Nappy Hoo Year!!

Good day faithful readers. Hope you had a very merry, and you're on your way to a very happy.

On being a landlord --

(Facing the competition)

I've been a landlord for a long time now. On- again, off-again since about 1970, I've born the weight and sting of that label.

I've cleaned up after filthy people, I've fixed up after violent people, endured the damage done by stupid people, winced every time the Greeley Tribune picked on landlords, and I've paid the bills when those who owed, couldn't. Or wouldn't.

It isn't what you'd call a fulfilling occupation. Overnight, a gratifying paint job turns into color-crayon horror. A newly repaired roof often leaks right away, brand-new carpet gets the motor oil treatment. Non-paying tenants scream "single mother" in court and get away with it.

Yet none of these horrid drawbacks holds a candle to the ''competition'' faced by residential rental companies.

In last week's "letter" we wrote a little about competition. Hey. Competing with other leather dealers or gift shops is a piece of cake compared to competing with the government, the financial establishment -- or amateur practitioners.

I learned about government intervention a long, long time ago in a land far, far away. (Blackfoot, Idaho, 1970 to 1980.) We had a nice setup -- an 18-unit former motel with kitchenettes. Right downtown. Good visibility, stucco over frame, garages, good parking, lots of windows. What could go wrong?

The gummint came along and built poor-people housing right in our neighborhood. There went a third of my people.

Then the gummint came along and built ''senior'' housing a block away. There went a third of my people.

Then one night the blue lights of gummint authority flashed on my bedroom ceiling, waking me.

It was the Border Patrol, diligently on the job removing the rest of the tenants. (I did have longtime renter Buster Hedington remaining after that late-night raid, but he left when I raised the rent from $85 a month to $95 a month.)

When Buster left, my Idaho dream was over and I eventually paid a guy $10,000 to rescue me from my Idaho nightmare. (Did you ever pay anyone to buy a property from you? I did.)

We have the same thing going on here and now. Our current "upswing" in the rental market occupancy rate comes at a horrible expense to tenants: They're retreating from failures in "no down payment" housing purchase. They're victimized by variable interest rates. Foreclosures are epidemic.

Yet, the building madness continues. The financial establishment is my latest and possibly most deadly competitor. "Nothing down, no payments for a year." Sounds awfully good compared with my wimpy "A thousand dollars down and $500 a month."

I live on the east side of Greeley, so the gummint counts me as an absentee landlord. And it's true. Emotionally, I stay away a lot. I'm absent. Several years ago, I quit remembering tenant names. Or amounts owed. Or carpets destroyed.

But am I throwing in the towel? Not necessarily. We just turned down what could have been a rather attractive offer for one of the fourplexes. Had my partial "out," and didn't pursue it.

Clouding the Issue

A big problem professional landlords face is competition from a raft of amateurs. Let me illustrate.

One day our friend and hero Mikey asked us to come to his home that evening for dinner. Then he said, "You'll have to leave at 9 though, because we have a meeting with some tenants tonight."

I said, "Mikey. Landlords don't have meetings with tenants after dark. Mikey. Landlords especially don't meet with tenants in their own homes after dark."

Straight-faced, Mikey said, "It's a hobby with me, Tom."

I said, "That's the trouble with the field of endeavor. The waters are muddied with hundreds of amateurs. Makes it extremely difficult for professionals."

So if you are an amateur landlord, clean up your act. Amateur would be, for example, if you bought a new house and you're going to rent out your old one to college students. (Best of luck to you.)

You're an amateur if your best hope is to break even, a pro if your hope is to make money. Hire a professional manager -- it's worth it to preserve your emotional equilibrium. Be a pro and share the responsibility. Hand over your authority when you know you're in over your head. Or be gone. You're in the way.

Thinking about my Dad

We arrived at the south rim of the Grand Canyon that summer in 1955, Dad teetering within inches of achieving a longtime goal.

Brother Dick and Mom and I looked over the edge at the burro trail going down the cliffs. We said, "No thanks."

But Dad was goal-oriented. "I'm going. The rest of you can stay here in the bus." (Dad had removed the seats from his new 1954 school bus to make an early form of motorhome.)

Off he went, and we settled down to what we thought was going to be about an eight-hour wait while Dad rode with the other tourists down into the canyon and back up.

To our surprise, in about half an hour here he came back. "I'm too fat," he said. They weighed each tourist, and those over a certain weight were excluded.

He abruptly started the 292 Y-block and drove off south toward Phoenix. I had never seen my Dad in a dispirited condition before. I had never before seen him crestfallen. It was a little thing, a small disappointment. He was thwarted, blindsided. Enormously hurt.

Aw, Dad.

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Word of the week: Ubiquitous. Comes from the Latin, ubeity, meaning local relationship. Ubiquitous means present everywhere at the same time. As in, "Horse apples are ubiquitous on Grampa's farm."

Next week's word: Discordant.

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Gripes? Complaints? Whines? or Comments? Adoration? Puppy love? Feel free to express yourself in the comments!