Our Part Time Job

I've mentioned a few times that our house is a multi-unit.  It has an apartment on the third floor and an apartment over the garage.  The rents pay the mortgage and starting in August a substantial portion of the taxes.  Meaning we pay a pretty miniscule amount to live here and here.  

It also means that we deal with all of the downsides of being a landlord.  Luckily we have had great tenants so far - we "inherited" a doctor living in the carriage house when we bought the place.  We rented out the third floor to a software engineer pretty quickly after moving in.  So far so good, both have been quiet and kept to themselves.  Our philosophy is going to be "no tenant is better than a bad tenant" and be pretty picky about who we rent to. 

The doctor is done his residency and leaving the area so we bid him goodbye.  We were somewhat sad to see him go, but also excited to be able to raise the price - he was paying a few hundred dollars below market.  

So this past weekend we turned to what I've been considering our part time job - keeping up with the house.  We painted the entire place and cleaned it top to bottom.  

It is not my favorite way to spend my free time and someday I hope to be able to hire out.  But for now, beer and music make the task better.  Only one beer split between us though, you don't want to come back the next day and realize you created more work for yourself.

Two new tenants (a lawyer and phd candidate) are moving in this weekend. Hopefully they will love it as much as the doctor did and stay another 5 years.  Just in case we are doing this again in another year, we'll be taking pictures while it is clean and empty.  So we can post an ad that doesn't have a tenant's mess in it like we had to this time.  I'll update the blog with those pictures later this week!