Half ass repairs

[davidmash]

We bought a house for a rental about 15 yrs ago or so. Some of the repairs/fixes/"upates" they did were beyond the pale.

There is a shed in the back yard (it was well built) but they decided to put a awning/roof around it. I would estimate that there were roughly 1,000 fasteners used for this and they varied from screws of all lengths to nails of all lengths (whatever was laying around at the time). I guess they thought it 1 fastener is good, 50 must be better. There were rafters that were spliced and not even attached to anything at either or both ends. There were posts that were just standing there, some were not on foundations. How it remained attached for as long as it did no one knows.

There must have been a deaf person living there at one time. They "installed" a smoke detector with a flashing light on it in the hall way. Instead of going in the attic and installing a junction box for the power supply to be spliced into, they put it on the wall in the hall, punched (with a fist or hammer) a hole through the wall to the bedroom on the hall, fished an extension cord through the hole and plugged it in. The extension cor was cut and taped to the power line on the detector.

In the laundry room, they did not have power on the wall so again, a hole seemed like the most practical solution. Have hammer.....make hole. Done.

Got a call from the tenant the other day that the drain was clogged. Called my plumber out and he an a snake through it...pulled out some roots. Damn...house was built in '68 so he figured it was clay or iron pipe and it just broke down over the course of almost 60 yrs. Nope.....the previous idiots replaced the drain but they used schd 20 v 40 pipe and it just failed early. The also at some point just cut a rectangular hole in the top of the drain and instead of cutting the pipe, putting a sleeve on it and doing a proper repair, they cut a larger rectangular piece and laid it over the hole....no glue, just laid it there. They also moved a water line for a faucet. The "clean out" they put in was in the way so they just bent the copper water pipe around the clean out and left the faucet sticking out of the ground free standing with no reinforcement.

How someone does work like this and thinks 'Yup...nailed it' is absolutely beyond me. I want to meet them and rub their nose in it asking WTF was going through your mind?

All the drain/faucet stuff is getting fixed today to the tune of $4500. Its days like this where I hate being a landlord.

[tbomachines]

Our house in PA was hacked up pretty bad....PO had his brother in law moonlight to do a lot of the work. Wish I knew what I was looking at back then (was my first house). Clearly cut corners...worst was a roof that failed at 10 years. The drywall tape all peeled up, the electrical was a nightmare (they actually routed sewer in front of the box with two 45* bends and cut the box door to fit). Inspector was a total moron and flagged random tiny stuff but not that....live and learn. I prob have 20-30k of work there before selling (min 5-10k before I can really rent it again)

[davidmash]

I saw all the exposed stuff. Tedious but easily repaired. Got a good deal on it and I have no regrets. The plumbing stuff I am finding out about today was a surprise. It takes a lot of effort to screw something up that bad.

[tbomachines]

We saw some stuff and had a good deal on it (I don't regret the purchase). There was other stuff that the seller clearly had hidden and didn't disclose....tub leak (which after signing he said "oh yea youll want to reseal thr tub every 6 months") which was clearly a bigger drainage problem that damaged the ceiling below...and a cleverly-positioned massive piece of furniture that we conceded to get with the house....hiding a conveniently located foundation crack. Luckily just the surface layer.

He was a sleazy salesguy and karma caught up - dead at 50 not long after. We decided not to pursue legal action.

[cmac2012]

^ did you try it get any relief on the undisclosed problems issue? I've heard of people managing to sue for damages when some problem was clearly not disclosed

*ETA* oops, never mind. I missed the part about 'decided not to take legal action.'

Builders, especially amateurs, regard building inspectors with contempt, fear, and loathing. I worked on several jobs where the building inspector provided outstanding advice, told us small things that made the job better. I have experienced many times putting stuff together and at the end thinking of something that would've made it somewhat better. Not saying I let anything go that was crap, but it's amazing how often you realize there was one thing you could've done if you'd only thought of it in time. But now you can't do it because it's covered up with a bunch of other stuff.

Ideally, you become better and it goes into your subconscious memory data bank. Ideally.

Recently, one of my longest time clients bought a fixer-upper built in 1924 in Santa Clara, a tiny berg on the north end of San Jose. It's an interesting house in an interesting neighborhood. Not exactly a cul-de-sac but it's a street not at all welcoming as an occasional arterial. Incredibly quiet. And it has a paved alley. Their garage is accessible from the back alley. All it needs is a high-end sliding gate controllable by smartphone. The existing gate is ugly and a pain in the ass. It's designated a historical district. The windows were all painted shut (?!). She's got a contractor for most of the work, but windows are my gig, also going to make screens for all of them, 12 total. And bring the front and back door up to speed. She did not want to buy new windows because if she ever wants to get into that historical status thing, which apparently has some benefit, I don't understand it very well, she needs to have period correct windows ($$). And these suckers are old, but no rot. In the two bedrooms it's a triple sash thing with the outer two wooden casement, with cranks like I've never seen before. I'm going to save them, maybe sell them as steampunk.

It's a 1200 ft.² two bedroom. Don't know how this happened, but there was a bathroom for one bedroom, then another bathroom between the two bedrooms with a big funky ornate tub. They closed the connection between bedrooms, swapped in a shower for the tub and now each bedroom has its own private bath. Not common for a two bedroom house of that size.

I'm finding half assed repairs up the Wazzu, good news is I am going to get paid to fix a lot of them. Old cartridge locks that have been painted over two or three times. Just digging the paint out so you can take out the screws is a chore.

But I at least bid the job well, and this is a client I'm going to keep happy, she has given me some cool jobs, she's an interior decorator, works at a spendy furnishings store in Menlo Park. Here's a job I did in their San Francisco loft, a privacy screen, maple milled down to slightly shrimpy two by fours, about 2-3/4" x 1"-1/4.

[cmac2012]

Originally Posted by davidmash

All the drain/faucet stuff is getting fixed today to the tune of $4500. It's days like this where I hate being a landlord.

You have my sympathy. Some of these things can quickly look like the proverbial money pit. I'd have to see it - that seems like a steep price, but I'm sure there's a lot going on.

I'm worried that my client is regretting her investment. I've already gone on too long, but there are a lot of issues. The one good news is the lot is relatively narrow, but it's really long, deep rather.

In part because of the paved alley it's zoned for ADU and there is room for one. She's thinking in five or six years they'll build that ADU and have a pretty valuable property when all is said and done.

[davidmash]

I've done enough flips that nothing really surprises me anymore. They had to hand dig about 30' 3' down. Thats not cheap especially when its 100° outside. Seemed like a fair price and its one less thing I need to worry about long term.

Planning on putting this tenant next year, putting $25-$30k into it and increasing the rent. Right now Im about 50% below market value and I want to get up to about 20% below market value.

We'll see.

[cmac2012]

Yeah, I'm sure there's complexity that I can't picture. Plumbing is no joke, you can halfway fake finish carpentry, make it look nice enough when the underlying stuff was not quite right, but not Plumbing. Water pressure, gravity fed or otherwise, is going do what it wants.

[davidmash]

I think the nuts and bolts of this repair was.pretty basic. Theboriginal.was 4" and he reduced it to 3" to increase the pressure a bit to help move the waste along. Two clean outs and he moved my external faice with PEX and put the shut of in a ground box.

The digging was the hard part. All by hand. That was worth the price of admission for.me.

[Mxfrank]

Originally Posted by davidmash

We bought a house for a rental about 15 yrs ago or so. Some of the repairs/fixes/"upates" they did were beyond the pale.

I've owned a home like this for many years. What kind of idiot builds like this? But as my wife prefers to say, what kind of idiot would buy a house like this?

[davidmash]

We got a good deal on the house and I do not have any regrets. Structurally the house is sound. The recent sewer repair....that threw me for a bit a loop as I have better things to spend $4500 on other than fixing some idiots shoddy repair work. It still confounds me that someone would put what is essentially french drain pipe in the ground as a sewer pipe and not even glue it together. They had to make the effort to dig the trench (no small task), cut and fit the pipe....even if you got the wrong pipe, who does not glue it? There is liquid flowing through it.....and you dont glue it? That is just messed up.

Now its done and I do not have to worry about it for the rest of my ownership and the next owner will have a nice solid sewer line with clean outs.