In a recent post, I asked the question, “Do you do your own repairs?”

I don’t want to rehash that post, but just give you a personal example of why it’s important to have a network, even if YOU do most of your own repairs.

Last Saturday, I came down with some kind of terrible virus. This one hit me hard. I felt like I had the flu (“Swine flu?”, you ask. Well, I don’t know… maybe. I went to the doctors, but they didn’t test me for it. If it was swine flu, I don’t wish it on anyone.). The next day, Sunday, I felt even worse. That was also the day that one of my tenants in a unit about a half hour away phoned me to tell me they had a problem with their water heater– as in, NO hot water.

So, here I am, 7pm at night on the phone with the tenant. I feel achy. My eyes hurt. I am getting chills which are alternating with periods of hot sweats and I’m totally exhausted. My first reaction was to tell the tenant that it was probably the pilot light on the water heater, hoping they might know how to relight it and take care of the problem. The issues with that line of reasoning, unfortunately, are that neither do they know how to relight it or am I comfortable with them attempting to do it anyway.

I tell the tenant I will be there first thing the next day (Monday). They hang up relatively happy and I’m now thinking how I can beat traffic on Monday morning to get there as quick as possible and hope I’m feeling OK. However, Monday morning I wake up, not much better than the day before, and after vomiting, realize that “it ain’t gonna happen.”

It’s now 8am and I call my plumber. This guy is good. He’s responsive. He knows the property and is familiar with some of the tenants. Most importantly… at 8am, he answers the phone. I sound so bad, initially he doesn’t recognize me. In under two minutes, he’s got the info he needs, tells me not to worry and assures me he’ll take care of it. He does and, in fact, it wasn’t the pilot light like I thought, but another issue which he easily fixes– but would have stumped me. And, while he was there, he headed off another major problem that was developing, which I would have had to call him for that day anyway.

So, my acute illness reaffirmed two important lessons for me. First, having a personal network of repairmen and contractors that can help out in a pinch is very important. Second, concentrating on calling these professionals in the beginning, rather than trying to do it on my own first, is a smarter business plan for me. Even if I had been feeling well, going out to the property and trying to take care of that issue myself would have resulted in at least an hour and a half or two hours of my time. Time that would have been wasted because I couldn’t fix the problem anyway. I don’t mind spending money on a valid repair. And I don’t mind spending time to diagnose or fix one, if I can save enough money. But I hate spending money AND time, when I could have just paid a repairman or contractor a reasonable price for the repair and spent almost none of my own time in the process.

Hopefully, you never get have a rental repair issue while you are ill, or on vacation, or at work. But, since it IS likely to happen at some point, my advice is– start putting together your own personal network of repairmen and contractors. And… learn when to stop wasting your time.

Regards,
Steven A. Boorstein

Landlord & Author