you've heard that the one-eyed man......

is king in the land of the blind?  But how about being the only sane person in the land of the maniacs, what does that get you? Maybe I shouldn't call myself sane, maybe like the one-eyed man I can be the half-wit in the land of the clueless.  Sometimes I get caught up in all the drama or BS and get worked up, upset, worried, depressed, whatever unhealthy emotion that is really a roadblock and doesn't take me anywhere I want to be.   Maybe the next day when I wake up or later I'm doing something totally unrelated the solution just comes to me....and would have been easier to find all along without the emotional roadblocks. Maybe later I'll revise this and add a narration of the actual craziness that happened last night and today.  It would either be entertaining to read or boring.   But I think calmness carried the day. Think about the people you know that respond calmly to everything instead of getting all flustered.  You know Mother Teresa and that other guy.  How much easier is life for them? I own some rental properties.  It's not something I ever wanted to do and the last 20 years has proven to me that it's a business for hard people without compassion.  We bought this property that my house is on and there's room for 4 houses.  It can't really be separated so the choice was to let it sit vacant and cost us money or develop it and hope we'll have an income in our senior years, now coming quickly.  For now I'm collecting the rents when I can and the bank, tax collector, insurance company and repairs takes it away from me.  The only profit I make is the wealth of hassles.    When I treat tenants with kindness or like they are friends it ALWAYS bites me in the ass.  I've come to accept that will happen but it always hurts.  I have to be the kind caring person I am and they have to be the poor trashy people who think it's ok to take advantage of the rich landlord.  Once in a while we get a no-hassle tenant who keeps the place clean, pays the rent on time and doesn't have drama that spills out and disturbs the neighbors, but that's rare. We've had people move out and leave so much trash that the pile in front of the house (after we drug it out) was about as big as the house, and people who've left a houseful of furniture so broken down that Goodwill didn't want it.  It's pretty common to have dogs that pee on the carpets every day, fleas that take several treatments to get rid of and doors kicked in by angry drunks.  In fact these days I only replace with steel doors.  These particular tenants haven't been too bad most of the time.  They removed my mature citrus trees but sometimes after the deed is done you don't have anything to do except cuss a little.  When they initially tried to rent the house their credit wasn't good enough so her parents signed the lease also.  I let them do this because I liked the woman half of the couple.  Not a romantic interest, she was 9 months pregnant and younger than my daughters, she's just a nice person.  The boyfriend/fiance is a know-it-all jerk.  They have the usual record of late payments as they've struggled with life.  This last rent was 11 days late because they traveled out of state over the holidays and didn't have enough money left to pay the rent. So they told me they didn't have as much hot water as they were used to.  Usually that means the bottom element of the hot water heater has burnt out.  My handyman, who lives across the street from them, went over and discovered that the HW heater was leaking and there was some mold.  This is where things went ballistic.  The tenant's last job was helping with tear-outs for mold remediation.  He decided HE should tear out the entire bathroom where the HW heater is and went crazy when I told him no.   He thinks he's an expert now on mold remediation, after being let go by a company that cheated him out of half his pay.  Every sniffle, cold, pimple or rash they've had for the last 3 years is being blamed on this mold which was in an enclosed place, not where it would circulate in the air of the house. I told him NO, I'm not going to gut the bathroom, I'm not going to rip up the linoleum.  I'm going to do exactly the same cleanup as if my own children and grandchildren were living there. Nothing but screaming and argument.  Finally I offered to give him back the rent that had just been paid and they could move.  We went into the living room and told his wife.  Poor woman was so shocked.  They have no where to go except her parents house, and they don't like the boyfriend. I called a friend in the AM whose advice I trust.  He suggests I make the repairs then get a mold test kit at home depot. So in the AM I had about 6 angry calls from him.  If I go in there with my handyman instead of a "licensed professional" he'll have us arrested.  Crap like that.  My friends advice was no good.  And that there was a "notice" taped to the front door that I should come get saying just that.  I found some instructions on the internet for mold remediation.  Just like I thought, clean it with bleach.  I printed them out and went over there to tape them to the door and picked up his notice.  It was very hard to read.  He needs to use a spell-checker.  At the bottom, handwritten, was a note from HER "Dan, Please call me" and her phone number. According to her they're moving the end of February.  In the meantime, please make the repairs.  I'm going to manage it so that the repairs are completed in ONE day.  I'm willing to show my deed and lease to the police.  I'm not worried.  If I'm accused of stealing anything I'll show the police where the drugs are.  Poor people (the ones I've dealt with)  who can't pay the rent always spend their money on cigarrettes, beer and drugs.