It has been an incredibly busy season.  Not much time for writing.  Things are slowing just a bit now, chance for me to catch my breath, chase my kids around and watch’em grow.  It’s the best.

The other day I was at my sons basketball game. (It’s 1st and 2nd graders, think Chinese fire drill with a lot of double-dribbling). Got to talking with one of the dads. Somehow we get on the subject of ‘walls,’ as in walls that surround most of the properties in the sub-divisions here in Phoenix.  Both agreed it can feel like a ‘prison.’  Come to find we are both living on acre lots now with no walls, cheers to us.

I go on to tell him how I used to sit out on my back patio at my old place in my underwear and how my neighbor would poke his head over the wall and want to talk. “Sort of a false sense of privacy?” I say, and go on to ‘explain how I would ask my neighbor not to do it anymore, but he still would.’ But the dad is looking at me like I’m nuts. “Why do you need to sit outside in your underwear?” he asks. “Because, I like to! Why don’t you like to sit outside in your underwear?” I ask. Tells me I’m crazy.  No kidding eh.

Point is, if a guy wants to sit outside his home in his skivvies, he should be able to. Walls or no walls.  Had been thinking this was a smart guy I was talkin to, maybe not.

Speaking of smart guys, Son Volt Properties picked up a new client last month. He’s an old boy from California who just bought a second home here in Carefree.  It was interesting because he hired me while he was still in the process of buying. Usually my clients have waited a couple years before seeking out my services, thinking they could just lock the house up and leave. Usually it takes a few things getting away from them before they realize they need a point man here.  Think about it, who wants to show up next season and find the roof leaked during the monsoon? Or to discover the landscapers stopped doing their job once the house had been vacated for the summer.

But the new guy is on it.  Said to me when we met, “Got to have a guy down here watching things.” “Roger that, here to be of service.” I say. A day or two after closing, I had my pool guy (Kevin of Black Mountain Pools) and my landscaper (Roberto of RA Landscaping) on the job.  Kevin does a first rate job with his business, and Roberto is reasonably priced and does a great job as well.  There are also some small electrical projects that I am coordinating with a contractor. No fuss, no muss.

What if my new client had to find these people on his own? I’ve gone through a lot of landscapers and pool company’s and cleaning services and HVAC repair…to arrive at the people I have now. The best people, don’t do much advertising. They can be hard to find. Either way, my client was heading back to California and won’t return for a couple months. He really didn’t have time to deal with it all. No worries, I have everything taken care of.  Best part for him, I’ll bet I’m saving the old boy $100-150 a month on vendors. That’s smart.