June 29th, 2007
Bank-Owned Properties, Foreclosures, Reno Real Estate
Terry
Lights, camera, action — then the Sheriff’s Department phoned…
How about this. It was about 9:15 p.m. when Terry received a phone call from the Sheriff’s Department:
“Ms. Rasner?” the caller asked.
“Yes, this is Terry Rasner.”
“This is the County Sheriff’s Department. Do you have a vacant house for sale at XXXXXX?”
“Ahhh, yes.”
“Well, maam, a neighbor has driven her vehicle through the garage door of your property, and the vehicle is stuck in the garage with the engine running, trapped by the broken garage door that’s fallen on it.”
“WHAT?????!!!!”
“Yes, maam, this is an emergency and you need to get over to the property immediately and secure it. We’ll secure the area and wait for you to arrive.”
That call was received two evenings ago. A quick jump into the phone booth and it was time for these ladies to mean business!
We scrambled together a team of two and armed with power tools and assorted other tools and scrap lumber we headed over to meet the Sherrif. The property was 30 minutes away and by now it was 9:45 p.m. We arrived to find the vehicle sitting in the driveway, having been extricated from the garage. The garage door was destroyed and haning there limp. A refrigerator in the garage was destroyed, it’s insulation and guts strewn about a corner of the garage.
Actually this was a good thing, as the refrigerator slowed the vehicle enough to stop it from parking in one of the bedrooms. Instead, the vehicle only smashed into a bearing wall and poked its nose through the wall and into the bedroom. Nice scene, huh????
So, here we were: the next door neighbor girl (17) came over crying to aplogize for her mishap, and thoughtfully brought her vehicle insurance information. Soon after the parents followed. An assessment of their mood and demeanor revealed a spirit of cooperation and an acceptance of fault. We briefly counseled the girl that repairs could be made, but that the best part of the accident was that she was unhurt, albeit shaken-up emotionally.
Next it was to the business of securing the house. A thorough inspection revelaed the damage was limited to the garage door, refirgerator, a bearing wall, paneling on the inside of the bedroom, and potentially some electrical wiring and conduit (but no live wires were exposed). Fortunately the house was in a culdesac, and was not furnished. In fact, it is one of our many bank-owned properties, and per protocols, we needed an approval from the asset management company to move forward with repairs and some security actions. Unfortunately at accident’s time, the time in the land of the asset management company was 12:45 a.m.
For safety and security reasons, our locksmith was called and the one door in question was re-keyed and secured first thing the next morning. What will now follow are the oft-tedious tasks of repairs and getting it back into shape for the market. And, this is a great little property!
Is it disconcerting and annoying to have this happen? You bet!
Is this routine? No, but it can happen at any time, and as a responsible realtor, any time means be ready for the unexpected and unanticipated. As a responsible consumer, point out these occurences to local authorities, and if you must, don’t hesitate to phone the realtor. As much as we can get caught off guard by these calls, it’s still good we have the eyes and ears of the community helping us.
To be sure: These Ladies Mean Business!
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June 13th, 2007
Bank-Owned Properties, First Time Buyers, Reno Real Estate
Terry
Rooting Out the Rotten Tomatoes
Workers separate tomatoes at the sprawling Central de Abastos market in Mexico City on June 10
Gregory Bull / AP
So how much damage can a few rotten tomatoes really do? The tomato-linked salmonella outbreak announced by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on June 3 has claimed 228 victims in 23 states over 58 days (and counting). It has put 25 people in the hospital and may have had a role in hastening the death of a cancer patient. And then there’s the flurry of panic as many of the tomatoes that American consumers take for granted every day suddenly disappear — from McDonald’s hamburgers; from the salsa at Chipotle Mexican Grill; from Burger King, Taco Bell and Sonic; and from the grocery shelves at Kroger, Wal-Mart and Target. Didn’t we just go through this with bagged spinach? With peanut butter? With pet food?
Because the FDA’s tomato-recall recommendation is so specific — including only three types, grown in certain regions during a certain time — and because many national chains pulled their tomato stock within days of the announcement, most of the infected samples have likely been removed. But the outbreak remains ongoing; its source has not yet been determined, and the government is investigating new cases every day. It may be a few more weeks before the delicious staple fruit is given the all-clear.
Taking tomatoes off shelves and menus may contain the outbreak, but it doesn’t explain it. On May 22, the New Mexico Health Department notified the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that it knew of seven people recently infected with Salmonella Saintpaul, an unusual strand of the bacteria that accounted for only 400 of the 1.4 million cases of salmonella infection reported last year. And it was precisely because occurrences of the Saintpaul strand are so rare that the report caught the CDC’s attention. When Texas and a few other states reported cases of people being infected by bacteria with the same “genetic fingerprint,” a multistate search for Salmonella Saintpaul was launched. While the CDC tracked reported illnesses, the FDA interviewed victims to find out what they had eaten (and where). The common answer was tomatoes.
There have been 13 outbreaks of salmonella in tomatoes since 1990, which puts the fruit on the list of high-risk foods that are prone to infection. But unlike the bagged spinach from the 2006 E. Coli scare, the tomatoes don’t come with a traceable bar code. “When you’re dealing with tomatoes, it is much, much more complex,” explains Dr. David Acheson, the FDA’s associate commissioner for foods. The FDA’s great tomato hunt has an ever-expanding list of suspects. A salmonella victim can point to the supermarket (or restaurant) that sold the offending fruit, but that store probably sources its tomatoes from several suppliers, each of which uses several distributors — and distributors buy from any number of growers.
“Each set of questions just multiplies into a fan of information that has to be sorted through to understand where the links cross over,” says Acheson. Although the FDA has managed to rule out some regions — northern Florida is safe because its tomatoes weren’t ready for harvest at the time of the outbreak — it will be some time until the true source is found. “We’re not quite there yet,” says Acheson, “but we’re getting very close.” But Dr. Ian Williams, chief of the CDC’s OutbreakNet team, warns that the source may never be found due to the fruit’s short shelf life. “You don’t expect to find an infected tomato sitting on someone’s counter 10 days after the outbreak,” says Williams.
Still, the lag time between the initial outbreak and the government’s reaction is startling: the first Salmonella Saintpaul victim fell ill on April 16, but the FDA didn’t announce the tomato link until June 3. Williams says part of the problem identifying salmonella outbreaks is that a lot of victims don’t see the symptoms — diarrhea, fever, vomiting — as sufficiently severe to warrant a visit to the doctor, and so they go undiagnosed. “There may be a delay in reporting outbreaks because people do not have a stool specimen tested,” he says. Officials have not yet identified an infected tomato, and because of the fruit’s short shelf life, they probably never will.
The FDA unveiled a tomato-safety initiative in 2007 that sought to identify causes of salmonella infection, but Acheson admits that studying preventive techniques doesn’t help the FDA deal with outbreaks. The FDA has no plans to change the initiative in the face of the recent outbreak.
Even if the FDA can pinpoint the source of the outbreak, it’s hard for consumers to know where their tomatoes are grown. Certain imported foods are required to carry country-of-origin labels, but that doesn’t apply to domestic produce. “I’m not aware of any tomato outbreak that was not domestic,” says Acheson. There is no such thing as a mandatory state-of-origin label for food, and federal authorities have yet to create such a law. “Saying ‘product of the U.S.’ isn’t necessarily going to confer safety,” he says. So much for reassurance.
Vi ste jeben.
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