Monthly Archives: September 2015

Internet Companies Finally Discover Oakland.

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I have been wondering for a long time when internet companies were going to discover how much cheaper it is to do business in Oakland than San Francisco. Commercial office space in downtown Oakland is half the price of comparable space in San Francisco, just 10 miles away. It seems like that day has finally come. When Capwell’s department store in downtown Oakland opened for business 85 years ago, it was the biggest and most beautiful store in the East Bay. The Beaux Arts building featured an 85 foot high atrium with a domed stained glass roof. After Capwell’s went bankrupt more than 20 years ago, it became a Sears store, but the building was so large that Sears never used all of the space, and they covered up most of the building finer architectural features. After Sears moved out, the building was vacant for many years. The Capwell’s building is now undergoing an expensive renovation. It is being converted into office space for internet companies. Part of the building has already been leased to Uber, which will move 600 employees there from San Francisco. Ultimately the building, renamed Uptown Station, will house about 3,000 high tech workers. The ground floor will be filled with stores and a food court. The roof will become a garden and picnic area. The 19th Street BART station is right next to the building, and there is a direct entrance into the building from the subway station. That is probably the building’s single most valuable asset.

Are You Missing A Smoke Alarm?

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Are there any smoke alarms missing in your apartment? Back when smoke alarms had removable batteries in them, my tenants would sometimes remove the batteries when an alarm went off, usually while they were cooking. (The smoke alarm in my hallway does that all the time when I am using my broiler.) The problem was that some people would fail to put the batteries back in the smoke alarm when they were finished cooking. I have replaced all the smoke alarms in my rentals. Today, all the smoke alarms in my rentals have sealed battery compartments with non-removable batteries in them. It is now illegal to sell or install smoke alarms in California with removable batteries. So the new problem is this –  when a smoke alarm goes off while someone is cooking, a tenant removes the whole smoke alarm from the ceiling and fails to put the alarm back when he is done – and even worse – he puts the alarm someplace where he can’t find it later. Are you missing a smoke alarm? Is there a smoke alarm base ring attached to your ceiling but with no smoke alarm on the ring? If so, let me know immediately. Smoke alarms really do save lives, but they can’t work if you remove them from your ceiling or lose them!

How To Clean A Greasy Stovetop.

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To clean a greasy or sticky stovetop or the wall behind it, a little ammonia straight out of the bottle will quickly solve the problem – and without scrubbing. Nothing dissolves grease as well or as quickly as ammonia. A lot of people don’t buy ammonia because of its unpleasant odor, but keep this in mind. The odd thing about ammonia is that when it evaporates, it leaves no odor behind – none at all. Zero. You can smell most cleaners long after the water in them evaporates, but not ammonia. I recommend using paper towels rather a sponge when using ammonia to remove grease. It can be very hard to get grease out of a sponge. Never mix ammonia with other cleaning agents, especially bleach. Ammonia and bleach react chemically with each other to produce chlorine gas, which is very dangerous. Ammonia is cheap. A large bottle of Parsons sudsy ammonia costs under $2.

Are You Allergic to Penicillin?

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According to the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology; more than 90% of the people who think they are allergic to penicillin actually are not. A lot of people needlessly suffer and sometimes even die because they erroneously believed that they were allergic to penicillin or other antibiotics and told that to a doctor who assumed it was true. If you have been told or believe that you have an allergy to penicillin, get yourself tested by a board-certified allergist, and do it now. Don’t wait until you become sick with a serious disease that is treatable with antibiotics.

Who Should Be On The $10 Bill?

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The Treasury Department announced several months ago that they will be taking Alexander Hamilton off the $10 bill and replacing him with a yet-unnamed woman. At the Republican presidential debate last month, the candidates were asked who they would pick to replace Hamilton. Their answers seemed very strange to me. Some of the candidates named foreigners. Jeb Bush named Margaret Thatcher. John Kasich named Mother Theresa. Pictures of citizens of foreign countries are never put on U.S. money. Other candidates named living people. Living people are, by law, also never put on U.S. money. Mike Huckabee named his wife. Ben Carson named his mother. Personally, I would leave the $10 bill alone. Alexander Hamilton deserves to be on our money. Alexander Hamilton created this country’s financial system, he was the first Secretary of the Treasury, he created the Federalist Party – the world’s first voter-based political party, and he did much, much more. If I was going to make a change to our money, I would stop making pennies. You can’t buy anything for a penny anymore, and more importantly, it now costs the government over 2 cents to make a penny. It is not good business to sell something for 1 cent that costs 2 cents to make.

San Francisco Mummy House Sold.

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For many years I worked for a real estate broker who got listings fairly often on what are known in the business as ‘problem properties’, but nothing as strange as the Mummy House! Even though the sale of houses in San Francisco generate jaw-dropping commissions, I don’t envy the real estate agent who had the listing on this house. The Mummy House looked good on the outside, but inside it was another story. The house was occupied for decades by an eccentric old woman. The realtor who got the listing knew that he had a job on his hands as soon as he saw the place. The house was full of rats, mold, black widow spiders, and hundreds of bottles of the owner’s urine, which she chose to save for some reason. In addition, the mummified body of the owner herself was in the living room lying on a couch. The coroner estimated that she had been dead for at least 5 years. Even stranger – it appears that the woman’s daughter continued to live in the house for years after her mother’s death, making no effort to remove the corpse from the living room. Clearly, this was a ‘problem property.’

The Mummy House was listed for $928,000. There were multiple offers. It sold for $1,560,000; more than $500,000 over the list price. The mummy was removed from the property before the sale, but otherwise the house was delivered to the buyer AS-IS. The ad for this property said that the house was ‘unique’. I think that was a well-chosen word. ‘Unique’ means one-of-a-kind, and that does describe this listing. What are the odds of finding another house just like this one in San Francisco – or anywhere else for that matter? Mummy House.

 

Worst Application Ever

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My Dog Has Issues. At an apartment, where I advertised that I would allow a pet, an applicant told me that he had a dog. I asked him what kind of dog he had. He said that he didn’t know. I am always suspicious when an applicant for an apartment tells me that he has a dog but can’t describe it. That happens fairly often, and it always sets off alarm bells for me. I said to him: “I can see that your dog is in your car. Why not bring him inside so I can meet him?” The guy went silent. After thinking about it for a minute, he said:  “I don’t think that would be a good idea. My dog has anger management issues. That’s why I have to move.” I thought: “Uh oh! That dog must have done something really, really bad.” I said: “Well in that case, leave the dog in the car.” I didn’t call the guy’s landlord to get the gruesome details. I didn’t have to. I knew I didn’t want that dog in my building. I rented the place to somebody else.