Apartment Emergency for the Handyman

Back in the days when I did a lot of Handyman work for Realtors I received an interesting call from a Realtor friend of mine named Mary. Mary called to tell me she had a lead on some drywall repair from one of her recent clients. She told me that her client had listed his ten unit apartment building with her and now it needed some emergency drywall repairs. She gave me her client’s name (Ernie) and phone number and asked if I could call him ASAP.

I called Ernie and set a time to meet him at the apartment building that day. After I met Ernie I learned what had happened. Apparently Ernie had put a considerable amount of money in the building for renovations and updates, and needed to have it on the market quick, especially since the building was completely vacant. He had the painters scheduled to paint the interior yesterday, but what they found was going to be a set back in plans. Ernie told me what happened to his building, and thought it was one of the renters that had recently moved out of the building that did the damage.

In the past I had made repairs on vandalized houses and apartments, but this was the first time I had seen this. Somebody did not like Ernie very much, and you won’t believe what they did. But you will have to come back tomorrow to find out what they did.

Handyman Finds Exhausted Drywall

Sometimes finding the cause of a problem is not an easy job, but after you finally discover the cause, you always feel stupid for not figuring it out earlier. This was exactly the case at Nancy’s house.

The facts I had were: the wall was an interior non-load bearing wall, between the kitchen and the living room, and there was no water source anywhere near the wall. I looked in the attic where the wall ended and found nothing. Okay, if you have already figured it out, you won’t feel as silly as I did after spending over an hour trying to find the problem, with out any luck. I told Nancy that the cause of the problem was not where I could see it, and I recommended I start by taking down the bad drywall.

Nancy agreed, so I got the tools I needed and tarped the living room floor. I started by knocking a hole in the drywall between the studs, and the smell rolled out of the wall with the very first hammer strike. As I made the hole bigger the smell got worse, and I also noticed the drywall was very greasy. Figured it out yet?

Well it took me until I had removed just about all of the damaged drywall, to find out the damage was caused by kitchen grease. Yes, Kitchen grease. When the house was built ten years ago the person that installed the vented range hood thought it was okay to let it exhaust into the wall cavity. The drywall job also turned into venting the range hood to the outside, so now the wall will not fill up with grease. This makes it a lot easier to keep paint on the walls...

Handyman Finds a Surprise in the Drywall

I started the week out busy for a January, but by Thursday I realized I barely had enough work to get me through the next week. The phone rang and it was a call for a routine drywall repair, well I thought it was a routine repair. The client (Nancy Dully) said that she had a “bubbling soft spot of drywall” in her living room about two feet wide that went from the ceiling to the floor.

Okay I was thinking the same thing you are thinking, but we would both be wrong, it was not a water stain or water damage, it was not even on a perimeter wall. The next morning I drove out to the Dully’s house to give a bid on the drywall repair. The Dully’s had only owned this house for a year, but had already painted this part of the drywall five times, and the paint just kept peeling off. Nancy showed me the problem spot, and it was just like she described, but with very dark stains. I probed the drywall and found it very soft in the area with the staining. I figured out what it would cost to repair the drywall damage, but I told Nancy we also had to find out what caused the drywall damage in the first place. With out remediating the cause of the drywall damage the new drywall would also become damaged.

More tomorrow.

The Handyman sheds some new light on the project

The house was really coming together and looked better then when Tim and Jen bought it almost twenty years ago. The kitchen was looking a little dated and needed better lighting. Danny suggested lighting under the wall cabinets and can lights in the ceiling.

Jen liked it so much; she put new lighting in the dinning room and the living room. The new lighting in the kitchen showed up the old cabinets and counter top. Tim did not want to spend the money for a new kitchen, so they went with Danny’s suggestion. Danny suggested to replace the cabinet doors and hardware and a new counter top.

Tim and Jen’s house is starting to look like the house they had always wanted, thanks to the handyman.

Jen’s Handyman crazy

This project of Tim and Jen’s started out with a little trim in the living room and ended up with new floor in three rooms. I guess that is not true, it did not end there, and probably has not ended. After the new floor in the three rooms, it seemed like the logical thing was to install new baseboard trim in the rooms with the new floor. The crown molding looked so good in the living room Jen could not help but to have it put in the hall and the dinning room.

Did Jen stop here?

You will have to see tomorrow.

The Handyman made the room look too good

After Tim and Jen had the living room trim work done, they decided they needed a new floor because the trim looked better then the rest of the room. They wanted to stay with the wood look, but did not know what to choose, so they called me again.

I recommended a Handyman again, hey this is not rocket science, so since they had such a good experience with Danny, they called him. Danny was over in a few days with some samples of the floor. Tim and Jen liked the wood look floating floor system that Danny had showed them. After Danny had installed the floating floor in the living room, Jen decided it made the dinning room, and hall look bad, so wile Danny’s crew was still there, Jen had them put the same floor in the dinning room and hall.

This gets better.

Handyman adds Value

A friend of mine called me about a month before Christmas of last year, and wanted some tips to spruce up his house, well the living room to be exact. His house is a two story, built in the early eighties, kind of plain. The kids are grown and out of the house, and Tim and Jenny are ready to make the house nice for them selves.

Okay back to the living room. I recommended some formal wood trim in the living room. I gave them the name of a handyman that could give them some suggestions of what type of trim to use, and give them a price for the work. After some nice two-piece crown molding in the ceiling, Jen let Danny (the handyman) talk her into some two-piece chair rail molding. Boy, did that make a big difference in the living room.

Did they stop at the living room?

Handyman Finds Cash in the Closet

Closet organization has become more and more popular. A lot of homeowners are taking on this as a homeowner project. But more and more people are turning to a Handyman to help plan and build the perfect organized closet.

As a Handyman, more things are considered for a custom closet then shelves and rods. Mold and mildew is a problem in closets because of poor ventilation. A Handyman can install the proper ventilation to prevent mold and musty smelling clothes. Back when I was younger the way to keep clothes bug and mold free was to line your closet in cedar. But there are better ways to do the same thing and not have your house smell like a hamster cage.

A Handyman pal of mine was showing me pictures of a custom closet he did for a local news celebrity. The lighting was unbelievable, not to mention the marble floor and the remote control rotating suit rack. The closet had ventilation fans controlled by a humidistat, to keep a perfect climate in the closet. He said he has been making great money with custom closets, and he kids about finding cash in the closet.

Closet organization projects can range from simple to involved and expensive, but in the end well worth the effort and expense.

Handyman to “Infinity and Beyond”

Remember, I said Danny is always looking for ways to expand his business, and I was not kidding. His involvement with REOs took him in a strange direction for a Handyman service, well I think so anyway, but then I am not Danny.

Before I tell you what he has added to his services, let me tell you a little more about Danny the businessman. Danny is very organized, and makes a lot of business contacts to make his ideas work. He originally thought that if he worked hard with his hands he could build the large volume of business he wanted. Danny very quickly realized that to achieve his business goals he needed to work hard with his head. Over the years he has expanded his business in diverse markets for a Handyman service, but he has always investigated his expansion ideas before adding new services.

Now for the “Infinity and Beyond” stuff. Danny has added the following services to his business:
- Clean Outs
- Trash Outs
- Debris Removal
- General Cleaning of vacant properties
- Winterizations and De-Winterizations
- Fire and Flood Restoration

One thing that surprised me was, Danny said, that he found a market for junk car removal from bank owned properties... Well, that is a whole different story.

Handyman Expands Business

Danny, like I said, has always been a Handyman, but I think that as a businessman he is always looking for more opportunities. About three years ago a bad storm severely damaged the roof on Danny’s house. He called his insurance company to report the damage. That day the insurance company sent out a company to tarp and secure the roof, so not to have the house damaged by rainwater. This raised the businessman interest in Danny, and he talked to the guys that secured his roof.

Danny over the next several months contacted insurance companies in his area, and found that they had a need for a prompt and professional Handyman. He has expanded his business to meet the needs of local insurance companies. Yes, you guessed it, he tarps and secure roofs. But that only led him into other things. He does storm debris removal, siding repair, roof repair, window repair, and much more.

Handyman Expands

This is a story about Danny - a Handyman that went in a little different direction to expand his business. I have known Danny since grade school, let’s just say forty something years, and he was a born handyman. I remember one day when we were in the sixth grade, I came over to Danny’s house after school to find Danny taking apart the family clothes-dryer. The dryer had a broken belt and his dad had the replacement belt sitting on the dryer for days. One day when Danny came home from school, he decided he would surprise his parents by having the dryer working when they got home from work. His plan worked, when Mrs. Catiotitti came home from work that day, the dryer was working like new. You have heard the saying “ where there is a will there is a way”, well I think that “where there is a Danny there is a way”

Danny was always a handyman, but later on he became a businessman. He was always able to make money with his hands, and latter discovered he needed to make money with his head as well. Danny was never a follower, but a leader in his field. I remember when he starting telling me about the package marketing concept, and that worked. But when he told me about marketing with computers on a web, I thought he had lost it. Now if you are not on the web, you are not a smart businessman, or you don’t need work.

More on Danny tomorrow

A Handyman Friend

I have a fellow Handyman friend that recently started working for companies doing REO Property Maintenance. He said that he has a crew that only does board ups and board downs. I was surprised to hear that this was so big. As a Handyman years ago, this was only an occasional thing. Most of the board downs, or as we called them “Grand Openings”, we did for the city or HUD, and were properties that had been boarded up for years. Since they had been vacant so long, you never knew what you were going to find when you went in them, and that’s how they got the name “Grand openings”.

Okay, the point is Danny has expanded his Handyman business because of REOs, and he offers these services:

Board ups
Board offs
Exterior/Interior Painting
Lock changing
Secondary electric repair
Secondary plumbing repair
Siding repair
Roof and Gutter repair
Finish carpentry work

Tune in for the next blog and find out what else Danny is doing on these REOs.

Handyman in the mortgage field

According to The Wall Street Journal, business is growing for the Handyman in the mortgage field, from firms that specialize in taking care of vacant properties, and preparing them for resale. Some trade groups estimate mortgage servicing to be a $1 billion business with 8,000 to 10,000 companies in the business. Sometimes these mortgage service companies are employed directly by lenders. Other times they work for national middlemen who handle large volumes of foreclosures and farm out the fix-up work to smaller regional Handyman companies.

See the next blog for detailed information on this subject and maybe some more Handyman stories.