Autumn tree care for your rental property

A couple of weeks ago, I asked my renter-readers what apartment maintenance tasks their leases require them to be responsible for.

To follow up: If you're responsible for yard maintenance, you might find this article about fall tree maintenance helpful.

Tree maintenance isn't normally something renters are too concerned about; thankfully, that's usually a landlord's job. So we'll just consider this a "bonus" blog post amongst friends -- unless you, yourself, are a property manager like I used to be. In that case, you'll be more inclined to check it out.



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Are Bed Bugs Lurking in Your Apartment?

You may have seen bed bugs crawling all over the news in recent weeks, thanks to a recent study that reported a dramatic increase in the U.S. bed bug population.

Ew, right?

If you're like me, every time you read or hear a story about bed bugs, you worry that you have them. Here's how to know if you do, in "Are Bed Bugs Lurking in Your Apartment?"

The article links you to a "bed bug registry" that collects reports of bed bugs in hotels and apartment buildings. It also provides helpful info for identifying bed bug bites and how to look for signs that your apartment might be harboring the nocturnal pests.

Sleep tight, ha.


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Spring Apartment Hunting Advice

Spring has sprung! And although my sinuses protest (yours, too?), spring is a time of action for many of us, including those who are in search of a new apartment.

Many apartment leases end in spring and early summer, so right now is when a lot of tenants are choosing whether to renew their leases or find new digs. If you choose the latter, you may want to read Spring Apartment Hunting Reveals an Apartment's Secrets: Beware the Subtle Signs of a Bad Apartment, published just this week.

You'll discover how to assess an apartment's landscaping, how to look at the gutters for signs of poor building maintenance and how to survey the common areas for signs of inconsiderate neighbors. Don't view any apartments this spring until you've read this article and learned how to sleuth out the secrets of your prospective new place.




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Garbage disposal on the fritz?

Before you call the landlord or apartment manager to address the clank, buzz or total dead silence of your garbage disposal, follow these Renter's Repair Guide tips for a few easy fixes to try.

Note: It may be worth your while! Some landlords will charge you a maintenance fee if they have to send maintenance to fish a bottle cap, dish rag or children's toy out of your disposal. When I worked as an apartment manager, the No. 1 reason a tenant's garbage disposal would be "broken" was due to something that went down the sink that wasn't supposed to go there.

So roll up your sleeves and good luck!

Cold-weather apartment hunting can give away a landlord's secrets

Time is running out for cold-weather apartment hunting!

Generally, the arrival of spring is all-around a good thing, true. But if you're apartment hunting, the shortcut to finding out all you really want to know about a prospective apartment is to view it in the wintertime.

Figure out how you'll be treated as a tenant year-round and what the building's condition really is, by reading my tips for super-savvy apartment hunters here.

Landlords, do you use YouTube?

If you have a high-speed Internet connection and a digital camera, using YouTube to advertise your rental properties makes (dollars and) sense.

You can use stills to make a slide show video, like this one:



... or, use video to showcase a virtual tour, like this:



(Although, you might want to refrain from narrating your virtual tour with, "Crap ... I just broke the door handle." You'll also want to refrain from pointing out any community-wide problems that you apparently have no plan to fix.)

Prospective tenants like to see as much information as possible about your available rental units prior to their actual visit. Digital cameras are very reasonably priced now, many come with video-shooting capabilities, and it costs nothing to upload videos or slide shows to YouTube. So have you thought about using these resources that are free or that you already own, to advertise? Would love to hear some first-person stories about landlords' or property managers' YouTube advertising and whether or not YouTube has helped your bottom line.