The Bless Your Heart Trip

At the pleading bribing request of Mr. Partner, Marty Sunshine and my ulcer, I am going to Birmingham shortly. I knew this was coming. To be honest, like most trips, in the time leading up to my arrival, I am not quite sure while I am bothering. After all, I have boots on the ground. I have a property management company with questionable levels of competence. I have a few tenants and former tenants who have graciously helped me out in a bind here and there.

But back to my trip. I managed to e-mail Luigi I was coming around 10 p.m. my time one night. By 6:30 a.m. my time the next morning, it was Slick Willy who e-mailed me back, saying some platitude about how excited he was to meet me. Luigi also wrote some similar sentiment, but probably changed his mind when he and I talked later in the week and he got a general gist of why I was going out there.

I don't expect to see Ms. Angie or Mrs. Sherwood, neither of whose homes are in property management. Though I would love to see them, they don't cause me any grief. Besides, I have superstitious tendencies that suggest if I show up, all might change. And, to be fair, I can only understand about a third of what Ms. Angie says.

So, I now have Willy scrambling to make appointments with the tenants. That will eat up a couple of days. In there somewhere I have an appointment or two. I am meeting Kirby and Mrs. Kirby for dinner one night. I am also visiting with Carolsue, whom I adore. I believe Carolsue is also plotting for ways for us to get potentially arrested. She is good at that. I don't adore that part, but it is inevitable.

What I really want are some intangibles. What is my going on with my homes? Are my tenants happy and planning on staying another year or so? Is there any maintenance that needs to happen that Flunky, Luigi's maintenance dork, hasn't mentioned. What am I going to do about my vacant home where the mortgage company has called the loan due? And, what is going on with my eviction? (Yea, I have one of those, I haven't written much about it because it upsets me greatly, but it is always top of mind). All of these questions can be answered--and have been answered to one degree or another--but a little face time never hurts. And perhaps, I won't have to utter "Bless Your Heart" too many times.

Hobson's Choice

There are some interesting factors involved with this house where the mortgage is called due. First, when one has superior credit, the mortgage company doesn't necessarily believe the mortgage holder (us) will actually follow through with having a home returned. After all, it isn't in our nature. Marty is telling them, "we are giving you the home back." The mortgage company is saying, "Of course you are..." (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).

The other interesting aspect is that the mortgage company doesn't appear to want the home back. We happen to be the most upside down on this particular property than all of the rest. It will be painful for them. Frankly, it will be painful for all of us. When we have broached the subject with our representative at the mortgage company, they say, "Now wait a minute... Don't be so hasty, we are working with you." Which really isn't true.

Additionally, the home is vacant. And, according to Flunky (the property management's maintenance guy), the home is in disrepair. So, there is no money coming in to cover the repairs or the mortgage.

When Slick Willy (my contact at the property management company), emailed me a few weeks ago he asked me what I was going to do about the work that needed to be done at the house. I told him then, I didn't have the money to fix up the house. Willy didn't offer any solutions. Willy didn't say, "what can you afford." Willy did nothing.

Fast forward to yesterday. Willy sent me an email. He said, "We have a deposit on your house. Will you be remodeling it?" Mind you, he didn't call me. Mind you, the house has not been advertised (I checked). Mind you, there is no sign in the front yard (I also checked). Mind you, a deposit means I would have approved a tenant and the rental price.

I told Marty I didn't believe Willy. If he had a potential tenant, he would have called. If he had a potential tenant--who had put down a deposit--that means they would have approved the home in the condition it is in (which, by the way, I have heard from another source over there--who may or may not have gone through the unlocked back door--that the home is in reasonable condition and does not need thousands in repairs).

Here's the rub: until the mortgage company agrees to fix our loan they called due, we are at an impasse. We can't rent the house out if the mortgage company is going to take it back. We can't update the home because the home is vacant and there is no sense in putting money into the property if the mortgage company is going to take it back. In fact, we can't afford to pay the mortgage on it any more. And, if we can't pay the mortgage, we will loose the home.

Yep, That Happened

The saga of the second mortgage being called due has reached new depths. For those of you who need a refresher, we have a second mortgage that has been called due--though we don't know why. We always paid on time. Always. The mortgage company has asked for the balance of the loan. When we explained we didn't have it, they asked for a mountain of paperwork. We have reasonably complied, figuring this was a no-brainer.

We are now in month five of this saga. The mortgage company is asking for redundant paperwork. We have already given them tax returns, bank statements and our "hardship letter." Twice. In fact, in our hardship letter, we explained that the only real hardship was that they called the mortgage due. If they hadn't done that, there would be no hardship.

Two weeks ago, we provided them with the latest bank statements they asked for. We explained they are modifying a second mortgage. The home is upside down. It is vacant. We even said we don't care if they just take the house back if it is that important to them.

The mortgage company followed that up with a personal phone call from a dude named Joe. The poor guy actually called Marty wanting to make nice and find a reasonable solution. He said they just needed one teeny-tiny item from us and then they could wrap this up. And if we could just comply with this one itsy-bitsy request, we would be on our way.

They want Polly's bank account information for the past sixty days.

For those of you who aren't aware, Polly is my 14 year old daughter. And in the event anyone is slightly confused on our stance on this particular request, it is totally unreasonable. Instead of complying a letter came from Marty. He wrote:

"You have recently called a loan due and we have repeatedly complied with your redundant requests for bank information, tax information and other essential documents. Recently, you requested bank statements for the last 60 days of my minor-child's bank account. I will not be providing this information for the following two reasons:

1. My name is not on this bank account,

2. And more importantly, it is none of your business if my daughter, neighbor or arch enemy has a bank account. People other than me have bank accounts." 

Marty then told them if they find our stance unacceptable, let us know, they can have the keys back. We are done.

The Flunky

My biggest beef with Luigi's company right now isn't Slick Willy--though he is a close second. It is Flunky--Luigi's maintenance supervisor. Flunky is a passive-aggressive asshat who suffers from severe Napoleon complex.

And those are his good points.

Flunky and I have been going round and round for the past few months with various issues, all of which make me dislike him even more. I have been tempted to say something to Luigi, but I don't know their relationship and the concrete facts I could toss Luigi's way demonstrate more of Flunky's need for an Emily Post Book than incompetence. 

Flunky, who has apparently flunked out of charm school, will call me but not leave messages. He will call several times until I ultimately call him back. He will then act like we don't know each other and introduce himself once again. This happens even when we have talked earlier in the day about the same home.

Flunky also talks to me like I am a complete idiot. I am not a sensitive person, and I have had Marty listen in just to be sure. Marty assures me I am not wrong. Flunky will say something like, "You know, how when water flows through a pipe there has to be pressure to move the water out, and when there is a breach in the pipe this doesn't happen?"

"You mean we have a leaky pipe?" I asked.

Flunky doesn't like to be corrected. He has been known to call Marty Sunshine with the exact same news but say, "Hey, you have a leaky pipe." He has done this on two separate occasions.

Also, I am pretty sure Flunky is paid on a commission or some sort of kick-back for work he does on owner properties. Recently, Flunky was a bit unhappy when I asked him to get a second opinion for an issue I was having because I felt his quote was too high. In fact, he was so pissy about it, he "forgot" to call my plumber for three days.

Fortunately, I called my plumber immediately. And I called Luigi--just to make sure the tenants were taken care of--which didn't make Flunky very happy either. And by the way, my second opinion was 40 percent lower. After that was settled, Flunky wouldn't schedule the job because I didn't pay in advance. So, I called the plumber, made payment arrangements and then e-mailed Luigi and Flunky and said, "Great news! The payment is now taken care of. Please start the work."

Just because he is a colossal jerk, Flunky sent me disturbing pictures of one of my homes on Christmas Eve. I haven't written about this particular nightmare, but I assure you, sending me these photos on Christmas Eve was in bad taste. These are pictures Luigi hasn't even wanted to send me.

Last month, my home in North Centerpoint came vacant (this is the one the bank has called the mortgage due and the Section 8 tenant no longer lives there). Flunky didn't send me pictures until Willy mentioned it to him--while Willy was on the phone with me. A week later I got pictures, along with a note saying they need money to fix the place up. My response was Flunky has known the home was vacant for the past two weeks, he has gone into the home repeatedly (according to the e-mails I have received) and yet I have not been given a quote for the repairs. So, I see no reason to send random amounts of money until he has done his due diligence. Could I please get that first? I haven't heard back. He might still be looking up the word, "diligence."

This past week a tenant had a problem with their gas fireplace. Flunky's answer was to write me, call me Susan (which isn't my name) and then ask me what I wanted to do. He didn't give me a price, a solution or any type of useful information whatsoever to allow me to make an informed decision. Instead of writing the guy back, I called Kirby and asked him to look at the issue. I then wrote both back and told them to coordinate the repair.

Today Flunky wrote me, "Hey Susan" asking if the fireplace work was completed. How would I know? I don't live there. And I suggested to Flunky that perhaps he could make a few phone calls and find out, after all, I didn't feel the need to catch the next flight out to do his job. But I promise, I said it much more politely than that.

In truth, I am running out of patience with Flunky. And I am getting to the point where I am thinking about flying out to Birmingham so that Flunky and I can have a face-to-face "Bless your heart," kind of chat.