10 July 2008 – Thursday

I spent the morning putting in some 12 volt lighting down by the new pond and along the path. I used some lighting that I bought as a close-out 2 or 3 years ago at Lowe’s. It is high quality all metal lamps from Malibu’s architectural selection. I bought two complete sets of 10 lights each for just $15 a set. The great part of this was that I was able to use the spotlights to light up the yard art lanterns that Mike and Cindy gave us 5 or 6 years ago. I have been trying to come up with a way to light them since I got them and this seemed to work. When the sun went down I went out and looked and while they do not give off a lot of light they look good.

The morning just rushed by and before I knew it, it was time to take my bath so we could go to the 7th Ave apartments and see what they looked like. Thomas – the man who called earlier in the week met us there. At first we could not get in because none of the keys we had worked, but Thomas crawled in through a window and let us in. The guys left a lot of mess in the kitchens – food, unwashed dishes, etc. but it was not as bad as it could have been. It is going to take a good day to clean up and throw out everything but there we are not going to need to do as much painting as I thought.

We will probably hire Thomas to manage the apartments for about $150 a month including keeping up the yard. Even then if we can get $1400 or so rent plus utilities we will be cash positive for the first time since Daniel ran the place. We are going back on Saturday morning to start the clean-up.

The rest of the day was quiet and peaceful. I read, sent some e-mail, and had dinner. After dinner I went over to the Berges to say thank-you for taking care of our Geraniums while we were gone. We had a great time talking about yard and service at the MTC. They are good couple and we should do things with them.