Rental House

We are finally making progress on the rental house. We have hired someone to do the wall paper removal, and putting up, mudding and taping, and sanding to "ready to paint" the drywall in the upstairs apartment. Mike is learning how to let go of the control - big sighs as he was looking around at their work last night when he got out of work to check things out. Most of the work was fine, just not how he would have done it. There were a couple issues, but they were addressed last night with the lady in charge of the project. Overall, it will be a good thing. Meanwhile while they work upstairs, I worked downstairs. This house has been empty for years. And Mike knocked down the plaster ceiling, so all that dirt from over the years plus much from the ceiling (he had cleaned up the chunks of plaster, just not swept the dirt and dust) was all over the floor. I have swept in here before, but there is so much stuff all over it was hard to move around. The house had just been left with stuff still sitting in here. We are down to mostly building supplies in here now, and I get a 5 foot round folding table to take home - garage sale destined, since I never have enough tables for my sales. I so badly want to take some Kilz primer to cover the graffitti on the walls down here while I work, but we need to skim coat part of the plaster anyway so it would be a waste of money since I would have to prime again after that. I did get a lot of the vandalism cleaned up - scraped the spay foam off the floors, walls, doors, got rid of the things they broke and the trash they left laying around. I don't think I mentioned that one of these kids was charged as an adult and he pled guilty, his sentencing is sometime in May. The other 2 are charged as minors, and we have another pre-trial hearing on one of them later this week, the one who used to live in an apartment in this house no less. We are going to that one, Mike wants to look this kid and his mother in the eye. We also seem to have a lot of interest in the rentals all of a sudden. The lady doing the work has 2 sons helping her and they both have asked me questions like they were interested in renting. My realator who sold the Sturgis house called me yesterday because I had mentioned the rental to him and he had someone looking for a rental house. I had to tell him we had about a month until it is ready to go. Then today the lady doing the drywall said they had a young friend just engaged who thought the apartment sounded perfect for them. Guess I will bring some rental applications up next time I come and people can start to apply. If they need to give their present landlord 30 days notice the timing would be about right. We figure another month after that and the last appartment will be ready. Then we can concentrate on our projects back home again with the income property taken care of. Overall, things are looking up for us.