STEAM AWAY CARPET CLEANING

You can imagine that when you're in the Property Management business, you see more than your fair share of dirty carpets. Sometimes you run across a carpet so disgustingly filthy that you question the wisdom of using carpets at all, and just converting everything to concrete floors with a big drain in the middle.

Since carpets are such a major investment in your rental, you need to take care of them, and get as much life out of them as you possibly can. Your enemies in this endeavor are stains, pets, water damage, and dirt. You are not going to get what you need by renting a rug cleaner from the grocery store.

So when it seems like everybody and his brother has a carpet-cleaning business these days, you need to find someone you can rely on. When we send someone out to clean carpets, we need the best possible job, we need someone who knows what he's doing, we need it done right the first time, and we need it done inexpensively.

Joe Soares of Steam Away has been our only carpet-cleaning provider for a long, long time, and there's a reason for that. He does a great job, and offers all the services we need, including carpet cleaning, repair, stretching, water extraction, pet-stain and odor removal, and more.

Just to give you an idea, there was an apartment we had where it looked like the tenant was sacrificing small animals or rebuilding engines or something equally nasty on the carpet. The painter went in, looked at the carpet, and thought to himself, "No use bothering with a drop cloth here!" and proceeded to paint. Joe came in, took a look, and said, "I can clean this," and proceeded to do just that. It ended up looking great, and our owner got another couple of years out of the carpet.

While we don't demand our tenants use Steam Away when they vacate, we certainly recommend that they do. We require a copy of the receipt from the tenant if they use someone else, because often that's the only way you can tell if someone else has been in there to clean the carpets. When they use Steam Away, it's obvious.

PETERSEN PLUMBING

Have you noticed that people don't call plumbers when things are all peachy keen? The only time you call a plumber is when things are dripping, leaking, gushing, spouting, flooding, cascading-- well, you get the idea. We all like water to stay where it belongs, and whenever we find it out and about and roaming where it shouldn't, we tend to get a little panicky and upset.

So when you do call a plumber, you don't want some dirty, grouchy graduate from the Close-Cover-Before-Striking Institute of Plumbing to show up at your door three weeks later to wrap your pipe with duct tape and run off to his next job. You want it fixed, and you want it done right by a guy who knows what he's doing.

The first thing you'll notice about Greg is he's happy. And that's not because he knows he's going to hand you a whopping plumbing bill, either. He's just one of those guys who seems to always be in a good mood. I may have to confer with Mrs. Petersen on this, but I've never seen a dark cloud hanging over Greg's head. He works fast, and you know that after you call him you can stop worrying about it and move on to your next crisis- he'll take care of it.

BRI-TECH APPLIANCE SERVICE

Every house we manage has appliances in it, and when they stop working, tenants want them fixed right away. When that happens, there probably isn't a property manager in town whose first thought isn't, "How fast can Brian get out there?"

Not only is Brian the most even tempered, calm, and patient "appliance guy" in the universe, his knowledge of appliances is, at times, eerie. Factory trained, the stuff Brian has memorized will send a shiver down your spine. Brian doesn't sell appliances, he only fixes 'em; so when he look at you with that little frown and says, "Gee, I hate to be the bearer of bad news...." you know it's not worth fixing. He's not going to be charging you $500 when a new one only costs $515.

Brian is also a teacher- but not in a traditional classroom sense. He's a professor of Applianceology. If a tenant is having trouble with an appliance he will always take the time to offer tips and suggestions to make the appliance work better for them, or last longer.

You'll see him cruising around down in his big white 4WD van with red and blue lettering. Snow, rain, sleet, hail-- nothing will stop him from getting to his appointed rounds.