Real Life Investing With Jason & Rachel Wagner
“Real Life Investing” with Jason and Rachel Wagner is a multifaceted podcast that blends insights from real estate, entrepreneurship, family life, and political discussions. Known for their candid and engaging style, the Wagner’s explore how their conservative values shape their approach to both business and life. They often discuss their personal journeys in real estate, offering practical tips on topics like how to buy a house or investment property while navigating a challenging housing market.
In addition to real estate, the show frequently delves into entrepreneurial lessons, highlighting the importance of mindset, perseverance, and staying focused on long-term goals. They are open about the challenges they’ve faced and provide valuable advice for anyone looking to head into entrepreneurship or seek the best version of themselves.
Dinner table conversations are central to the podcast. The Wagner’s discuss their experiences balancing various topics that families face, while often featuring guests who share similar journeys. Political conversations are explored from a conservative perspective, particularly when they touch on how these beliefs influence their business decisions and personal growth.
With a blend of relatable stories and expert advice, “Real Life Investing” is a show that appeals to a wide audience, from aspiring entrepreneurs and real estate investors, to those seeking inspiration in their personal lives.
Real Life Investing With Jason & Rachel Wagner
72. Navigating Our First Eviction: A 10-Month Landlord Nightmare
Our first eviction experience turned into a year-long saga of legal hurdles, thousands in lost revenue, and unexpected emotional challenges. We navigate the complex process of evicting non-paying tenants from our commercial property in Chicago while balancing business decisions with human impact.
• Notice requirements for tenant termination in Chicago (120 days for tenants who've lived there over 3 years)
• Impact of problem tenants on other units and building conditions
• Timeline from notice to actual eviction spanning nearly 12 months
• Legal procedures including court dates, default judgments, and sheriff scheduling
• Importance of not accepting rent after termination notice
• Financial impact: over $10,000 in losses from legal fees and missed rent
• Emotional reality of eviction day with six sheriff officers and social workers
• Cash-for-keys as a potentially better alternative to formal eviction
• Location matters - eviction laws vary significantly between different states and counties
• Single-unit rentals carry higher risk compared to multi-unit properties
If you're considering real estate investing, understand that evictions are sometimes unavoidable but should be your last resort. The financial and emotional cost makes cash-for-keys deals worth considering before entering the lengthy court process.
Welcome back to another episode of the Real Life Investing Podcast with Jason and Rachel Wagner. Rachel, we're celebrating 5,000 downloads.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know it's amazing. It's pretty awesome, yeah, and I will tell you, the struggle has been real to actually record anything new.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, why? Why, as of recently? First off, the summer stinks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:The summer really stinks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, the summer really stinks, yeah, yeah, we. You may even be able to hear a little bit of the struggle in the background of the reality of where we're at. I mean, we welcomed a new baby boy in May and made the decision to embark on homeschooling this fall. Embark on homeschooling this fall, and so what we're, you know, not realizing, because we obviously knew this was going to be the case. But discovering is. Time is flying by and it's not our own, and finding the time to have a quiet space and do a recording is is a very, very new struggle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a very real, real struggle right now.
Speaker 2:But we're here and we're doing it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, in the summer you know the kids are home and you know they just they're always here.
Speaker 2:They're always here and now. That remains true.
Speaker 1:And that remains true because we decided For the foreseeable future. Yeah, because we decided to homeschool Scarlett.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which has been amazing. I'm really glad that we're doing that.
Speaker 1:I think that was the right decision. Yeah, oh, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, no, it's going to be amazing.
Speaker 2:That's our life Well, and the beautiful thing is it kind of leads into some of what we're talking about. As part of the homeschool, scarlett gets to shadow you during appointments where that makes sense, and so you've been able to have some new conversations with her about real estate and what it means to own a property, what it means to rent a property, and we haven't gone into the details of what we're going to talk about today but at some point it'll be a great lesson for her too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because we recently had the tenants move out of our last house or a single family home that we had in Jefferson Park. Tenants lived there for two years and I brought Scarlett over to see how the house looked after the tenants moved out. And kind of a fun experience. Because she's like oh, dad, they didn't really take care of it here and I'm like, well, you know, when you move out of a house it's still going to be pretty messy. And and then you do start to identify things that are like oh yeah, you know there's there's a lot of burnt out light bulbs and you know it does look a little messy over there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I asked her how it went.
Speaker 1:There's like permanent stains on some things. And you know, I ultimately told her. I said, you know, at the end of the day, scarlett, everything is fixable, and that's the cool part. Part of this next exercise with her is that she did see it when they moved out and then now we've just recently kind of fixed everything and I do want to bring her back before the new tenants move in so that she can kind of see the whole transformation of like oh, my house looks like, or this house looks like what it used to look like when I lived here. So it'll be a kind of a cool before and after.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:For the kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so cool to like hear what a kid's perspective is on on some of the stuff, cause I remember asking her how it went and she's like it was so messy, it was just so funny, like they had just moved out.
Speaker 1:Yeah so yeah, it is what it is. You know, at the end of the day, a tenant is not going to treat your property the way that you would treat your property, and so the expectation should not be that they're going to treat it the same way that you would.
Speaker 2:Yep, and it's baked into your cost. Right yeah, your budget.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, all right. Well, that leads to speaking of tenants. It leads into our new topic, which is talking about our experience with our first eviction, where we finally saw it the distance we went from giving a notice. This was on the commercial building that we bought. We actually had an episode where we talked about this commercial building, our first commercial apartment, and that was actually a pretty good episode. There's a lot that's in our top five download list of people being interested in how we purchased our commercial property. Well, as we've owned this one over the last or a little bit over a year, about a year and a half we had one unit that was kind of remaining. That was really gross, not renovated, full of cockroaches, like a really bad infestation there, but people were living there and people were hoarders and they had lived in the building for, I believe, seven years and it looked like they just moved in because they still had boxes everywhere and it was just really gross.
Speaker 2:And were they on a lease or were they living month to month?
Speaker 1:They were technically on a month to month agreement.
Speaker 1:And so when we acquired the building, we acquired the tenants and that was kind of like hey, this is the problem unit. They were still paying. You know, their rent was $950. It's a two bedroom, one bath in Porridge Park, which is very low. Yeah, very low Also, but probably appropriate for the condition of the unit, like it was gross and it's not renovated at all. So I made the decision to terminate their lease and I gave them, because they had lived in the property more than three years, you got to give them 120 day notice, so I gave them a four month notice. So on July 31st of 2024, I gave them a notice that they need to move out by the end of November. So November 30th.
Speaker 2:So just curious, since you made the point that they had lived there longer than three years, they got 120 day notice. What's the notice if it's under 120 days? 60 days, excuse me, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so in Chicago is actually Lori Lightfoot that put in this new ordinance, at least for the amount of notice that you need to give somebody. So if a tenant has lived in the property for more than three years and you are going to increase their rent, put them on a new lease or terminate their lease, they need 120 day notice. So that's four months.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a lot Four months to let somebody know, and if they've only lived there for less than three years, it's just 60 days. Okay, so you have to abide by that. And so I gave them, you know, the four-month notice, and they agreed. They said, okay, you know, we understand, you know the unit's in really bad shape and you know it would just be best if we got out of here too.
Speaker 2:So they were in agreement.
Speaker 1:So your notice wasn't. Your rent is going up. Your notice is you need to vacate. I wanted to terminate their lease because that unit needed to be addressed. It's an infestation of cockroaches and I can't address the unit when it looks the way it is. Yeah, you know it's not clean and whatsoever. The air that you would breathe in that unit was like hot, gross, nasty air. This is not a place for humans to be living. Honestly, it was. It was that it was that bad. When we did the inspection on the property, the inspector had to wear an N95 in there the entire time. And I'm like, dude, I'm not, I'm not going to sit in that unit while you're inspecting this thing. Why don't you go in there and do your thing and come back out and let me know how it goes? And he's like. I could feel it through the N95 that my respiratory system was like getting affected.
Speaker 2:But didn't you have somebody who went through the unit who said that there's a particular smell that comes from like a hoarder house?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was actually one of the, so the pest control guy, when he first came and I met him there the first time and he's like, oh, hoarder smell. I was like what they come with a smell. He's like, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a distinct, it's a distinct, just nasty smell. Yeah, and you got to think about how that's impacting the other tenants in the building. Right, like with the infestation of cockroaches, there's going to be some overspill into other units, and that's what was happening. It impacts other people's experience, yeah.
Speaker 1:The unit above. We were trying to lease it and as I was doing some of the showings, I was like, dude, I'm finding roaches in this. Like the roaches, it's a vacant unit right now and it looks really good, but there's roaches in the cabinets and there's roaches that are crawling on the floor and it's coming directly below from this unit. And so I had to. You know, over the course of time we just had a regular pest service that would come in and you know they would treat just that unit, because I would ask all the tenants if they were seeing any activity in their other units. It was only this ground zero unit that was really the big problem. So, anyways, you know we addressed it and actively tried to, you know, help it. So they have a notice to move out. And November 30th comes and they're like, yeah, we're not, we're not going anywhere.
Speaker 1:And what happened a couple months before that was that the head of household so there's really three people in this unit, two that are in their 60s and then their older son, who's probably in his 40s, living together. And what happened to the head of household, who was the guy that I was talking to about all of this, was that he landed in a nursing home because he had a stroke. And here's the interesting part he actually puts his stroke on the COVID vaccine, which he told me that, and he's like it was the COVID vaccine that put me in this hospital and now I've had a stroke and then it's just, he never got better. Like they never ended up releasing him. He's still there now, which is kind of crazy.
Speaker 2:Well, and has made this process like super difficult, right Like you issued that notice back in July, and when did that whole thing happen? Because that person's not even living there.
Speaker 1:No, he's not living there. All of the stuff is there Right and the other two people were living there and the other two people were living there. But like the person, yeah, on the lease.
Speaker 2:Isn't living there. And yeah, it's complicated.
Speaker 1:Yeah, on the lease, isn't living there and yeah, it's complicated. Yeah, yeah, exactly, and so you know it's made it very difficult. Situation where I've got the head of household in a nursing home. His wife and son are living in the apartment not taking care of it. His wife is disabled, doesn't move around very good. I know his son has a number of issues himself as well and actually we're just we're just dealing with like handicapped people, you know, the whole family at this point is is just handicapped.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so it makes it really challenging. And so I did the honestly I, you know. So I did the best that I could. I told them I'm like, hey, I can help you look for other apartments and I would actively look on what was available on the rental market and I would send them opportunities. And then they were just like no, it needs to be first floor, it needs to be under. We're spending $950 now. We'd actually like to spend something that's $800. And I'm just like dude, you can't. He's like I need to have a two bedroom and I'm just like dude, you, you just can't get that you know.
Speaker 1:So we have a problem of they can't just go find something else that suits their needs. I'm actively trying to help them and it's just not quite working.
Speaker 2:So this timeframe was like between the time that you gave them notice and then when the new rent was going to increase. So the during that 120 day period.
Speaker 1:Well, I didn't really. I mean, I gave them a, like an increase of rent notice like, hey, here's what you could do if you want to continue to stay here, but we wanted the termination.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's right. You just said we wanted the termination. Okay, that's right.
Speaker 1:You just said we wanted the termination yeah, okay, because the increased rent wasn't going to make sense for them.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you give them the notice You're trying to help them find a place.
Speaker 1:And then you get to the point where they're supposed to vacate and they don't Right. And so, from here, this is where we file a suit of you know, now we need to get this into the court to start the eviction process.
Speaker 2:And did they pay? Continue to pay their month to month rate.
Speaker 1:So when you go to terminate somebody's lease and they are still there after your timeframe and they're in a month to month, you cannot accept new rent. He wanted to pay me his December rent. He wanted to pay me that 950. But I said I'm not accepting it.
Speaker 2:Because you want the unit vacated, because I want the unit vacated because this is a big problem within this apartment building. Yeah, and that's a tough decision and a good, I think, distinction on the rules is had you accepted that rent, would that have made your 120 day notice null and void, because you would have essentially entered into a new month to month agreement with them?
Speaker 2:Oh, exactly, yes, so if you would have, accepted payment for rent at the end of that 120 days, you then would have had to have start that 120 day process all over again, because you've got this verbal, so to speak, month to month written agreement.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, and sometimes a tenant will send it to you electronically by Zelle and you're supposed to immediately send that back.
Speaker 2:Is there a time frame for what you have to do that?
Speaker 1:Like immediately yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, so he wanted to pay you rent.
Speaker 1:You said, no, you need to vacate, and what they say. But we've got this. Like you know, I've got my health problems that are going on and you know my son can't do this by himself and you know my wife's not able to do this and you know we don't have a lot of money to, you know, to hire movers or anything like that and we can't find a new place. And they told me, well, serve us the eviction paperwork, because then we can go and take that to social services paperwork, because then we can go and take that to social services or, like you know, I might be able to find a place and you know, and they want to see that I've been served, so that can help us look for a place.
Speaker 1:I said okay, I'll work on that, no problem. So I contact the attorney and we file the complaint on December 16th and it's kind of funny. So as I you know, I got referred to this attorney. I probably wouldn't refer them to other people. It wasn't that good of experience. There was a lot of fumbles that happened along the way. Like this is just the reality of it, right, and not to talk bad about anybody, but it's just. It wasn't. Eviction this eviction process is not going to be smooth. You just have to plan that this is going to be a very long time. Eviction this eviction process is not going to be smooth. You just have to plan that this is going to be a very long time. It's going to be a frustrating time.
Speaker 2:It does not help that if you fumble some things along the way either. Right, so Well, and there was some interesting discussion with the attorney throughout the process of like frustration on our end, a lack of urgency, and the response that was given a couple of times was like look, you don't want to overly push the sheriff's department or the court system, because then they're just going to delay you more on purpose because they don't want to be pushed. So you got to kind of like coddle them and be really nice and it was kind of like this is ridiculous, like who knows if that was true or accurate, but that was the communication that was coming from the attorney is like look.
Speaker 2:I've done this so many times. I know we've got to kind of handle this with you know delicacy and it's like, well, in the meantime we're not getting paid.
Speaker 1:And the unit continues to degrade. Everybody's going to have that same mindset, right? It's like this is getting ridiculous. It's taking too long. Mindset right, it's like this is getting ridiculous. It's taking too long. I mean, we haven't gotten to the details of why we needed them to push, because there was literally some oversight by the sheriff department where we were on the book scheduled for to be evicted the next day and then all of a sudden we weren't and we were removed, and then all of a sudden they said that our eviction order was expired. I'm like how the hell do we have an expired eviction order when it's taken this long, like I didn't even know these things expire.
Speaker 2:Okay, so let's back up. So you filed the eviction paperwork.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 1:So we filed the eviction paperwork and that was on December 31st. Okay. So actually which was funny we filed it on the 16th and then I noticed that there were errors. So then they had to file it again, and then that was on the 31st of December. Okay, so then you get set up with a new court date or with your first court date, and that's like two months away from when you file. So that was on February 10th.
Speaker 1:So we filed that, the second, the second complaint, because the first one was wrong. We filed the second complaint on December 31st. We didn't get a court date until February 10th. Well, the 10th didn't show up, okay. So then you get into a continuance and you know, oh, the judge is like well, maybe they can come to the next one, right? So then you have your second court date, and that was on February 25th, so not that much longer, and the tenants didn't show up to that either. So here I was thinking like, oh, they don't show up. And then we're told that the eviction becomes enforceable after seven days from that second court date. And so here I'm thinking, oh, we're all of a sudden going to get like approval on this eviction order, and it's only been a couple months. Yeah, three months, like. That's like that sounds pretty good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, great, that's that that sounds pretty good yeah, still three months no payment, though but they have this thing where it's like the tenants can appeal within the next seven days from that eviction order or from that second court date, and so let's see what do I write here. So the eviction is enforceable after seven days If not gone by. Oh, okay, yeah, the eviction is enforceable by seven days. If the tenants didn't move out by March 5th, we can place the order with the sheriff. And we were actually awarded a judgment on them. This was a default judgment of about $3,300, $3,400.
Speaker 2:And what does that mean?
Speaker 1:So eventually, like they actually just kind of calculate, like because in the process he was like, okay, how much rent did they actually owe you? Because they start to look at, okay, when did the lease end, and then how many months have they been there for? And so they automatically will put a judgment on the past due rent. Right, because they're still in the property. And from what I've learned is that you can try to go after and, you know, put a judgment on them and garnish their wages and, you know, try to get some of this back due rent.
Speaker 1:But I don't really have a lot of success stories of people doing that and I eventually just kind of dropped. That, you know, is like I didn't care about you know, getting the rent that was due. They already had a low amount. You know, getting the the rent that was due, they already had a low amount and I was willing to. Just if we could just move this along or get them to move out, I'm totally okay with not having you know them paying me the past due rent and just give me possession back.
Speaker 2:It seems very reasonable oh yeah, that's, very fair all right.
Speaker 1:So so they, they tell me hey, if on March 5th if they're still living there, let's see March 5th, if they're still living there, I can expect seven to eight weeks for the sheriff. So if on March 5th they're still living there, then we would have an enforceable eviction and then we'd have to put it in with the sheriff, and that's going to take another seven to eight weeks Because the sheriff is backlogged on all this stuff. So within that seven day window after that second court date, the tenant actually got in touch with an attorney and they filed a motion to vacate the default judgment. So now we get like a curveball thrown at us where, yeah, just because the tenants didn't show up to the court date, but they did get in touch with somebody, with an attorney, to help them through this, and so that attorney was able to file a motion to get rid of the default judgment, which led us into negotiation of hey, we'll drop the judgment if you move out by a certain date. And so the tenants needed more time to move out, and so we agreed that the tenants would move out by May 15th, and this was in. This was March 24th at the time when we made this agreement, you still following Mm-hmm?
Speaker 1:Okay, so then from there we were going to say, okay, if they don't move out by May 15th, it's going to be another four to eight weeks for us to get possession of the unit back and that's going to place us in July. Okay, so then May 15th comes and they don't move out, and so we finally get the eviction in the sheriff queue and that doesn't happen until, for some reason, that doesn't happen until June 2nd, and then we finally, on July 1st, we get scheduled to evict. That's going to be the day, july 1st. So, as what I was expecting is like, okay, it's going to land in July, we're going to have this eviction happen. And so when you get notified that, hey, you're finally on the schedule, the sheriff is going to come, they notify you like the business day before it's going to happen and you have to have somebody be there between a four hour window, and so you have to drop everything that you're doing and meet the sheriff there.
Speaker 1:And if you don't approach the sheriff within five minutes of them pulling up, apparently you could miss it. And so, super important to make sure that you have somebody there. And so I cleared my schedule and I was like all right, I'm going to go, we're going to go do this. You know the sheriff's going to pull these guys out. You know, it's kind of as what we expected on the timeline and we're going to get possession back. So then, literally the night of, we just found out about it during the, during the day, and then later that night we find out that oh no, our eviction order expired and we're not on the list anymore. We're canceled.
Speaker 2:Yeah, expired from the court.
Speaker 1:right, yeah, yeah, the original one and I'm like what the fuck?
Speaker 2:You had no control over anyway. No.
Speaker 1:And I'm like what the fuck? Which you had no control over anyway, no. And I was like how do you even have an expired eviction order, like I didn't know that these things expire? And if you're in a county that takes so long to go through this process, why would the expiration date be so short?
Speaker 2:Right. How would it even ever work, like if the court gives you six weeks, for example, and the sheriff needs seven to eight? You're always going to expire.
Speaker 1:It's just like ridiculous things that kept happening Like this was insane.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cook County.
Speaker 1:And so it takes us a while to like figure out, like what the hell happened.
Speaker 2:And at this point you're already at a year from having given them notice to vacate in four months.
Speaker 1:At this point, I am at that year, yeah, year mark of when I given them notice to vacate in four months. At this point, I am at that year, yeah, year mark of when I gave them notice.
Speaker 2:four months notice, yeah, so eight months of not being paid, 12 months of just dealing with the communication and the process of this in general.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Yep, Yep, so then. So then I get kind of frustrated with the attorney. I'm like how the hell does this happen? And he's like, well, it shouldn't have expired because we actually filed a second eviction order and they should have been able to cross-reference and look that there was a second one that was approved that has a longer expiration date.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I remember this time because this is when there was like a lot of conversations happening of like trying to get in touch with the sheriff, the sheriff saying one thing, the attorney saying something different, something else happening in actuality. It was just like nobody knew what the hell was going on, like when we were like trying to figure out just in communication, like what's happening with this eviction. I have no idea, I don't know what's going on with this eviction. I have no idea it's supposed to happen.
Speaker 1:Now don't know, we might have to go back to court like just a shit show. It was a shit show. And then at the same time, I've got a partner on this right. So you know, and is it okay if I say who he is or no?
Speaker 1:okay, no, I won't say it, but bless his heart because he's just like you know, I'm getting a little impatient on this and I'm like I know I am too and he's like, well, what's stopping us from just you know sitting outside one night and watching him walk outside of the unit and then just going and you know changing the locks, and I'm like you know that, I think, is called a self eviction and is actually punishable as, like a felony. Yeah, so I don't think that's a good idea.
Speaker 2:He's like felony yeah, so I don't think that's a good idea. He's like what yeah? Because from the business standpoint it is wild. It is wild that you can have ownership of a property yet have zero control. Like you have had zero control over this unit for eight months at this point. Arguably Right. No payment, no control over the unit. Your hands are tied and you're still obligated to pay your mortgage, right? So this is like a little bit of the risk, not a little bit.
Speaker 2:This is the risk side of owning properties and renting them out because you're still on the hook to make your payments, but you're not receiving payment and there's nobody helping you speed this along.
Speaker 1:Nobody is helping you, and if you?
Speaker 2:aren't like aware of what you can and can't do, you could make a lot of missteps along the way.
Speaker 1:Well, and you know, and here's the thing is that we filed this eviction right away because they were supposed to move out November 30th, and then we filed it the next month, so technically right away. But imagine when you're in the position of you're dealing with a tenant who just stopped paying you and they're telling you hey, I'll get it to you next month, I'll get it to you next week, next week, next week, all of a sudden that turns into three months, sudden that turns into three months.
Speaker 1:So if you've got a scenario where you're like dude, they're three months behind, they keep telling me they're going to get it, I think I'm finally going to go ahead and do the eviction paperwork. Well then, you just stacked another four to nine months on top of the three months that you're late.
Speaker 2:Right, and you want to pay attention to that too, because, let's just say, somebody's you know lived there for two and a half years or something and they've got a few more months left on their lease, like the amount of notice you're required to give them then, too, for eviction. Is that longer, or is that only if you're ordering them to vacate?
Speaker 1:No, the notice is the same.
Speaker 2:Okay, the notice is the same, so even if they ticked over to living there three years, there's nothing that would change in that non-payment process.
Speaker 1:No, because they're still behind on the rent.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 1:So really what you need to do is that when somebody stops paying you rent and if they don't pay you rent by the 5th, like it's late on the 6th, and if you've got a problem tenant and like you kind of know that on the 6th you should be serving them a five day notice to pay rent and that five day notice is ended and they were still occupying the unit, right, so we were able to file the complaint right away.
Speaker 1:You know, you need to be very proactive with issuing this five-day notice and that needs to be served to them in person and it needs to be given to somebody that is, I believe, above 13 years of age, that lives in the unit. So you can get it doesn't have to be the adult household, it just needs to be somebody that is above 13 years of age. I remember when I was in the property management class at Chicago Association of Realtors that I took the guy that was doing it his name was Taff West and like legendary in Chicago and he would go with a smiling face and he would go and like knock on the door and say a kid would like open the door and he'd be, like hey, buddy, and you know he wouldn't tell him why he's there.
Speaker 1:He'd be like hey, buddy, how are you? Oh, good, good, you know he would ask, you know, if his parents were home and be, like, yeah, and remind me again how old are you. He'd be like 14. Perfect, here can you give this to your mom and dad, right? So, yeah, so you actually have to physically serve it, that five-day notice to people, okay, so then, yeah, that complaint is then issued, and so you just have to like, keep that stuff in mind.
Speaker 2:So okay, so let's go back to our timeline. So it was supposed to be in the sheriff's schedule, but then we got canceled and we don't really know why. But you do a new court date right Cause it expired.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So then all of a sudden we're spending basically the whole month of July trying to figure out what the hell happened.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was that. Nobody knew what was going on.
Speaker 1:Nobody knew what was going on and I have this fear of like dude. We just started back at the beginning of the line.
Speaker 1:And now we got to go back to where we were in December. Yeah, like that was. My fear is that all of a sudden we were. We were totally like screwed here. Yeah, was approved with a longer termination date, and so the sheriff just needed to look at that other order and they didn't.
Speaker 1:And I'm like, all right, why don't you call them and tell them you know what happened and that it was an oversight? And he's like, well, this is kind of going back to where you were talking about earlier, where it's like, well, we can't really push them too much, because then they may not like us, and then it's just going to make things more difficult. And I'm like, dude, we were on the schedule, we were supposed to be, this was supposed to be done the other day and all of a sudden we're not, and it's been like another month and we have no idea what's happening. And it's just chaos in my head. It's chaos in my head because I'm like, dude, this is never going to end.
Speaker 1:And so we, ultimately, we finally were able to kind of push the guy a little bit and so, but he had to go back to court. I don't understand why, but he had to go back to court to file a motion for extension. He came out of that court date, and that was on August 12th. He came out of that court date. He's like, hey, there was actually a new judge and I was like what does that matter? And so they issued a seven-day extension on this.
Speaker 1:So, like this new judge issued another seven days for the tenant to realize that like hey, you're being evicted and like it's now coming like imminent or something. And so then seven days goes by, and then the order extending eviction. Let's see what did I write there. Okay, so then we got the order extending the eviction until December 17th of 2025. So now, all of a sudden we've got our expiration date is now in December. I'm like, okay, it's going to happen this year, yeah.
Speaker 2:And again that's valid to get on the sheriff's schedule. You've got this window now to schedule with the sheriff to actually do the eviction.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then at the end of August we get a notice that, hey, it's probably going to happen within the next two weeks, and then two weeks goes by, two weeks for the sheriff and then two weeks goes by and we don't.
Speaker 1:It doesn't happen. Like on the 14th day I'm asking, hey, it didn't happen within this next two weeks that you said what's happening. So then we, finally the guy is. The guy starts asking the attorney, starts asking his other partners. He's like, yeah, I think we might have to like maybe sue the sheriff's department for not doing their job. And like he started asking his colleagues on if he should do that. And I'm just like this is a disaster man. What a nightmare. Yeah, All of a sudden we're not just suing the tenant Now, we're suing the sheriff to do their job.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which just sounds like an impossible feat.
Speaker 1:So within this like exploratory phase of, are we going to sue the sheriff? We then get noticed that the eviction is going to happen on September 15. And so that was on Monday this past week and we got notice of it on Friday that it was going to happen On Saturday. Here's an interesting part I haven't heard from the tenant in a while, and the tenant messages me this very long thread about their personal situation. I won't go into it, but within this very long thread that he's talking about his family members and the backstabbing that's happening and just their problems and whatnot. He says can you come over and fix the pilot light on the hot water heater because it went out? He says can you come over and, like, fix the pilot light on the hot water heater Because it went out? And and my my response is just I go and I I messaged my handyman to go check out the pilot light. And then I just text him back and I say the pilot light is on because I know on Monday he's going to get evicted.
Speaker 1:Then the eviction day happens, right, and so I have to be there between 8 am and 12. And the sheriff's going to show up at some point, right? So I have to meet them there and you only have five minutes to approach them, so you got to make sure you're not, you know you don't miss them. And that, like I got these things that are happening in my head because all of a sudden I get to the, I get to the building, they're like construction going on and one of the we got a corner building and in one of the corners, one of the streets, there's roadwork going on.
Speaker 1:I'm like whoa, this is kind of a problem. And then so I park on the one street, but I'm kind of like hidden by the building and then I'm sitting there, I'm waiting. I'm like boy, it's nine o'clock 930. I'm like, did I miss? Did I miss the sheriff? Like you know, I'm sitting there, I'm reading a book and I'm just like looking up and down and I'm just like, dude, I hope I didn't miss the sheriff, you know, because I can't see them and I hope they don't. Like you know, they should be easily identifiable, but I'm not identifiable, and so I just start going through this like psychological craziness in my head of like, oh my.
Speaker 1:God, I'm going to miss this.
Speaker 2:I'm going to miss this because they don't call you. Just have to meet them whatever that means.
Speaker 1:I found out that they ended up calling the attorney. The attorney sent me a message saying that they were coming soon. So that was good, but I didn't know that that was going to happen. So again, I'm just like playing these games in my head of like dude, I thought I saw a white car and it had like a sticker on it. I'm like, was that the sheriff? Like, no, I obvious what a sheriff vehicle is. And I'm like, but I did see that van that had the sticker on it that said something about the city. And I'm like, did I miss it? And so it's just crazy what's happening here. And eventually, all right. So then they pull up and I'm like, oh, that's them. Like very obvious, these are sheriff squad cars.
Speaker 1:I go and approach and there are six sheriffs that come up to me and one of them is the main person leading the whole thing and she's like she pulls me over and she's like, hey, just so you know you're, you're being video recorded. What are we doing today? I said we're evicting from this one unit and she says, okay, and who are you? I said I'm the owner. And she says, okay, you're going to have to open the foyer door for us and if the tenant doesn't open up the unit door, we are going to break down the door. I said, well, I got keys and she's like, yeah, but we're going to break down the door. I was like, oh man. And so the attorney told me that, like this could be a thing that happens, and so I did have somebody that was on standby that I could call and like, hey, if I need to fix the door, can you be available? Well, so they go into the unit, they knock on the door and they got like guns drawn, like one guy has it out of his holster.
Speaker 2:Because they don't know if the person on the other side is going to be hostile.
Speaker 1:Right, they have no idea. Yeah, and so then?
Speaker 2:There was somebody else. There too, there was a social worker, yeah.
Speaker 1:There were two social worker girls that were there. One of them was wearing like pajama pants. I was like this is weird, irrelevant detail. I didn't know what she was. She was like and she was wearing a bulletproof vest, but it didn't look like a normal bulletproof vest. It just looked like a regular, like like a Girl Scout vest, like that's what it looked like, and then she was wearing a pajama.
Speaker 2:Are you sure it was a bulletproof vest?
Speaker 1:It had to have been because the two girls were wearing the same one. Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, you sure it wasn't just like an identifiable vest.
Speaker 1:No, it was just black. Oh, it was just black, and it looked like a little bit heavy, but not like police officer heavy, you know. And again, one of them was just wearing pajama pants and I was just like, are you guys with them or what's going on here? And so, and she told me, and she said, yeah, you know, I'm a social worker. I said okay, cool.
Speaker 1:And so I watched them go into the unit and it takes them about I don't know a half hour to talk to the tenant and basically what happens is that they pull the tenant out and the eviction is complete. And so they come up to me and they say, hey, jason, come over here real quick. And they go to the tenant and they're like, hey, do you recognize this man? And he says yes, and he said, ok, jason, the eviction is complete, you're going to have to give them an opportunity to come get their stuff, because they don't take their stuff. He just came out of the unit holding a grocery bag and the clothes on his back. That was about it. And they said, ok, we're done here, so we'll see you later. And so all six sheriffs walk away and the social workers are like kind of off, like it looks like they're walking away too, and so then it's just me and the tenant like looking at each other face to face.
Speaker 1:I'm like, boy, this is awkward. I said do you have somewhere to go? And he's like, oh. I'm like oh. I said okay, well, here's what you got to do. I said call my attorney and, like you know, work out a date to come and get all of your belongings. I said you want your belongings, right? He's like, yeah. I said, okay, well, make sure you call them within the next seven days. I said okay, so make sure you call them within the next seven days and so you can arrange for a time to come get all your stuff.
Speaker 1:And then I go and change the locks and I lock the foyer door and I'm working on the unit door. I'm like you can see right outside because there's a window there and the guy is just hanging out, the tenant's just hanging out right on the front step, and I'm just like, and I'm working on the door, and then he ends up like mouthing to me. He's like, hey, can I come in and use the bathroom? And I'm just like no, like no, no, you can't come in and use the bathroom.
Speaker 2:Like I just had to forcefully evict you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the sheriff told him that if you go into the property like there's a big green no trespassing sign, if you go into the property without permission you can get arrested.
Speaker 2:And so he asked me for permission and I just I ignored it and I said no well, because it's a little bit of a risk, right, like they were supposed to leave december, november 30th, right, and they've been there that entire time, so you let them back in. It's like, well, okay, now you got to call the sheriff back. You're not going to physically forcefully remove somebody from a building, right, so you just start that process all over again. Potentially, that's the risk.
Speaker 1:Oh, potentially yeah. Or he could have came into his unit, he could have grabbed something and, like you know, maybe that was a weapon, that was the other thing that you were aware that these tenants did own firearms, and so it was a real concern, real concern for sure about just the process is wild.
Speaker 2:It's like you go through all of these steps and hurdles just to get to the point of getting control over the property that you own again, just for them to like leave you there with this person that you just that you just made homeless Right and not you, because obviously it was their actions that led them to that point. But that was a weird, like emotional day, I feel like, because we've been so frustrated about this entire process and how crazy it is, like I said, that you could own a property, not be getting payment for it and literally have no control over getting that property back. But then we got to eviction day and it was emotionally upsetting because you realize not that you didn't realize it, but the reality of doing this process is the result of somebody standing outside the door saying I have nowhere to go. I have nowhere to go and that doesn't feel good.
Speaker 1:Oh no, that's the dirtiness of being a property owner and providing housing to people and unfortunately you have to make these really hard calls of. I could have kept those guys there, right, I could have continued to allow them to stay in that unit. They paid me their $950 rent. The building just remains disgusting, impacting other tenants, impacting other Because of this massive bug problem that we have. It's spilling over into other parts of the building and it's just, it's not sanitary and I can't I, you know, I can't good consciously say that I'm allowing these human beings to live in a place that is completely unsanitary yeah, it probably isn't even up to code with those sanitation standards.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely not, absolutely not, absolutely not. And so that that was kind of what helped me, kind of like personally get through all this and realizing when I was, because it's one thing if of like personally get through all of this and realizing what I was, because it's one thing if, like you're just a piece of shit tenant that's just not paying you, and like you're causing all this problem.
Speaker 1:Yeah, kind of gaming the system Totally gaming the system, and that actually happened on. We had another one of those where actually, we did place somebody. This was somebody that we did place and we got totally worked. This was a professional tenant and this woman applied on the unit but she met the criteria for the unit in terms of income and then her credit score. And then all of a sudden she moves in, she pays the first couple of months of rent and I've got now I've got this guy who was not on the lease, who didn't follow through with the application. Now he's the guy I'm talking to in terms of when the rent's being paid and who's paying it.
Speaker 1:And now, all of a sudden, I got this phantom guy that I didn't even know, that was living in the unit, is now living in the unit and I'm stuck because then he tells me hey, I'm not going to pay you, and so now I'm in a moment of, as I'm going through this other eviction process. Well, I could start this, and which I certainly did, but then I went to him and I said hey, man, we got to make, we got to make a deal, and we made a deal, and I paid him $2,000 and they vacated the unit and it was only just a couple months of missed rent two or three months of missed rent versus 10 months and then we were able to get somebody back in and a good tenant that's now paying, and so long story short is that doing a cash for keys deal like that is absolutely what you want to do.
Speaker 1:You never, ever, want to take this the distance, these eviction things unless you have unless you have to, unless you're kind of forced to, in which we can. We were forced to because these were incapacitated people and they couldn't move out.
Speaker 2:And they told you to do the eviction notice so they could try to get resources on their end as well. Yeah, but yeah, either way, either scenario is it feels very risky and like through the actual, like encounter that occurs.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's, it's, it's weird emotion, cause you've got the business side of it and then you've got the human side of it and there's not. There's not a perfect, easy answer, but at the end of the day, you can't live for free.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can't. You can't live for free.
Speaker 2:That's for sure.
Speaker 1:This is what it cost me. It cost me about $1,600 so far for legal fees, and then we missed at least nine months of rent. Yeah, because it was December, and then it was September 15th when they got out, so it was at least nine and a half months.
Speaker 2:And they personally are out, but all their stuff is still there. So you still are not able to.
Speaker 1:So the eviction is done, but you are still not able to access the unit yet because their stuff has to be. Yeah, it's going to be a full 10 months of rent, yeah, yeah, so it's going to be a full 10 months of rent. So that's going to be another nine hundred ninety five hundred dollars, yeah, so plus the sixteen hundred, so we're over ten thousand in loss yeah, so far.
Speaker 2:And if they choose not to take everything out during their window, if they're like, oh, I, oh, I'm just going to grab a couple of personal items and leave all of their hoarding stuff then you've got that cost to incur.
Speaker 1:There's a turnover cost and renovation cost, obviously, as we're going to go through all this. So it's racking up, it's going to get really expensive here, but you know, this is all part of it and this is all part of the risk as we start to realize, like boy, this would really suck if this was the single family home that we rented.
Speaker 1:When you only have one tenant and that person decides to not pay you anymore, all of a sudden you are at a massive, massive disadvantage. It's insanely risky and we were just lucky that we had four other tenants in this one building that were helping support the mortgage and that was still. That was fine, because that was supporting the mortgage and we were making those payments. We weren't making any money on it, but like or we were making a little bit of money on it, but like we weren't really if we had repairs and stuff. Like all of a sudden it's tight, like we need that unit to get up to the market value that we believe it is to get us, you know, in a lot better shape.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it makes those single unit rentals a lot less attractive and something we've been talking about quite a bit, but we'll also say like this is where location really matters, because we're talking about properties in Cook County and in Chicago and the tenant rights there are significantly more favorable than they are in other areas of the country. So it'll, you know, depends on where you're at, where you own property, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because you can just go over to Indiana and they have a totally different system where I believe it's like you can have an eviction done in 60 days or something like that, you know.
Speaker 1:And or same thing in Tennessee. I believe it's the and those are red, red States. So it's kind of the difference between red and blue States here. But at the end of the day, I still think Chicago is a great place to invest. It's just that you have to understand these issues and yeah, but that's our story, that's our story. First eviction. Hopefully you found some value in that, and so now you can kind of know what to expect. At the end of the day. I would not recommend an eviction. I wouldn't recommend the attorney that I worked with.
Speaker 2:Didn't say his name, that's all right, no need no-transcript.