Dominion's Profile

It's not a huge repair...one piece of leftover drywall, and bit of mud, prime and paint and she's done. There is no mold. It just won't take paint.

In BC, the tenant has to provide a reasonable amount of time for the repair, and then can take action alone and remove the repair of costs from rent. At that point, the landlord either sucks it up, or it all ends up at the branch. Personally, I'd just suck it up, but there are landlords that will go the distance.

This is worthy of a post? Surely we can come up with something more interesting than a simple color change, one, I might add that is so insignificant that people can't tell between the before and after.

We manage 84 units, between 5 buildings. In 2 of the buildings, we go through and completely update as much as possible. To bring it in on budget, thats painting the existing cabinets, sadly :( Anyway, here's a question we get asked: can we paint? Technically, here according to the paperwork you can if you paint it back. I make people sign that they will not paint the unit. If they live there for 5 years, then we'll talk.

Here's my issue with tenant run "renos" and modifications. People say they can do all kinds of stuff until you see their end result. My adding the no painting clause was a direct result of a paint job in one building that had more paint on the floor, ceiling, the front door and multiple other areas than on the walls. Another group was told, "neutrals" and we got bright blue, dark blue trim and fuscia. It was horrendous. AND it was right by the front door so every single person entering the building saw it. It looked like the big top at a redneck circus. So I killed it for all. We chose a color called "versatile grey"-which, PS I would LOVE to show you all, but as I have sent multiple e-mails to AT that I might be worthy of a post and failed to even get a 'no', alas it was not to be :(Anyway, the point is, I chose a color that isn't standard beige, and put a lot of thought into creating apartments that may not exactly match the specific tastes of the renters, at least they can take solace in that someone(ie.me) has made a choice on materials and colors, and hasn't grabbed the most neutral, and cheapest materials in the bin.

If I walked in and saw tenants in the middle of raping the ceiling of its popcorn texture, I would flip out. Move in, and live your life. If you were looking for a before photo for your personal tastes, you should have mentioned that when you looked at the place.

It's a little too symmetrical, but I love the color!

WOW! You guys really took my comments way out of line.

My apartments are among the best in my neighborhood. Every unit that comes empty in this building gets a full reno done by myself and my renovation company. We are not slumlords by any stretch of the definition.

However, I can certainly see where my comments could be misconstrued.

First, my desire to minimize complaints makes our days manageable. I'm not sorry about that, I'm being honest. There are people that present themselves as the type that are prone to complaining. I'm not adverse to fixing any legitimate problems that anyone has. I am adverse to the people that want me to cut down trees because they think they are allergic to them...true story. Or that the lights in the garden are too bright-they contribute to light pollution. Yet another true story.

I seek great tenants for great apartments. We could honestly charge more for the units we offer. Complete reno's...not "let's paint the walls and call it reno'd" apartments. We consider it to be more important to find great people.

My comments about mold are actually to be positive. I honestly don't know, and can't know until I'm in the walls. Anyone that says otherwise would be lying to you unless they have pulled the drywall and replaced. So for people to hear my honest answer and then be happy to move next door where obviously the rental agent lied in their answer-who's being the bad landlord?

I'm being honest in my assessment. My tenants get the same level of honesty, and isn't that something you'd look for? You may not always get the answer you are looking for, but at least you know it to be true.

And on my final point, we spend on average about $6-7k per apartment when they come available, including quite a bit on paint. No I don't want you to re-paint it when you move in. I just spent a significant portion of my time doing this.

Seriously guys, you can put away the pitchforks.

A little flip side: I am a landlord. We are responsible or semi-responsible for 84 rental units in 5 buildings and our personal townhouse that we can"t afford to live in.

When someone would come in and ask to see inside the filter of a heater or AC unit, I'd do everything possible to have you not live there. I rarely get asked about mold, but my answer is always the same, "i don't think so, but the building is 50 years old. If you are highly allergic, don't move here." So they move into the building next door that was built in the same year ;)

We tend to look for tenants that are low on the "wingy" scale. You'll spot winginess by the questions asked and the way people present themselves. With 84 tenants, I try to minimize the amount of calls I get, and I do that by weeding out the people that are going to call me with ridiculous complaints, and not like the place because I won't let them change it. I had an apartment that was painted bright blue and fuscia the last time we said they can paint. That will never happen again.