Tales of Property Management – The $5 Footlong

With the deep freezing of the south over the last few days, and a gem of a Facebook status from my old boss the other night. I thought it was time to whip out another one of my Tales of Property Management. (After I say those words, I like to think that very eery music is being played like in a horror movie. I am weird, get over it.)

Anyways. When the weather is cold, like below freezing for any given amount of time, it is hard on our homes and buildings. Pipes freeze. It happens. While you hope to do everything you can to prevent it, like letting your faucet drip or wrapping and covering outside faucets, shit happens. Pipes burst. It is expected.

We had a lovely little blast of arctic weather when I worked at a “Live, Work, Play” community. Basically this means that we had apartments, but the first floor was retail. We had restaurants, boutiques, salons, coffee shops, etc on the bottom floor that we managed and then the apartments, the amenities, a gym, etc. Well, one night I had just gotten home and grabbed Gracie and we went for our walk before it got any colder. I made the mistake of walking up the side walk through the shops. One of the salon owners recognized me and grabbed me. The pipes had burst and her salon was flooding and she needed help immediately. Well, fuck! So I call maintenance, run Gracie home, put on some warm clothes I dont give a shit about and ran up to start helping her move her stuff and get as much water out as I can. Then the restaurant 2 doors down has the same problem. AHHHHHH.

I think I got home around midnight that night. The fire station was called out, plumbers were called out, stuff was messed up. The list of nightmares goes on. The next morning I go into work. Apparently one of the pipes from the pool burst. It started to soak one of our residents floors in an apartment. It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t great either. Now, the management company I worked for was legit. We made residents have renters insurance if they wanted to live in our apartments. It not only protected us, but it protects the resident as well. I always made it a point to tell residents that renters insurance is rather inexpensive, but you need to make sure you get proper coverage for EVERYTHING that could happen. As the management company and owners are not responsible for residents personal items. Duh,

Well this particular resident was on my list of “oh bloody hell, what does this asshole want now” residents. He was always ALWAYS a pain in the ass for no reason. He comes into my office fussing about how is couch got wet and blah blah blah. We go over the whole renters insurance covers you not us crap and he just causes such a stink. I dont remember the exact logistics of it all, as this was quite a few years ago, but my owners decided they were going to give him a check for a little bit just to shut him up. Something they DID NOT have to do what so ever. Something he should be VERY grateful for, as no one gets this!

I am cutting the check in my office and cussing under my breath, but just happy to get rid of him. I call him to let him know his check is being delivered to his apartment and it will be there when he gets home. He didn’t say thank you or anything, but whatever.

The next morning I am in my office and I hear him getting pissy with one of my leasing consultants. I had just had a meeting with one of my sweet residents that lost her job and was having a hard time coming up with her rent money but was doing everything that she could to make the payment. I come out to see what the problem is, along with my boss. He is upset that we gave him a check because he has a credit union and not a real bank, and they will charge him $5 to cash the check. He wants me to give him $5 for this because it is somehow my problem. This guy will be the first person to tell you how much he spent on his new car or what brand shoes he is wearing or what extravagant party that he was at that weekend. Um….you are fussing over a $5 charge that the company YOU CHOOSE to work with is charging you?

I am not the best at hiding how I feel on my face. My boss is even worse then me. We both look at him, and I am about to loose my shit. It has been a VERY VERY trying last few days with all this issues. I just want this asshole out of my office. Why are you bitching at me for $5? Are you freaking kidding me?! I think we basically told him it was his problem not ours and that he was lucky he even got a damn check. In the most professional way possible of course.

When he left, my boss and I went into our office and just vented about everything and couldn’t get over the nerve of that asshole. It was just comical. Every time we had a bad day, we started saying “$5!” It was a way of comical relief of sorts. Then, Subway came out with their $5 Foot Long commercials. We immediately started saying we had a $5 foot long kind of day.

Some days when we were at full capacity, I missed the days when we were in lease up. Haha. ‘Mo residents, ‘mo problems.