budget.  He asked what that budget was.  Feeling a little full of myself, I said "$700 firm".  He said "Right this way."  He proceeded to take me to a whole stack of carpet that was $14/square yard.  I almost hugged him!  But realizing that a physical gesture of that magnitude might take away my bargaining power, I played it cool and just touched the carpet.

I mumbled "Well, it’s alright . . ."

He then said that he had "rental carpet" . . . which made my ears perk up.  Right behind me, was several stacks of carpet specifically for rental units.  Price tag was set at $12/square yard.  Incredible!

So was it worth the trip?  You bet!  It’s coming on Thursday. 

Here comes a smooth segue.

I realized tonight that I truly miss cooking in my own kitchen.  Living a semi-nomadic lifestyle has brought me to the brink of finding any take-off food completely repulsive.  Nothing beats a home cooked meal.

Tonight, we had a meal worthy of kings.  We had white fish, lightly sauteed along with shrimp, stuffed mushrooms, Italian style peas and my favorite, a baguette.  For dessert, I made something straight out of my Larousse Gastronomique.  Vanilla sauteed bananas!

This is soooo easy to do.

Vanilla sauteed Bananas Take some firm bananas and lightly sauté in a vanilla syrup.  Place in a bowl, or plate, and serve with ice cream.  For an added touch, put a little chocolate sauce either on the plate or drizzle it on top. But Cliff, I don’t have vanilla syrup! Easy. Bring to boil 1 cup water with 2/3 cup sugar.  Whisk until sugar is completely dissolved.  Add 1 tablespoon of vanilla and set aside to cool.

There are reasons why I am not an interior decorator.

My real estate agent looked at me today and with a stern gaze said "You can’t have aluminum, wooden, and vinyl windows all on the same house!"

I didn’t know that.

"Oh yes Cliff," he continued.  "We are not white trash.  We do things consistantly."

He’s right.

The good news is that this comment was the worst he had to say today.  He didn’t say anything negative about anything else.  Which means he likes it.  And like a strict-school master, where fault is found everywhere, he surveyed my houses.  I followed him, pad and pen in hand, taking notes of everything he said.  Every point of his finger was followed with a "Do this" command which I quickly wrote down.  It was crazy!  I will admit that the dude knows his stuff when it comes to fixing up properties. 

So let’s talk about a few other things.

First, I finally finished painting the interior of the house!  Go me!  I forgot yesterday that the interior doors need to be painted.  Well, between last night and this morning I finally got that taken care of.

It’s all good!

Second, the real estate agent gave me the name of a lady he uses that does all the carpets in all his units.  All I have to do is mention his name and I get the "family discount".  I certainly hope so because I need every discount I can get.

Third, the brand new homes that are going in right behind mine?  Well, I had a chance to glance at some literature today regarding these homes.  The starting asking price for those homes is $700,000.  That is WAY more than I paid for mine.  You can imagine that something like this would get me a little fired up.

And last but not least, the future tenants.  Today, I had person number 12 approach me regarding renting out the back house.  I am just overwhelmed by the response I’ve gotten and yet I haven’t advertised a single bit.  Yes, it was a neighbor who knows someone.  But who cares?  The demand is there!  So I started contemplating today that the rent figure I have in mind may not sufficient enough to reflect the supply and demand in the area.

Both my real estate agent and my loan officer have told me that I’m not asking for enough rent.  At the time, I couldn’t see someone paying that much for the back house.  But now, I’m thinking differently.  Who knows?

I still have work to do in the house.  The bathroom and kitchen areas need to be santized top to bottom.  And that’s alright because I’m hiring a professional cleaning crew for that.  It won’t be that much because it’s only two small rooms.  It’s not the entire house!

So what’s on the agenda for tomorrow?

• Carpet:  I’ve delayed long enough and the carpet gets ordered.
• Bungalow Screen Doors:  I’ve been told that there is a special wooden screen door that goes with Bungalow houses.  I’m going to see what this special door looks like.

And that’s it.  The results of tomorrow will determine my schedule for next week.

This will be fun!

It’s time for a shameless infomercial here.

I’ve noticed a trend in new products lately.  This may not be new to some but to me, it was a revelation.  It appears that anything that can be disposable will be disposable.  And those things that are not will soon be.

In my 437th trip to Home Depot this week, I came across an item that struck me.  Rags.  I’m always looking for rags to do . . . just about everything.  The problem is that the rags I purchase always seem to leave lint behind.  Following my parents formula means giving up old clothes for rags . . . which I can’t do because they’re all locked up in storage.

However some clever individual figured out a way to make disposable
rags.  No, I’m not refering to paper towels.  No siree, this is full on
disposable rags and they come in a box.

As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to have it.  Not only is this box full of mess managing rags but there’s all kinds of useful things I can do with it!  Like I can sit on it and cry when I stare out the window at all the "stuff" in the yard! There are a bunch of red dots on the top also.  Each dot corresponds to a diameter size.  Let’s say 1 inch or 1.5 inches.  There are little animal pictures next to each dot so I know which diameter stick I need to kill that spider!  According to the box, 2 and 3/8 inches should do the trick nicely! There’s even a handy english-metric conversion chart.  When talking to the handy man, I can carry this box with me and tell him how many liters of paint the house will require.  Now won’t that be confusing! But wait, there’s more! If you act now, there’s a 4 inch ruler printed on the side of the box!  This is the same ruler NASA engineers used to design the Space Shuttle, Moon Boots and Pez Dispensers!

Alright, enough of that.

So as promised, I’ve got more photos.  First, I snapped a shot of the house with the primer on it.  I’ve learned that if you’re going with dark colors, you use dark primer.  Heck my car still looks good sitting in my drive way!

The nice thing about having the painting done is that all those cracks in the siding are getting fixed and buffed out.  I snapped a quick photo.

And now ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and the rest of you . . . I’m proud to announce the return of the "WTF" section.  After a week of hibernation, new photos will be posted to show what else can possibly be found!

Without further adieu (that’s French), here we go!

Just when I thought that my tenants couldn’t possible put anymore "stuff" in the yard, voila!  More "stuff" appears!  And now it’s right between the houses!  I think it’s safe to say that I can cancel the yard mowing services with Jorge and the boys.  There’s barely any grass left to see!

But wait!  There’s more!

Here I am, thinking this whole time that "stuff" only collects on the ground.  Well low and behold it can collect on the roof as well!  I saw this little ditty today and nearly lost my marbles!  Do people still say that?  "I lost my marbles"?

You see, when you discontinue satellite service you must return the satellite dish to the provider.  If not then they try to charge you, send collection agencies after you . . . but they keep harassing you until they get their dish back.  And because I actually have this crazy idea of renting out this house, guess who gets to take the satellite dish down?  That’s right, this guy!!

It’s been a few days since I blogged.

So on Monday and Tuesday of this week, we had hard rain.  Not that sissy stuff.  No, this was sheets of water just pouring down.

Guess what?  My tenants left all their crap outside.  All those baby carriages, those mattresses . . . I guess they really don’t care about any of their stuff.

The painters have started.  Yeah!  The outside of the front house is nearly primed.  It seems weird seeing a grey house sitting where the blue thing once sat.  But it’s going through it’s paces.  And they are fixing holes, filling cracks, etc. as they go.  Which is really nice.

I’ll get some photos up here soon.  I promise!

I have spent the last few days doing purely touch up work on the second house.  I see spots that I missed, I painted them and then look for other spots.  I also found this aerosol texture stuff to spray onto the wall.  Where I repaired the cracks, there is not a giant flat spot.  The texture stuff sprays onto the flat spots and gives them the appearance as the rest of the wall.  I paint over the texture stuff and voila!

For this weekend, I’m finishing the last remaining items.  The baseboards (I guess that’s what they’re called) will receive their last coat of paint.  Then I’m done with painting.

The next step:  Carpet.  I’ve come to the conclusion that the laminate flooring isn’t feasible right now.  I wanted too . . . but my handy-man from craigslist disappeared.  I’m a little too nervous about doing it myself so I decided that carpet will do.  I’ll have the entire place carpeted and when my next tenant leaves I’ll get the flooring in there.

Speaking of tenants, the number of inquiries that I’ve had into this house has been extraordinary.  I had two just today!  I’m beginning to wonder if I’m charging enough for it.  I may bump it up a hundred dollars or so.  I guess the idea of breaking the yard into two areas has really got people buzzing.

I’m quite excited about that!

I’ll keep my blog updated during the weekend.

With regards to this issue with "40 ouncer", it has been suggested that I need to be culturally sensitive to his needs and try and understand them.

Maybe I’m getting cranky but the cultural sensitivity has to stop.  While I’m bending over backwards to be "culturally sensitive" someone else is being culturally insensitive.  It is as plain and as simple as that.

In this case, it isn’t even an issue about being culturally sensitive.  It is about respect.

I really do try and keep race out of this blog and when I’m dealing with these people.  Yes, I complain about them quite a bit and some of the disgusting things that they do.  But in the end, I don’t feel that "40 ouncers" actions are because he is Hispanic.  He does these things because he’s angry and I’ve been selected as the vent for his anger.

I will not apologize because I refuse to learn how to satisfy the cultural needs of someone else while I’m on my own property.  If I ask someone to turn down a radio, it’s not because I’m a racist.  It is because the music is too loud and I don’t want to hear it! 

If I want to be on my property and not be afraid then that’s my right to do so.  If he violates that right, I’ll be the first person to punch someone in the face if they tell me that "It’s alright.  It’s part of their culture.  They can physically hurt you and that’s ok.  You have to accept that."

The number of days are ticking down until they leave.  Today is 16 and counting.  Between now and then, I’ll be spending even more time on the property.  And I will not be afraid.

ROAR!