which_chick: (Default)
which_chick ([personal profile] which_chick) wrote2009-03-20 07:32 am

(no subject)



Dear prospective tenant T: We rented to your brother C. He sold heroin out of our apartment, beat up the place, and upset the neighbors. We have a pretty good-sized judgment against his sorry ass for money that we will never see. (We didn't record it because recording judgments against heroin addicts is useless. They will never own anything.) Forgive us, but we are not going to rent to you. We do not have to eat an entire bushel of apples to know that they've rotted. Eating one is sufficient and we have done that. Please stop calling us.

Dear prospective tenant B: My father's wife rented to you. You and your four children busted up the place and left with unpaid damages, rent, and water/sewer bill. You left owing her low-four-figures. We are not renting to you even though you have a new last name and think we won't know it's you. We know it's you. Please stop calling us.

Tenant P: If that dog is still in the apartment now that you've sworn on a stack of Bibles that it isn't, I am going to evict you. Srsly. I didn't say anything when you moved the girl in. I haven't said anything about the boyfriend you moved in. However, I will not tolerate the damn dog. If I see it again, I'm filing on you. You got ONE dog by crying at my Dad until he let you keep it. You still have that dog and you will not get another by crying at me. I am not my father and I don't fucking like dogs.

Tenants at 200: If we don't get some rent money in the next week or so, we will file to evict you. Heating season is over. I don't need you anymore and you owe me part of February and all of March. Your song and dance about why the rent is not paid, it has ceased to amuse.

Tenants at 219, basement: Your rent check bounced. You have until Monday to make good or I'm filing on you, too. You're not a bad tenant, actuallly, and I wish you would make good on the check. However, if you do not, I will file.

Tenant C: I've filed on you every month or so, all winter long. I hate doing it but if I don't file on you, I don't get any rent. I understand that the reason I don't get any rent is that your baby daddy ain't paying the court-ordered child support because he ain't working. I understand that. However, my understanding does not put rent in my hand. It's about the rent, here, not about my understanding. You wait until I file to go ask your grandma for money. When I file, it costs grandma $137.50 in court costs over and above the rent. If you'd just ask her *before* I filed, you'd save her a bundle of money. Also, you didn't come through with money this time. I have an Order for Possession happening next week and if I don't get money before then, you will be on the street with your two little kids. I'll feel bad about it, but I will do it. We are not a charity, here.

Tenant at 347: If you ride that fucking ATV in circles on my lawn one more time, I am not-renewing-your-lease. You've already done rode it enough to wear a fucking track in the grass. No. No ATV on the damn lawn. Also, how can you afford an ATV but you're late on the rent? What are your priorities like, dude?

[identity profile] gwangi.livejournal.com 2009-03-20 01:55 pm (UTC)(link)
You know, at some point you really oughta think about selling these units and buying some other ones someplace where there are less deadbeat doofuses.

[identity profile] insidian.livejournal.com 2009-03-20 02:25 pm (UTC)(link)
someplace where there are less deadbeat doofuses.

If only that place existed. I would TOTALLY live there, and not in my current (non-dog) apartment building where one of the tenants has two dogs that treat the back walkway as a toilet. I have to walk through there to take out my trash and do my laundry. NOT ON.

[identity profile] which-chick.livejournal.com 2009-03-20 04:30 pm (UTC)(link)
You're not the first person to suggest this.

1. I live on five hundred glorious acres (family-owned) of woods with a forty acre private lake (also owned by the family) in the middle of same. This is not the sort of thing where one can buy a comparable home in a new neighborhood with ease. I'm kind of limited to the area unless I have some burning desire to abandon that.

2. More urban burgs, where you might possibly expect to find a better class of tenant, tend to have more-favorable-to-tenants landlord-tenant laws. The current area is actually pretty reasonable on the landlord-tenant front. We used to have rental units in Harrisburg and Chambersburg, PA. There's a reason we don't anymore.

3. Apartments have, historically, had a higher profit margin on lower-end apartments. We've been doing this about forty years. There's more money in renting to low-end tenants. There's more screwing around with their stupid, but there's more money, too.

4. We have sixty-odd units. Better than ninety percent of those units are occupied by long-term tenants who never, ever call about anything except the odd dripping faucet or toilet that doesn't shut off. They pay their rent every month. They don't do bad things. Just because I whine about the tenants does not mean that they are all bad. Most of them are no trouble at all.

However, it is not amusing to write things like "The lady in 202 popped the old, screw-in style fuse on her water heater and I had to replace it." How much outrage can there really be with that? It pops. There's a pile of little dead fuses on top of the water heater, from years and years of them dying. The tenant didn't do anything to it -- the freaking water heater is in a locked basement she can't get to anyway. It just blows a fuse every other year or so. I've no idea why, but it happens infrequently enough that replacing the fuse is our preferred solution to the problem.

Or maybe I could write about "The girl in 11 is getting married and moving out. She gave us thirty day's notice in writing and didn't bust the place up too badly." What can I say there? How dare she?! seems a bit much, really. People are allowed to get married and move in with the spouse. Good for her, say I.

How about "Mrs. I. called and wants me to look at the level of the fuel oil in her tank to see if she needs to buy more before the end of the heating season." Ire? Outrage? Exasperation? Not really. It's a fair question. She's in her late eighties, the fuel oil tank is in the basement (which is locked and she cannot get into it) and she doesn't see very well these days anyhow.

We have tenants whose names I don't actually know because I hear from them that infrequently. The lady in 218, the lady in 216#2, 6291A, TA 10, 12, 14, 16, 19, 20, 21, and 22, 343, 347, 321 2, SST 1, 2, 3, and 4 (5 is Mrs. C who has rented that apartment forever which is why I know her).

You only hear about the tenants for whom there are stories. Most tenants are not story material.

[identity profile] alycewilson.livejournal.com 2009-03-21 05:08 am (UTC)(link)
I always enjoy hearing your stories, and especially your rants. Even the non-rants in this comment were entertaining.