Slumlords!

The owner of the house next door to our building lot, an upstairs/downstairs duplex that is being rented to college students, put the house up for sale last fall. Anne and I discussed our options, and we decided it would save a lot of headaches long term to actually be able to control who rents the house next door to our home...and as a big bonus (particularly for Anne), we can nestle the new house near the nice big trees on the lot. So we bought the property last Friday. The address is 513 S. Franklin St., and it's just south of our lot.


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We quickly realized the joys of owning a rental house. The tenants called on Tuesday (yes, 4 days after close) complaining of a leaky shower. The previous owner, a state rep named Steve Nass who, despite being kind of a hardcore Republican is also an incredibly nice, honest guy (I know--how can that be!?!) told us there was something going on that he hadn't been able to figure out, so it wasn't a surprise. Anyway, we've already had the plumber over to fix that, and the electricians over to make some improvements...we still have to bring in our tree trimmer guy and somebody to install a new water heater. This is all stuff that we knew about when we bought the house, but still stuff to deal with. I think we're just less comfortable with maintenance than Steve was, so we're just getting it fixed so we won't have to deal with it on a regular basis...this stuff will be much less of an issue long-term.

In other news:

...Colin claims he's going to start demo of Lou's house next week. The gas got shut off yesterday (Thursday the 24th) so he's clear to smash. In addition to the bulldozer, he also delivered a skidster on a big flatbed earlier this weel.

...Anne wants to build a boardwalk down by the lake, so I'm meeting with a friend next week who will do that work.

...I need to put some gutters on the barn to catch rainwater. Anybody know how to hang gutters on a wavy roofline?

Teardown is gonna happen!

Our demo guy Colin says he's going to start tearing down Lou's house the week of July 21. He has already parked a small bulldozer in the back yard, and Olive has been learning how to drive it so she should be ready to roll by next Monday. WE Energies has disconnected the electrical (the worker drove right over a bed of evergreens with his huge truck, but he somehow managed to miss every plant so no harm, no foul) but they still need to disconnect the gas line. After that's done, Colin will knock the house down in a couple days. I'll be hanging around the job to see if anything interesting, valuable or re-usable comes bubbling to the surface.

Not a lot to report on the plans right now. Gary, our architect, has had some serious problems with all the recent flooding in our area, so his mind has generally been elsewhere. Still, I think we've made some breakthroughs on our floorplan lately so I think we're regaining our momentum. Hopefully more to come soon!