A Quick Summary

If you took the summation of words in the English language and added a few Yiddish ones for color, you still would not have an accurate description of what it has been like for me to own a gazillion rental homes in Alabama for the past three months and eight days. I can tell you this: I did not go to Birmingham. Everything imploded instead.

Let me back up. Last December, while on vacation, I found out that Kirby's company--the one who manages most of my rental homes--was going belly-up January 1. Daisy, who worked for Kirby and was soon to be out of a job, offered to take my properties to her new company. While hanging out at the world's biggest tourist trap in Orlando one sunny December day, I interviewed Luigi, the man who was going to hire Daisy. I liked him. I liked his philosophy on managing rentals. It seemed like a reasonable fit. Though I knew I was making a financial decision based on a 45 minute phone call, it seemed like a better course of action than giving my properties to Mario, managing them myself or interviewing more property management companies. So, Luigi won.

The deal was that Daisy would handle my accounts and Luigi would just cut the landlord checks every month. I was good with that. Except it didn't work that way. Needles to say, I was getting a bit frustrated and thinking I needed to go to Birmingham, put a boot in the ass of someone--and I didn't care who--and find a reasonable property management company to handle my affairs. I was even willing to take a drive down to Montgomery and have a chat with the Real Estate Commissioner if necessary. All I knew was I was bleeding money.

Then, a few simultaneous events happened--which are blogs unto themselves--and I wrote Luigi a quick note. I asked him to handle a few things that I felt Daisy was lacking. She said she was busy and would "get to them." However I didn't feel like I had time to wait. There also seemed to be a personality conflict between Daisy and a new tenant (also a blog for another time) and I was stuck in the middle of, mediating from 1,700 miles away. The final straw came for me when I asked Daisy a business question and she suggested I find her on Facebook and friend her. She never answered my question.

When I wrote Luigi, he did not write me back. He immediately called me instead. He wanted to know if I thought of Daisy's performance thus far. Was this normal for her? Actually no. I explained I was buying my plane ticket that day to go up to Birmingham (I was, actually) and he replied, "Let me save you some air fare. Tell me what you know." And then the dam broke. And I did tell him what I knew. And then some.

Daisy no longer works for Luigi. I haven't heard from her since. And I didn't find her on Facebook.