Online apartment hunting can be hazardous to your wallet -- and your pride

Yesterday's Norwalk Citizen-News -- no, not OUR Norwalk, Connecticut's Norwalk -- warned online apartment hunters about the costly ride they'll take if they get duped by an unscrupulous Internet scammer.

In A Cautionary Tale, writer Lauren Garrison relates her experience dealing with a shady character who advertised an "available apartment" online.

Excerpted from the story:

I e-mailed Maria at the America Online address she provided in the posting, and she responded promptly. She referred me to a blog she had set up, where she had more information and photographs of the apartment. She replied to each of my e-mails in broken English, always polite, but never exactly answering the questions I posed.

At one point, I concluded that the $1,300 would be too large a burden and told Maria I would be unable to rent the apartment. She immediately lowered her offer to $1000.

I asked to tour the apartment.

Maria offered to mail me the key, as she was in San Francisco and wouldn't be back in Stamford for several months. Apparently realizing that this would be risky for her to do, she wrote again asking for a sort of safety deposit wired not to her but to a friend or relative of mine.

Clues here?

1. The broken English. By itself, not altogether alarming.
2. The immediate reduction in price. Hmmm, suspicious.

3. Oh wait, you mean she's not local? Danger, Will Robinson.

4. The scammer's tool of trade: a wired sum of money. Ding, Ding, Ding! If this isn't a scam, I'll eat my hat!

Of course, "Maria" did turn out to be a scammer, and she nearly got away with Garrison's $1,000.

The story, linked above, is a lengthy one but well worth your time if you use the Internet to look for apartments.

As always, the Easy Rent Editor advises both prospective tenants and property owners alike to only do business with locals, and to only accept payments via American-issued checks and money orders. Payments should be for the exact amount charged; do not let someone issue you a check for more than that amount if they require you to send them back the excess.

The Easy Rent Editor loves the Internet and its global reach, and I wholly advocate going online to do just about everything -- including apartment searches. Just be wise. The Interent is rife with fraudsters; learn how to identify them and you'll be OK.

Public foreclosure, eviction records widely distributed among rental property owners

Homeowners who have succumbed to foreclosures and tenants who have been evicted should be aware that these mistakes and misdeeds are public record, and real estate investors in Ohio are not shy about sharing the information they've collected about potential renters with one another.

Rental property owners in Ohio are becoming an increasingly well-organized force and, within the private confines of their various associations and clubs, they frequently disseminate these public records.

Sure, it has always been easy for a landlord to visit the local courthouse and search for a potential renter's name within public records. In some cases, one can even access the information online via county government websites or newspaper archives. But the dissemination of these records, which one Ashtabula County association, for example, calls its "Caution List," eliminates even this minor hassle and effortlessly puts a potential tenant's public records right in the hands of rental property owners.

Due to my past affiliation with one Northwest Ohio real estate investment association, yesterday I received in the mail a list of two months worth of area foreclosures and evictions, complete with the names, and in some cases the addresses, of evicted renters and homeowners in foreclosure.

My place on the association's private mailing list, either because I have "former paid member" or "friend of" status, makes my receipt of this information perfectly legal.

Associations which participate in the distribution of similar lists, however, would be wise to keep the information from circulating publicly under their sponsorship, as a potential tenant with a good lawyer may be able to bring a case of defamation against the associations should he or she be refused housing based on one of these lists. Although the fact that the information on the disseminated lists is factual and public record would likely guarantee a court victory for an association, the association would probably do best to avoid lawsuits altogether.

Interestingly, I once raised the subject of potential defamation in objection to such lists at an area association's membership meeting and was told that the kind of person who is evicted is not the kind of person who can afford a lawyer.

Associations that want to protect their members from potential lawsuits may want to follow the aforementioned Ashtabula County organization's lead, if they aren't already taking precautionary steps. The Ashtabula group has posted a statement on their website indicating that "due to liability issues," its Caution List is no longer available online.

One presumes the list is still available to association members.

It may sound as if I'm overly criticizing real estate investors' and rental property owners' associations, but on the contrary this blog entry may in fact make such associations more attractive to non-members: An annual association membership fee may be well worth the easy access to the names of people who have been locally evicted. Foreclosure information, too, is valuable information for real estate investors looking to pick up new properties.

What tenants need to know is that just as a bankruptcy or conviction will follow a person for years and affect job, housing and financial opportunities, so may an eviction or a foreclosure.

So pay those bills, and pay them promptly.

Spring cleaning is for renters, too

I couldn't have been the only person in Northwest Ohio yesterday who unsealed the corners of winter's heavy plastic window coverings to invite the sun and fresh air into my apartment for the first time in months.

After all, it was 73 degrees outside. Who could resist opening the windows?

I might be one of few people who actually took down her blinds and soaked them in the tub with a bit of dish soap, though.

I'm no fastidious freak, believe me. The crumbs and dust hiding in my keyboard are evidence of that. But the fresh air was inspiring and my thoughts turned to spring cleaning.

Why, you might ask, would a renter bother to do spring cleaning? You don't own the property so why do you care?

Well, aside from the obvious reason of personal pride in your living space -- which I realize might not, you know, "do it" for you -- there are practical reasons, too.

At some point, you will move out of your rental apartment or house and hope to get all or part of your security deposit back. And take it from me, four years worth of baked-on oven drippings does not a fun cleaning task make. Neither do the two inches of vacuum-resistant dust that suddenly appear on your carpet from behind your couch, desk and bookshelves when you remove them and other furniture on move-out day.

And about that dust -- if you're allergy-prone, like me, allowing it to accumulate does nothing good for sneezing and watery eyes. The mold in your bathroom and kitchen isn't helping either. Nor is the cat hair stuck to your couch cushions.

But enough of making my case.

Ready to take on the task of spring cleaning, I went searching online for a project list to plan this season's attack on household grime and clutter. The thought of cleaning one's house or apartment top-to-bottom is a bit overwhelming, and it's hard to stay motivated if you try to do it all in one swipe.

What I found was a very well organized checklist for a Complete Spring Cleaning at About.com. The checklist is divided by rooms, which will allow you spread your spring cleaning out over several weeks if you choose. It also includes time-saving tricks and tips to get your family (or roommates) on board.

Some of my other thoughts on spring cleaning:

- Rubber gloves are for wussies.
- The Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, manufactured by Proctor & Gamble, should get its own holiday.
- You don't necessarily need a lot of special formula and pricey products to clean your house or apartment. Vinegar, baking soda and bleach are inexpensive deodorizers and stain-fighters.

Happy cleaning, fellow renters.

Spring forward: A good time to check credit reports

If you're like me, you've spent the last couple of days shuffling around your house or apartment changing your clocks one-by-one to reflect Daylight Savings Time. By now, even your microwave should be displaying the correct time.

Public safety officials have for years also run a successful awareness campaign which urges residents to also choose bi-annual time changes as an opportunity to test smoke detectors.

Prompted by an editorial in today's Cincinnati Enquirer, the Easy Rent Editor also proposes that fall and spring time changes are a great time to check your credit reports. May and June are popular months for Ohio's tenants to begin new rental leases, and an unexpected glitch or error on your credit report can make the process even more troublesome than apartment-hunting already is. Better to have advance notice now in March, and begin taking measures to correct erroneous information -- or pay off any debts in collection that you've forgotten.

Since the inception of the Easy Rent Editor blog, I've included in my links section a referral to www.annualcreditreport.com, which is the only online source authorized by the Federal Trade Commission to provide free credit reports. The service allows you to check your credit with each of three major credit reporting companies -- Experion, Equifax and TransUnion -- once per year.

Spending a few minutes today to verify the accuracy of the information on your credit reports can save you hassles and headaches the next time you apply to rent a new apartment, buy a car or house, or even look for a new job.

Flipping foreclosures 101

What have the Internet, late-night infomercials and the A&E network done to our collective conscience?

Well, they've gone and made everybody think they're potential real estate investors, that's what.

You, yes you, for the low, low price of $49.99 can order this top-rated brochure, "How to Make a Million Bucks by Investing in Real Estate."

It's a scam. They're all scams.

And you don't need no stinkin' scams.

If you're interested in breaking into real estate investment and in particular, flipping houses, How a First Time House Flip Went Bad is a quick and easy read that will help prime you for what to really expect.

Undaunted? OK, I refer you next to a very well-informed article in this week's Toledo Blade, Foreclosures open doors for investors, by Gary T. Pakulski.

And that didn't cost you a penny.