THE PROBLEM WITH PROPERTY MANAGEMENT FIRMS.


As I get older, I think more and more about hiring a property management firm. I am not going to be able to do this myself forever. However, I am constantly seeing what happens when an incompetent property management firm takes over managing a property, and there a lot of incompetent property management firms out there. Some professions require licenses and tests, like plumbers, electricians, general contractors, etc.; but anyone can say ‘I am a property manager.’ You don’t have to have a license or pass a test to manage small rental properties. The problem for me is that top-quality property management firms don’t want to take on a client who owns as little property as I do. Take a look at the photos below of work done by incompetent property managers. Note the:
1. Badly designed wheelchair ramps at various apartment houses.
2. Smoke alarms. All the smoke alarms in the building were installed this way. They are supposed to be dated.
3. Seismic repair of a support column holding up the building.
4. Sandbox built over a manhole cover at a low-income housing project.
5. A Craigslist listing of an apartment for rent included this photo of the swimming pool with abandoned mattresses in it.
6. The building’s handyman didn’t know that you don’t attach a ground wire to a plastic pipe.

7. Carpet. The managers of these apartment houses used poor judgment in choosing the hall and stair carpets.

DEFECTIVE SMOKE ALARMS.

If you have a defective smoke alarm, contact me, and I will replace it. Do not try to open it up the smoke alarm and replace the batteries yourself. Smoke detectors with replaceable batteries are now illegal in California. The batteries inside the smoke alarms in your apartment are in a sealed chamber and cannot be replaced or removed without damaging or destroying the smoke alarm. About nuisance false alarms…..If you have a smoke alarm in or near your kitchen that goes off when you are cooking, let me know about it. I may be able to change the alarm with a different type of smoke alarm, a photoelectric smoke alarm. This type of smoke alarm is less likely to go off when you are frying onions or broiling a steak.

Kitchen Smoke Detectors.

Do you have a smoke detector in or near your kitchen that goes off while you are cooking? If so, I can replace it with different kind of smoke alarm, one that is much less likely to do that. There are 2 different kinds of smoke detectors. One kind works by ionization, and the other is photoelectric. Most smoke detectors work by ionization. They are generally recommended for use in bedrooms. Photoelectric smoke detectors work on a different scientific principle and are far less likely to go off from normal kitchen cooking. More than 50% of Americans admit that they have silenced a false alarm by removing a smoke detector from the wall or by taking out the batteries and not replacing them. That is a pretty shocking number! If you would like me to replace a smoke detector in your kitchen, hall, or living room that is annoying you with false alarms while you are cooking, contact me, and I will replace it with a photoelectric smoke alarm.
 

Are You Missing A Smoke Alarm?

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!