Uncle Dave as landlord

My uncle Dave worked most of his life as a apartment house superintendent/engineer/handy man.   He did have two excursions into property ownership.

In the mid 1950's Uncle Dave bought a large old victorian style mansion that had seen better days in Seabright New Jersey.   He ran it as a boarding house.   It was about one block from this very old fashioned beach tourist town.  I spent a week or two during several summers staying with my uncle.  I don't remember too much about how I spent the time.   I do remember taking a lumbering bus to Seabright for the visit.   This was one of those noisy diesel buses that was streamlined to look sort of like an upside down bath tub.   It was along ride for me to be taking at that age alone.  I remember he didn't have many boarders.   The house seemed pretty empty.   Dave was into his gardening and cooking.   I remember he made a mean spaghetti sauce.  I went to the beach every day.   I also remember being shocked that Dave made some admiring comment about how some young women looked.   I guess I was shocked because I didn't think old bachelors felt that way.

Later when Dave retired,  he had some money from a property the family had sold that had belonged to his father, Savel.  He moved to Miami Beach and bought a four-plex.   I think my father helped out in some way.   The idea was that he would have a place to live and that the other three apartments would pay the mortgage, plus give him some cash income on top of social security.   Well that was fine as long as he made the three apartments available.   Well Dave rented these apartments furnished.  So if he provided a toaster oven, he would quickly collect ten more to keep for parts.    Same with fans, air conditioners, etc.   So where would he store this stuff.   Well when one apartment was empty, he started using it for storage.   One apartment down.   Well that got full, so the second apartment got filled as well.   Two down.   At this point we learned that the health department was declaring his place unfit to rent.    Well, my dad got on a plane, rented a truck and hauled most of the "spares"   off to the dump.   Dave was definitely not happy, and according to my dad even went to the dump to reclaim some stuff.   I don't think he ever rented more than one apartment again.   I also stayed with Dave on the way to pick cotton in Nicaragua in approx 1983.  At this point his whole apartment was filled with spares in supermarket like rows about four feet high.   You had to thread your way through tiny paths to get to the table or bathroom.   How to redefine the word pack rat.   Can we say that this illustrates the effect of depression on young adults.   Never waste, always save, reuse, rebuild, repair, adapt.   If it doesn't get obsessive, these wouldn't be bad rules for life.   When's the last time any of us removed a failed starter from a car and took it to a local rebuilder, had it rebuilt, and bolted that now shiny black thing with a one year warrantee back onto the car?   Am I nostalgic for that?   You bet.