Fun Things to Do with your Roommates

I made a quick list of the things you can do with you roommates over the weekends.

• Beach and pick up surfing. You can rent long boards for about 25 bucks
• Billards
• Laser Tag
• Clubbing
• Bowling
• Salsa Dance Class or any other formal dance classes
  
• Bond Fire
• Hiking
• Camping
• Fishing
• Driving Range
• Shooting Range
• Roller blading
• Poker
• Ping Pong, get a cheap table from craigslist.com
  
• Archery
• Paintball
• Airsoft
• Scuba Lessons
• Charades (make up your own cards or google it online)

That's all I can think of for now. If you want more information on where and how to do these things, let me know and I'll do some research for you. Let me know what location you are in so I can find a few in your area.

Landlord Hanging out with Roommates

I usually try not to get into my roommates lives. I mind my business and they mind theirs. I set up boundaries and make sure they don't get into my space. I'm not a total jerk either. Everyone once and awhile it's great to go out together and really get to know your roommates. You don't want to be too much of a "buddy buddy." Sometimes when that happens they feel a little confident about the relationship and would tend to skimp out on rent.

I find it easier to rent my rooms to total strangers rather than close friends that I know. Sometimes if a close friend is late on rent, you'll understand and let them pay you a few days later. Sometimes your friends think they can get away with paying rent and makes up all kinds of excuses while you become more frustrated with them each and every day. Your friendship is in Jeopardy and although you don't want that, the best thing to do is cut them off. You have obligations and you've been disrespected by them when they didn't pay rent. They've taken advantage of you already.

Sad as it maybe, evicting them isn't any better but you'll be out of a home if you can't make your payments. If they are truly real friends they would understand and know where you're coming from. If not, they they aren't really there for you from the start and its really all about their needs. If they are really true friends they would pay rent on time, they would understand that you have payments, and they would understand that they wouldn't want to Jeopardize their relationship with you they don't pay rent and because they really care about the friendship.

You know when you know you have to cut some friends out of your life even when things like this tests you and your friendship. It's better that you know now than later when it might be on something that's bigger than just a rent payment.

How to Save Money on Electric Bills and Stay COOL in Summer

The biggest money saver was to enroll in SCE.com Summer Discount Plan. They allow you to save up to $200 on your electric bill from the months of June - September. So thats an average of $50 per month. Basically it allows SCE to turn off your AC unit by radio control to help them control the power consumption during peak hours. It's never bothered me cause everyone here all works during the day so we free load off AC at our work. Peak hours are usually when the sun is out of course and we're at work during those times. So why not let SCE pay you for not using your AC anyway.

You can keep your house cool by opening windows at night and closing them in the morning and making sure you close your blinds so that the suns radiation doesn't heat up your room.

Attic fans are a real big help to draw out the hot air. The air in the attack could reach well above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Drawing that air out keeps the heat from moving into the living space of your home.

Use aluminum blinds rather than textile blinds because the suns rays shines through textile blinds and heats up the room.

Buy Window fans to help draw cool air into the home at night.

Turn off all electronic entertainment devices that causes a lot of heat. My laptop is a known culprit in heating up my room, but what can you do when I have to use it to write this blog.

Take cold showers regularly and drink ice cold water to stay cool or stay in the first floor of the home. The second floor is usually the hottest because heat rises.

Look into a whole house fan that helps draw cool air from the windows at night and exhausts the hot air out the ceiling

Feel free to comment on this ad for additional tips for keeping cool

How to Deal with Weeds

by Hien Quoc
- Fortiment.com - Free Roommate Finder Service

I hate to do gardening so the best way to deal with that is to not have a garden. Even though you have a bare dirt yard you'll get a garden whether you like it or not. The gardens I get are a variety of weeds.

I bought plastic grass and astro turf as an alternative to keeping my backyard weed and plant free.
I have some bare areas of dirt that I didn't have enough astro turf for.

So I use Ground CLEAR by Ortho and it pretty much sterilizes my ground so that nothing can grow at all for up to one year. I did buy a compress air pesticide sprayer to treat the ground.

How to Get Rid of Household Pest

by Hien Quoc
- Fortiment.com -

I've had my share of pests but for now the only pest I have is ants. No matter what ants always come into the house during the summer season not matter how clean your house is. I think its because the ground they're crawling on is super hot from the sun's heat that they have no where else to go but in the house.

What I found that works best so far is Combat Ant Bait Gel. It lets the ant feed on that sweet poison which has a delayed release so that it takes a while for the poison to really hit the ant. Until then the ant has enough time to take the bait back to its home. The great part about that is that queen lives there and is freaking spawning all these little critters that clean up after you. Well basically the queen eats the bait eventually and she dies which kills the entire colony.

Now don't just get any ant bait. The ant bait stations don't work for jack shit. I've bought my share of ant bait stations and placed it directly in their tracks just to see nothing happen. They just walk around it. What you want is the ant bait GEL!!! Yes.. the gel is great for these ants. It looks like a giant syringe packed with the ant bait that you can pump a line onto a card board, then place the card board into the ants path. Within a half an hour a whole swarm of ants starts feeding on it. It's kind of addicting I might say watching with an evil grin as they indulge themselves with the sweet gel. Whats great about the gel is that you can reapply when they do eat it all up and are still back for more. Use sparingly cause I've been guilty of laying long ant gel walls along its tracks and seeing it dry up like 6 hours later. Be creative with how your pump the gel onto the board. You don't want to have a big glob of gel in one area. You want to draw lines to maximize the area the that ant has on feeding it. You want to feed them a long subway sandwich that they can eat from all sides instead of a mound of ice cream that they have to crawl on top of each other in order for everyone to get to it.

The draw back of the gel is that it drys up like glue. I guess thats how they die when their stomachs are all filled with hardened glue. A solution to that is to get an eye dropper and drip some water onto the the dried gel and Presto!! It's good again.. for a little while.

The other problem I've had is Black Widows in my garage. My roommates would store things like metal frames, boxes, tennis rackets, tires, picture frames, car parts, shelves, etc, that makes great nooks and crannies for spiders to build their homes in. It got bad to a point that you couldn't walk through there without brushing by a stiff web from a black widow. There were also a bunch of daddy long legs but that wasn't a problem to me cause I know I won't get bitten by them accidentally.

The best thing to do in this situation is to arm yourself with a sturdy sandal and brave guts. March into your room thats infested with black widows and smash each and everyone of them. Ensure that none of them survive cause they reproduce like mad if one gets loose. You'll need to organize everything in boxes and neatly stack them to the side of the room.

You could of course buy a spray but I don't recommend that cause its death isn't immediate and it has a chance to run away or maybe get revenge.

How to deal with Bad Roommates

by Hien Quoc
- Fortiment.com - Free Roommate Finder Service

I'd definitely had my share of bad roommates. Not that they didn't pay rent on time but mainly because they're messy, creepy, or nag about everything cause they got nothing better to do.

I've had dirty dishes stacked so high in the sink that it reeks nasty pipe grime and rotting pasta with mold colonies growing in every way possible. You can't even wash anything without having to clear a path for the faucet head to swing. Not that you would want to but you can imagine how bad it is.

Well basically, I have a very high tolerance on that kind of stuff. Normally the landlord won't even let that mess get to that point but I'm going with the "Be a mature adult and clean after yourselves approach." I knew that eventually someone is going to complain about that mess. I don't really use that kitchen that much but every time I do I had to clear a way for the running water to get to my dirty dishes. I always wash my dish right after I use it.

Ants were a huge problem cause there was plenty of left over protein and sugars for them to build a great empire.

So what I did was I left it for weeks to months and eventually the culprit who uses the dishes frequently runs out of dishes to wash and eventually needs to wash their dishes. I let them pretty much live with their own mess until they can't stand it anymore.

When a roommate does complain about it then I go to each and every roommate to find the culprit and tell them about the complaint and have them wash dishes. What works great is this. Tell this, "Hey, I've been getting complaints about the dishes not being washed and its keeping them from using the sink and eating comfortably. I need you to wash your dishes right after you use them. Otherwise I'll need to hire a maid because its unacceptable for me to have this as the property manager/landlord and its not fair for the other roommates. I would need to raise rent if I end up getting a maid to take care of this problem."

RAISE RENT!!!! NO!!!!! that usually brings a shock to them. Some might be defiant and if they do they already need to go anyway. Read my article that I posted before this one on how to evict roommates.

The next article I'll talk about is dealing with common household PESTS. Stay Tuned.

How to Evict Tenants and Roommates

It's a very sad time when you need to evict someone. Sometimes we depend on them to cash flow our mortgage payments from month to month and many of us don't have emergency funds for unexpected times likes this. I highly recommend having 3 to 6 months worth of living expenses to save ourselves by buy us some time to deal with irresponsible tenants. A good 6 months savings plan that I'm aiming for is $24000 from what I calculated to live comfortably and make my mortgage payments all by myself. I also learned to cut my lifestyle tremendously when I started saving this much money. You start to realize the value of money and how hard it is to scrounge and save every penny. Eventually you stop splurging it on a dumb toy, hobby, latest gadget, and for some people women.

I'll outline the steps to take to evict a roommate or tenant but check with your state's most recent Landlord and Tenant Act because they might vary. Please be advise that this is from my own knowledge from what I've read and that the details of your situation could be different from mine. I'll have references to the books that I used that are really helpful to me.

• Step 1 - Tell the tenant to pay rent every day that day are late verbally for 3 days. You knock on their door and get face to face with them and kindly ask them to pay rent
  
  
• Step 2 - On Day 4, Deliver a hand written 30 day notice in person or certified mail to pay rent or quit, commonly known as the eviction notice. The notice can be given at any time except for the day is due. I usually give them a few days cause, shit happens. I would serve it after 3 days just to save yourself from the time it takes to actually evict them if they really don't want to pay. Tenants with a 1 year lease may need a 60 or 90 day notice.That's a lot of money lost. Time is money and an eviction takes time. Make a copy of the eviction notice and give it to them with a date and signature. An Example of the eviction notice.

To: Joe Blow

August 23, 2007

This is a 30-day notice from the above date for the month July 20, 2007 to August 20, 2007 is now due and payable. You are required to pay the amount within 3 days from the date of this notice or to vacate the premise at 123 Main st, Los Angeles 90023.

Sincerely,

John Doe / Landlord

• Step 3 - It is illegal for anyone to forcibly evict, change locks, or threaten the tenants in order to get them out. You'll usually be in a losing battle as soon as you do this. Treat them the way you would when they paid rent on time. Then you need to go to your local city court to file and action for eviction. There is a small filing fee depending on the court. A court date will be set to present your case. The tenant will get a notice to appear in court.
  You will present your case and they will present theirs. Most of the time the landlord will win. Upon rewarding you with the damages to pay all rents due including late fees. Ask the judge if you can apply the deposit to the rent s due.
  
  
• Step 4 - The judge will have a date set for them to move out. They have about 3 to 5 days. If the tenants have not vacate the premise then a sheriff will help remove them for you. Ask them for procedures. You'll need to contact the courts again for that to happen.

• Step 5 - You give the evicted tenant 15 days notice that you will sell their belonging if they don't come and pick of their belonging and pay for the rent owed. The remaining profits from the sale must be returned to the evicted tenant.
  

I hope that no one ever has to go through anything like this but the best well to deal with this an eliminate the stress involved is to be able to have the emergency savings to make the mortgage payments and ride out the rough times of not having that added cash flow during the eviction process.

Here are the references to the books I've used

How to Find a Successful Roommate

by Hien Quoc
- Fortiment.com - Free Roommate Finder Service

Why do I call getting a great roommate who pays rent on time, keeps the place clean or even improves the appearance of the place, and causes very little drama a successful roommate? Well when you land one of these they are as good as gold. Basically, you don't need to spend money on maids, your valuable time, and no stress property management to deal with issues and drama.

How do you find these people? I've been keeping a general rule of thumb for renting to working professionals or graduate students. When I mean working professionals I mean people with at least a 4 year degree with a real profession. Although I don't discriminate against undergrads or people working full time with minimum wage, a well price rent amount that meets the markets demands usually eliminates the ones who can't pay anyway. They usually have a budget to work with and won't get themselves into something they can't afford.

Usually in my ads for roommates I would mention that all the roommates are working professionals and that we're usually never home. Which is true. I found that most people who are interested are pretty much well rounded people who study a lot and want a quiet night sleep after work. Not the party animal people that throws parties everyday. People with a certain lifestyle will try to find other people with certain lifestyles. If your lifestyle is a boring or exciting you'll find similar roommates that meets your personality. Although each an everyday maybe fun but you'll need to deal with the drama that comes with it.

I'm usually busy working with various business ventures trying to get myself out of the rat race that I could use not having any distractions to go out or party.

When you find one that is good, I simply do nothing and try to provide them with a friendly atmosphere. Build rapport with your roommates and go out with them every so often. You don't have to do that all the time. Be lenient on a few things but don't let them step all over you. Be understanding, listen to where they are coming from and what their needs are.

So as a review.

The type of roommates you want usually are the ones that are similar to your lifestyle. Make sure you make that known in your ads. If you're quiet then mention it. If you like pets, mention it. Tell them everything about you so that the ones who run across your ad and don't shrivel at your pet peeves are probably the ones who find you interesting and a great match to be roommates with.

Introduction of Fortiment LLC Roommate Classifieds and Property Management

by Hien Quoc
- Fortiment.com - Free Roommate Finder Service


Fortiment LLC is an online roommate classifieds bundled with a suite of property management tools. It was designed to help people find compatible roommates with similar lifestyles and housing with the amenities that matches their needs.

Paying your rent is easy with automatic recurring rent payments paid to your landlord or property manager so that you won't have to remember to pay your rent each month. It also makes life easier for the property manager when they get their rent payments on time every month.

Utility bills are also automatically split among roommates and billed by the property manager. Roommates can view a copy of the utility invoice and adjust their utility budget for fluctuating utility payments.

Roommates and property managers get automatic notification of upcoming payments due so that you won't be caught off guard when you payments are due.

Everyone has had their fair share of experience with difficult roommates. Fortiment LLC created a roommate rating feature so that you post reviews of the roommates you lived with. Membership profiles are linked to their checking accounts to ensure that the reviews remain with them and prevent bad roommates from simply creating a new member profile.

I'm excited to bring all these services to the community and I'll be updating the development through this blog.