Omega In The Office - Aria Grace Page 0,3
open and Leon standing just outside. He’s got a propane stove set up on the patio and is busily preparing breakfast, just like he has every morning since the power was turned off.
“You should add any dirty clothes you’ve got to the basket in the living room,” he says when he notices me. “I’m going to make a trip to the laundromat later today.”
I swallow the lump in my throat as I nod mutely.
The sound of construction echoes across the courtyard outside. I don’t have to look to know that the guys I hired to do dry rot repair are already hard at work on the East building. Thankfully, once they’re finished, all the structural issues should be handled for all three buildings. We might actually be able to move this project forward.
“The electrician’s already been by,” Leon says as he adds a few strips of bacon to the pan he’s using. “He said they’re nearly finished rewiring the North building. He brought the breaker boxes up to code, and they’re just buttoning up the last few things today.”
“Perfect.” I smile, my mood brightening a little. I knew going into this that the apartment complex I purchased sight-unseen would probably have some issues. And I knew there was likely some disrepair, but I hadn’t anticipated the level it would be at. Rats in the walls, dry rot, outdated and damaged wiring, leaky roofs, and more had plagued every inch of the building. The worst part was that people were still living in the three buildings when I bought it.
The extent of the repairs needed to fix everything meant they couldn’t stay, so I was forced to evict them all. That’s when I realized I might not be cut out to be a landlord. It really sucked. But they likely would’ve been evicted no matter who bought the place. The city had wanted the whole thing torn down. The bank wanted to sell it to a developer who was going to push it over and put in a condo or McDonald’s.
No one expected someone whose intent was to breathe new life into the old building. And it was definitely an old building. According to the city records, it was built when the city was first being established. It served as an early boarding house for people passing through the area and had evolved into an apartment complex by extension of that.
Restoring the building would be expensive. Too expensive. Too many changes were made over the years in an attempt to modernize it, and many of the original architectural features were stripped away. Maybe someday we’ll tackle that project. For now, my main concern is getting the place to the point where it’s habitable.
Supposedly, the original owners hadn’t had much issue finding renters. It’s never hard to find renters around here. The issue is finding renters who could pay on time, wouldn’t trash the place, wouldn’t skip out on their bills, or flee town if we tried to collect. Eventually, they dropped the rental prices so low that even if everyone paid on time, it wasn’t enough cash flow to cover the monthly payments on the property.
It was only a matter of time before the whole thing ran into the ground.
“Once the electricians are done, we can get the power turned back on.” I nod slowly to myself, fishing an energy drink out of the ice-filled cooler on the floor. “I’ve got AC units on roughly half the units now, so hopefully, we can get those turned on.”
Right now, we’re living in the one habitable apartment in the East building. Once the power is hooked up and the AC is installed, we’ll move over to the North building and open up the other units to tenants. It won’t be much, but it’ll help alleviate some of the financial pressure we’ve been feeling lately.
Thanks to the connections I made during my time away, I got the loan to purchase the complex without any problems. And thankfully, the loan included funds for developing the property into something profitable. At the time, we mistakenly believed the damage was mostly cosmetic. We had also assumed that the lack of good tenants was just mismanagement on the part of the previous owners.
And for what it’s worth, I still believe the second part.
“I was screening the tenant applications we’ve been getting.” Leon gestures to the laptop on the kitchen counter. “There are a few that look promising. The background and credit checks have come back clean. I thought