Eagle Crest rental

Our Eagle Crest tenants left mid-June, so we took advantage of it being vacant and had new floor tile installed.

The previous laminate was in poor shape. Sam did a great job, although it took him over a month. You all remember Sam the brick guy, right? He did the brick floors out in Placitas, and the brick patio in Santa Fe, and he does tile too. Talented, kind, and veeeeery sloooow. Of course the house had to sit empty without rent during that time.

This floor tile was originally purchased for the Placitas house – it was supposed to match the original tile, but it was a different dye lot and wasn’t anything close to the same color. Remember that? It was probably about the only time I’ve used the F-word in a blog post. We were stuck with a couple thousand dollars worth of tile. We put it in a storage unit for two years and were finally now able to use it in this rental.

Then while on our way back from Boise, I was texting my old friends from work and I got lucky. A former coworker decided he would like to rent it, so I didn’t even need to advertise. Advertising is a lot of work – I get inundated with responses when I advertise. It’s a lot of phone calls, emails and texts, and sorting through applications and showings. My coworker rented it sight unseen and hasn’t moved in yet, so I sure hope he likes it!

I spent some time this weekend doing some cleaning & touch-up painting to make sure it’s ready. John went to fix yet another leak in the irrigation system, and each time he had one fixed, another started. It was like wack-a-mole. (I don’t even know what wack-a-mole is, but I’ve heard the expression and can well imagine.) So he finally gave up trying to fix individual leaks, and re-ran a lot of the line. It was a big job; trenching in the rock-hard New Mexico soil in the summer heat is not fun. We’re grateful for a friend of ours, Gerald, for helping us out.

All of our rentals have irrigation systems, even though they are minimally landscaped – mostly rock. It’s really hard to grow much in the desert without at least some water in the springtime. And tenants don’t tend to hand-water. Keeping the irrigation systems working is a big nuisance. I’ve never been able to find affordable landscaping help.

I had paid (too much) to have the yard trimmed up last month in preparation for advertising, and it’s still not in very good shape. So I’m hoping to get over there within the next couple of days and do some more weeding and such myself, before our new tenant arrives.

I hope our new tenant (and ex-coworker) has a safe trip back to New Mexico. Like a lot of us who have left and come back, I know he is going to be happy to get here.