Do-It-Yourself Rentals
The News finally profiles some students they approve of: a group of housemates who love their Old Fourth Ward rental so much that they’re positively thrilled to do their landlord’s work by completing various major construction projects on it. We hope they’re getting some kind of discount on the rent.
“Finding a local landlord was important; they’d all heard horror stories from other students about renting from management companies,” the News says. Having once lived about two houses away from them in a house owned by a local landlord, our experience was a little different, but maybe things would have turned out better if only we’d had some carpentry skills, and some machine repair skills, and some plumbing skills.
I think it’s about time that landlords finally learn how to exploit students. Also, since when does the definition of “local landlord” include someone (Sung Yun) who lives out of state?
posted by Anna on September 19th, 2005 at 11:16 amHoly crap, if those guys want to live in my basement and fix up my house they can stay for free, but only if they bring the beer vending machine and keep it stocked. Strohs seems appropriate in this case.
My parents had a deal with their renter up in Flint to have him work on the house for a deep discount on the rent but that worked out to mowing the lawn and not paying the rent at all. Good deal for him till they kicked him out.
posted by Thomas Cook on September 19th, 2005 at 3:57 pmI’ve lived here for 4 years and I had to google “Michigan basement.” Do people call slab basements Michigan basements outside this state? They didn’t in Akron.
posted by beth on September 19th, 2005 at 8:31 pmIn my experience a Michigan basement has been a cruder affair–usually with stone or brick walls, and traditionally with a dirt floor. You can still find them in older houses, but anything with a poured concrete floor I would just call a “basement”.
And don’t forget the “Michigan Handshake”, a good, firm, no-nonsense grasp that means “Goodbye, and don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.”
posted by Parking Structure Dude! on September 20th, 2005 at 9:24 amMy place has a “Michigan basement” according to my ex-girlfriend insurance agent, and yeah, it apparently means stone walls and dirt floor. The house I live in was built probably in the 1890s at least.
posted by Dave on September 20th, 2005 at 11:21 amIs there any way to search out when houses in town were built? The roommate needs to know for insurance purposes, and our house is damningly deceptive - the stone walls in the basement had my dad calling at least 1920s, but they laid concrete on the floor at some point and all the apartments are recently remodelled. Landlord’s managing it for the owner, and they didn’t immediately know, either.
posted by Anonymous on September 20th, 2005 at 10:28 pmYou could go to the Arbor Brew have a pint and see if you see it on the 1880 map, that gives at least a starting point. Then try to find more of those picture maps from other decades. (Historical Society?) I know there is an 1870 but dont know if there are later ones. That way you can pin it into a decade span, which is the best I’ve been able to do with my house.
posted by stella on September 21st, 2005 at 7:45 amYou’re best bet is to go to the county deed office on Main and search it all the way back. There are some records available electronically (http://secure.ewashtenaw.org/ecommerce/deeds/deedsHome.do) but they go back only a few years. The folks there are freakishly helpful and patient, but they won’t do the work for you. You’ll need the address and possibly the parcel id (you can get that by doing a Property/Parcel Lookup). From there, you’ll have to look through the giant deed books (called “libers”) back to when the subject house isn’t listed anymore. It’s time consuming but kind of cool, in a geeky sort of way.
posted by BlogLurker on September 21st, 2005 at 9:42 amTry this link:
http://www.bsasoftware.com/PRDWeb/BSAPRD.DLL?MfcISAPICommand=Dispatcher&command=0&user=annarbor&pswd=annarbor
find the house and then look at the building info, it usually lists when the place was built.
posted by mike on September 21st, 2005 at 4:34 pmPerhaps if the property is somewhat newer that city link is reliable, but it’s not always reliable, eg: my house is on the 1880 map, and yet listed on the city website as built in 1901
posted by stella on September 21st, 2005 at 8:46 pmSort of makes you question your history books, eh?
I have some “libers” for my house (thanks BlogLurker for the term) - found them in the basement after moving in. My guess is the site is accurate as to the first mortgage. Just imagine paying for a house in AA with cash… Going through my stack of 85 year old papers I find first mention of a house in 1908, but a mortgage isn’t until 1918 - the year the city displays on the internet machine.
posted by FAA on September 21st, 2005 at 11:08 pmI did some looking at houses i had reason to think were built in the late 1800’s and they all were listed for 1901. So that seems to be some kind of record keeping line of demarcation
posted by stella on September 22nd, 2005 at 7:34 amNothing earlier than 1901? Sounds like the Y2K bug all over again at BSA Software…
Apologies for typing Y2K, I’ll try to never do that again.
posted by FAA on September 22nd, 2005 at 10:33 amA real estate agent told me their was a fire, and all the early records were lost, so a lot of houses got defaulted to 1901. My house was built in the late 20’s, but the city website says it was built in 1901. So I’d guess the records were actually lost after my house was built. A pretty sloppy job of recreating the records if you’ve got houses from the 1880′ and the 1920’s all listed as 1901.
posted by Parking Structure Dude! on September 22nd, 2005 at 2:51 pmResearching a property can be fun but it is also time consuming. Looking at deeds is a start but this only tells you the property (i.e., land) transactions, not buildings. The City Assesor is not a good source for dates, although it is NOT because a fire destroyed the records. It is not important to them and they do not do research. The earliest city map with houses shown dates to 1853. There are other maps from 1866, 1870, 1880 and 1890 and Sanborn Insurance maps which begin in 1888 for some parts of the city. The best source of information for house occupancy are city directories. The earliest directory dates to 1860, skips to 1868, has three issues in the 1870s, three in the 1880s and most years in the 1890s. IN 1894 they begin to index by street address so if you don’t have a name you must start there. You just look up your address in the index and then look the person up in the alpha section. City directories can be found at most libraries and are most easily accessible at the downtown Ann Arbor District Library.
posted by swines on September 24th, 2005 at 12:50 pm“Freakishly helpful and patient”? Thank you — I will pass that compliment along to my staff in the Deeds office.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on September 25th, 2005 at 6:05 pmI call ‘em as I see ‘em, Larry, I call ‘em as I see ‘em.
posted by BlogLurker on October 3rd, 2005 at 9:11 pmI second that.
posted by Dale on October 3rd, 2005 at 10:11 pm