Me: Super Duper Apartment Complex, Me speaking, how may I help you?

Woman: I was calling to see if you have any one bedrooms available.

Me: Yes, we have several.

Woman: Oh good, what are the rates on them?

Me: Our one bedrooms are $670 and that includes heat and water.

Woman:… What? What utilities?

Me: Heat and water.

Woman: … I don’t get what you are saying at all, it doesn’t make sense…can’t you be more clear??!!

Me: … uh, we pay heat and water, that leaves you with the electricity.

Woman: Oh. *click*

Talking to the maintenance man the other day he told me a couple fun stories I thought would fit on this blog.

Story 1:
He got a call from one of our elderly tenants because she claimed that all her smoke detectors were going off. He quickly got over there to make sure there was no fire and he was surprised to walk in and find that everything was fine and none of the detectors were actually beeping. The odd thing was that she continued to complain about the smoke detectors going off in each room. He found that odd but decided to check the entire apartment and the only time he heard any type of beeping it was when he got close to the tenant. He quickly realized that her hearing aid batteries were dying. He told her of this discovery but she still made him replace all the batteries in the detectors…

Story 2: Similar to the story above he received an call on the emergency line from 2 woman in the B building. Seems one of the detectors was going off and they needed him to come by and take care of it as it has been beeping for a day and a half and they can’t take it anymore. Why they waited a day and a half? They figured that he had some sort of thing that would alert him to smoke detectors going off. Ok… So he heads over and looks around and can’t hear any detector going off. One of the lady’s said that you hear it when they are on the couch. So he sat on the couch and heard the beeping. It was faint, clearly not a smoke detector. It was a little battery powered quartz clock with the alarm going off.

Story 3: He gets a call to the K building because a tenants sink is making a terrible noise. He rushes over hoping not to find that the sewage was backing up since that makes gurgling noises and has the possibility to be a horrendous mess. He gets into the kitchen and there is a loud noise coming from the sink. He looks down at the sink then over to his left at a light switch and reaches over and shuts the garbage disposal off and tells her “all fixed!” and leaves.

I don’t know if this is how it is in most apartment complexes but when the power goes out it seems that I become the electric company. I have lived in a couple apartments in my time and when the power goes out I would normally look out my window or out into the hallway and see if it was happening around my apartment as well. If it was then I could come to the rational conclusion that the power went out and I would have to wait for DTE (our local electric company) to get the power restored. One thing I never did was call the office and complain. Sadly though, my tenants don’t have the capacity for rational and logical thought.

I was reminded of this oddity yesterday when the power went off for no apparent reason. It was raining but not windy. My office mate said she had seen some lightning here and there but I didn’t so I took her word for it. Within minutes the phone calls started coming in. This is a sample of what the conversations are like;

Tenant: I have no power, have Jim (the maintenance man) take care of it.

Me: No one has power, it’s not just you?

Tenant: Why?

Me: I don’t know. Bad wire, lighting, car crashed into pole? I have no idea.

Tenant: Well I need power to cook dinner, when are you going to get it back on?

Me: I don’t know, I am not the power company. Call them.

Tenant: It’s your building!

Me: So. Do we charge you for electricity? No.

Tenant: Yes YOU DO!

Me: No we don’t, DTE charges you, DTE the power company. Call them.

Tenant: Well you need to fix your wiring.

Me: yeah, okay.

I have had numerous conversations with tenants exactly like this each time the power goes out. We had a large storm that knocked out power for tens of thousands of people in the the area for 2 days and each day tenants would call and yell at me for it. One tenant thought the power company was trying to scam her. I tried to explain to her that if you have no power then they can’t charge you because your meter has stopped but she came up with this odd conspiracy theory and wanted me to set in motion some sort of suit against them.

*sigh*

Tenant during the checkout process doesn’t understand why on the termination form it stated there were stains on the carpet that are not repairable. I took them into the smaller bedroom and showed them the stain you see above. They didn’t understand why we had to charge them to replace the carpet. They thought you could just get it steam cleaned. In case you couldn’t tell, that is red pop and bleach.

I disagree…

Tenant: Hi, I just wanted to call and inform you that I will be going on vacation from September 8th and be back October 15th. How do you go about prorating my rent for the time I am gone?

Me: Excuse me? What do you mean?

Tenant: Well I won’t be there during that time so I assume I don’t have to pay rent.

Me: yeah, uhhh, you pay a full month’s rent regardless of your time spent in the apartment…

—

Interested customer: How much are your apartments?

Me: What kind of apartment are you looking for?

IC: One to live in…

Me: 1 bedroom? 2 bedroom? 3?

IC: Oh…2.

Me: $725 a month

IC: How much if I have a roommate?

Me:… … $725

IC: (annoyed) I won’t be living alone, I will have a roommate, how much does an extra person cost?

Me: nothing, you don’t get charged per person…

IC: *sigh* So how much for a two bedroom with 2 people?

Me: $725 a month

IC: (annoyed sigh) *click*

—

Caller: I was wondering if you offer 3 month leases?

Me: I am sorry but we do not. We offer 1 year leases and after one year you can go month to month.

Caller: But can I get a 3 month lease?

Me: I am sorry, no, only a year lease.

Caller: How about a 5 or 6 month lease?

Me: I am sorry but no, only a year lease.

Caller: Fine, how about a 3 day lease?

Me: …

Me: That is called a hotel…