on the level
A Stitch in Time...
by Terry Meany
In the past few months, I have traveled twice to Cleveland, Ohio, to take care of family matters. Each visit led me back to the family home, an old and sizable Tudor that my parents bought in 1959 from the original owners. At that time, it needed the updates one would expect after a few decades of use. A parade of painters, plumbers and carpenters followed; and after some weeks passed, the family moved to what simply became known as “Edgewater,” named after its street location.
Almost 50 years later, now that my parents have both passed way, Edgewater needs new owners to upgrade and overhaul it as my parents once did. The house has been maintained to a point, but that point kept inching outward over the years as my parents entered their 80s and, in the case of my mother, her early 90s. Now, as the house is being prepared for sale, deferred maintenance abounds in the form of plaster cracks, chipped paint, hard to operate windows, deteriorated roofing and old everything. Some work has been done but not enough in my opinion, and in a wretched real-estate market every flaw is a hindrance to selling.
Thus my harping in these columns on regular, scheduled, ongoing maintenance. Harping, whose etymology includes Old Low German, Old High German, Old Norse and the Old English hearpe, has no parental association, but easily relates to the same tedious advice and counsel repeatedly heard and often ignored from parental figures. We later discover, as Mark Twain so succinctly stated, “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.” This advice occasionally has merit, even today.
I have no illusions that anyone likes maintenance—even maintenance people whose livelihood revolves around it. Everything wears down, including us, and if we expect a property (or ourselves) to last, we have to commit the time, effort and money to maintenance. This goes beyond simply appearances and preventing larger repairs later. Severe injuries, lawsuits, costly litigation and even jail time can result from lackadaisical maintenance, as has been evidenced by deck and railing collapses, unseen water and mold damage due to leaking roofs, and injuries from loose, falling terra cotta or other masonry materials in buildings across the country. No, there isn’t a nationwide epidemic of falling bricks or bathtubs crashing through rotted floors, but it only takes one incident to make your life miserable.
In addition, deferred maintenance can take longer and be messier than ongoing maintenance. For instance, if you have a varnished exterior door that gets its share of weather exposure, it should be recoated once a year. Skip it for a few years or longer and you’ll be stripping, sanding and completely refinishing that same door. Recoating beats refinishing every time.
Harry Truman found this out the hard way. The White House was in such disrepair when he was president that he spent most of his second presidential term living across the street in Blair House. Years of unrestricted drilling and poking through structural framing to install pipes, wires, duct work, phone lines, elevators and alarm systems had weakened the building so much there was some discussion of tearing it down. With no reinforcement or allowance for load-bearing walls during these installations, the decision was made to gut the interior and install new load-bearing steel framing followed by a reconstruction of the original rooms. Talk about deferred maintenance (as well as boneheaded additions).
Plans, Checklists and Photographs
Attentive building owners have maintenance plans. Others stay vigilant and do work based on their observations of need. A remaining group simply reacts eventually to tenant complaints. A maintenance plan makes life easier and avoids surprises.
An Excel spreadsheet allows you to record each unit along with a list of maintenance tasks, the date servicing was performed, time and materials required and the cost. You can insert data about when appliances were replaced, electrical services updated and the frequency of repairs. This last item helps determine if replacement or a different maintenance approach is called for should repairs be occurring more often than experience would suggest.
These plans not only help you stay on top of your maintenance, but can back you up in the event of legal actions challenging your claims that repairs were rendered.
Every repair should be accompanied by a checklist, signed by the person doing the repairs, which would include the date of the repair, unit number and address, tenant name, condition before and after the work was completed, materials used, additional notes on the general condition of the repaired area or item, and recommendations, if any, for additional work. This gives you a paper copy from which to upload the Excel file as well as backup documentation. Take photographs before and after repairs are done, so you don’t have to depend on verbal or written descriptions to validate the completed work. Digital cameras are inexpensive; buy enough for you and/or your maintenance crew(s) so each of you can upload the photos into your own computer folders.
Beyond Maintenance
Normally, in my autumn columns, I discuss the usual end-of-the-year maintenance: inspect and patch the roof, hire a heating contractor to inspect the furnace or boiler, touch up any peeling exterior paint and so on. These are all valid concerns and better dealt with before the cold and rain start.
At the risk of straying outside my normal writing comfort zone, I offer a few suggestions that could improve your relationship with your tenants; this can pay off when what could become a contentious maintenance issue becomes less so because a certain goodwill exists beyond the financial relationship between a tenant and a landlord.
If you have a sufficient number of tenants—and I can’t define that number—consider writing a monthly or quarterly newsletter, sent either by email or hard copy. Newsletter content varies from what’s going on locally to job openings to pie recipes. It doesn’t have to be more than a few pages and could feature a classified ads section available to your tenants (although Craigslist is pretty much the destination for free want ads). Another alternative is a blog, which can provide you with insights into how your tenants perceive you, your managers and the condition of your buildings.
Some local businesses will offer discounts to various clientele, such as employees of certain businesses, students and seniors. A large tenant base might be offered discounts as well. Make some inquiries. Even 10% off a restaurant tab or movie tickets is worth something.
An occasional pizza party, especially if you can get discounted pizzas, does wonders for tenant relations.
I am not proposing a love fest. Some apartment-industry writers promote keeping more than an arm’s distance from tenants, with all contacts on a business level. Fair enough. However, think of the merchants and businesses you patronize. All things being equal, we are more apt to return to those where we are recognized by checkout clerks or our names are remembered by the owners. The relationship normally begins and ends at the door unless you happen to unexpectedly run into one of these individuals outside of the business.
We all have different levels of relationships. There are neighbors you nod and say hello to and neighbors who become close friends, as well as work colleagues, so-so friends, and the other dog walkers you run into whose names you rarely know, but they know you’re walking Lucky, the same as you know the names of their mutts. The better you or someone in your management team knows your tenants, I believe, the better handle you’ll have on the condition of your buildings and their maintenance requirements.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of the SFAA or the SF Apartment Magazine. Terry Meany is a former contractor and landlord. He is now a full-time writer and author of Working Windows: A Guide to the Repair and Restoration of Wood Windows, soon to be in its third edition from Lyons Press. He is cost conscious but not cheap, and he knows deferred maintenance always costs more in the end. He can be reached at tfmeany@msn.com. Copyright © 2008 by Black Point Press. All rights reserved.