Handling Requests for Decorating.-No landlord can successfully ignore the desires of tenants for fresh and bright bedrooms, nor the proper and frequent care of hardwood floors. The business bargain is made with the man of the family, but the details of decoration are best settled with the woman. To explain one's limitations by way of expense is but fair and the exercise of good judgment, usually meeting a proper response. One month's rent out of the first year's rental is a practice that gives some guide to preparation of living quarters. After the first year the demand by the same occupant is ordinarily less. In case wallpapers are to be selected, a price limit with freedom of the market at several dealers is appreciated, and easily arranged. Any papers in excess of the agreed limit may be billed to the tenant from the dealer's invoices, and if done with usual business expedition causes comparatively little friction. To allow the item to be forgotten is a different story. An offer to refinish hardwood floors twice a year not only pleases the tenants but if agreed to by them prevents that total loss of finish which causes you more expense than compliance with your own suggestion. After all, a pleased tenant is better than any other kind of publicity.

Management. Your tenant secured, moved in, and settled, a period of the long pull of fulfilling mutual obligations ensues. To do your part requires keen knowledge of many conditions.

To state regulations for the supply of heat in all temperatures is no easy matter. In mild weather, to decide how many or how often your engineer should give the house a "shot" of steam requires a study of the particular property. If it is hot-water heating, the following schedule has been found to work well:

This refers to hours between 6:00 o'clock a.m. and 10:00 o'clock p.m., with the natural changes that occur in the boiler thermometer while the plant is not receiving constant attention.

Careful study and watch of the outside weather is the clue to the running of these plants in a satisfactory and economical manner.

You need, and should have, a proper thermometer outside, for the reason that it is on the state of the outside weather that you control your heating.

On windy days the water in the heating plants must be kept hotter than the outside temperature would indicate from the above schedule. Observation of wind conditions will aid you in determining at what point to keep the water.

A remembrance or blueprint of your sewer pipes is essential at times, for knowledge of this kind is an ever-present help to your plumber, who may never have seen the premises before and must, in absence of directions, make his own conjectures-sometimes erroneous.

Various kinds of roofs require different treatment and close attention to secure good results. There are new plastic substances, which it is well to know about, whereby a leak may be stopped even in a rainstorm.

Effects to be procured by various paints, stains, varnishes, waxes, enamels, and removers of old finish are not treated in any general textbook, but may be studied from literature put out by various manufacturers and tested by use. It pays to know what is best for the particular purpose in hand, but this is a difficult problem, and lack of such knowledge prevents you using the best and most economical materials and processes. Paint and other finishing materials are products of applied chemistry and landlords should learn as much about them as possible. The cost of materials and the wages of the painter, or finisher make no inconsiderable inroad on gross receipts.

Relations with Tenants.-One of the hardest lessons a landlord must learn is to decide correctly whether compliance with the demands of a tenant would prove satisfactory with the next tenant in case of a change of occupancy. Special requests of well-to-do tenants will tend to reduce your net income to the vanishing point, if you do not keep in mind the probable value of the desired change or improvement with reference to future rentals. At best, the law of leases, written

or oral, is not now very favorably construed as to the obligations of the tenant, except as to payment of the agreed rent while occupying the premises, and too much reliance on the formal arrangement is not wise on the landlord's part. He should rely on the capacity to serve and his knowledge of the rental market more than on the particular contracts he may have with the present occupants.

To help a tenant sublet satisfactorily, when he wishes to vacate, is the best modern practice.

Among residential tenants, you will have some requiring so much special attention that their tenancy is unprofitable. The way in such a case is to patiently endure the grind of your relationship during the agreed time, but no longer. An occasional risk of vacancy is preferable to a situation that loosens your agreeable hold on your own business activity.

Collection of Rent. The ordinary business practice of promptly rendering rent bills, repeated when necessary at frequent intervals, has worked out better than employing collectors of rent. The one favorable legal condition of the peremptory writ of unlawful detainer for collection of unpaid rent, coming down from times when landlords were powerful politically, obviates the necessity of collectors. It is cheaper and less of an economic waste and on the whole about as agreeable to tenants to prevent their lapses and increasing debt by an early application for such a writ. Some concerns offer cash discounts, similar to those allowed by gas and electric service companies, for prompt payment of rent, with pronounced success.

Necessity of Adequate Capital.-An operator in residential rents for revenue only is not in the same position as a merchant with reference to bank loans. The former can have no bargain sales, he cannot possibly urge a clearance-in fact his business is largely similar to that of a bank, relying on the receipt of interest rather than a return of principal. For this reason bank borrowings by landlords, while not lacking in security, have an element of length of time which must be used with care, to be mutually satisfactory. Some of the large periodic payments, like taxes, may properly be aided by the use of bank loans, but any investment feature

scarcely falls within the category of commercial loans and should be avoided as a general rule, to which, of course, there are exceptions.

Purchasing Supplies.-Contrary to general opinion, the demands on a landlord's gross receipts for outgo are large and steady. As his income is spread through the year it seems proper to suggest that a concentration of accounts is wisest for him. He should buy his fuel from one service company, for instance, and care for other items in the same way. On large items he can readily arrange periodic payments to conform to his receipts rather than to his buying invoices, and thus distribute his payments with considerable uniformity.

Clear Statements of Expense. For the comparative study of monthly or yearly items of expense, residential properties may be handled separately or grouped for accounting purposes, and the expense items may be divided into classes as shown below:

Note. Interest and depreciation are not carried

as expenses, but have regular separate accounts.

The usual services are covered in the above.

In a period of years the items under these divisions of expense become very interesting and tend to give detailed reasons for increasing or decreasing rentals or changing policies of management.

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE MANAGEMENT OF APARTMENT HOUSES

By W. E. BARTON 1

Manager and Tenant.-The management of multi-family houses is simply the application of the fundamental principles of good housekeeping, combined with the sound judgment and fair dealing that make for success in any legitimate enterprise. A building manager is a quasi-public servant. He is responsible not alone to his principals, the owners of his buildings, but to the tenants, whose good-will must be maintained by every possible act of courtesy and a consistent regard for their comfort, health, and well-being, so far as the proper protection of the owner's interest will permit. The merchant or tradesman who fails to deliver good measure or who resorts to practices that are unfair loses his customers in short order, without even a chance to explain. But the lease contract, and the common practices of letting, give landlords extraordinary rights and privileges, and the dissatisfied tenant, bound for a term of months or years by lease, has no alternative but to make the best of what may seem to him a bad bargain. The element of dissatisfaction does not vitiate the contract. So, while the primary responsibility of the agent is the production of an adequate return upon the capital invested and the safeguarding of the physical property, he must, to be successful, strive to temper his authority with good judgment.

1 W. E. Barton, New York, N. Y., Vice-President of French & French, Inc., a corporation operating the buildings designed and constructed by Fred F. French Company.

Mr. Barton was formerly Operating Manager of the Pease & Elliman properties, of which there were at times as many as two hundred and fifty of every type of structure. Later with Harris, Vought & Company, as a Director of the Company having supervision of their management department his experience was principally with large apartment buildings.