As you may have surmised from the accompanying image, I spent some quality time with the toilet over the weekend. Earlier this year, I heard the toilet tank refill on its own a couple of times while painting the rental condo. I planned to let the new owner deal with the toilet, but I had to adjust my goal. The rental condo is off the market. Read on to see what happened. Rental condo is off the market In January, our long-time renter quit his job, broke the lease, and went off to walk the earth. Good for him. I wanted to sell off our rental condo anyway. I don’t want to be a landlord anymore. We’re planning to move to California after our son graduates from high school. That’s in 4 years, but I also want to travel more. Being a DIY landlord requires you to be nearby most of the time. (I loathe rental management companies. Most of them collect a sizeable fee and don’t do a good job because they have too many properties to handle.) That’s why I fixed up the condo and put it up for sale.   Unfortunately, the condo real estate market is terrible in Portland. We only had one view in 4 months.  The interest rate is still high and buyers are hesitant. People are afraid because the economy might blow up at any moment. The tariff and government makeover will make life harder for everyone. I don’t think this is the right time to buy a condo or a house. Also, there are 15 units on the market in this complex. That’s a lot of competition. Last week, Mrs. RB40 heard that a tenant in our building was looking to move into another unit. I met with him and he seems like a nice guy. He also passed the screening with flying colors. Hey, if I can’t sell, I might as well rent it out for a few years. We still have 4 years left in Portland. Having a vacant condo is demoralizing. We lose about $1,000 every month. I don’t like it at all. Anyway, our rental condo is off the market and our new tenant will move in soon. Fixing up the rental condo Toilet This is why I went to fix up the toilet over the weekend. The last time I replaced the toilet flapper was 10 years ago. The rest of the flushing system was 20 years old. If I didn’t fix it up, the new tenant is bound to call me at 3 am someday. I got a Fluidmaster complete toilet repair kit and a new tank hose from Home Depot. This kit has everything you need to replace the flushing system. It was a pain* to install, but I got it done. Good thing I did too. The old flapper was in bad shape. It was cracked, squishy, and melty. The rest of the system wasn’t as bad, but I’m glad I replaced them. The

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