Karma

I have opened this multiple times in the last 24 hours and just not known what to say.  I am usually making fun of the idiocy of my tenants and their parents.  Never really all that serious.  But yesterday for only the second time in almost 2 years, the were just so awful they actually made me cry.

We have been dealing with an on going issue (that I will eventually share but currently it is being handled by attorneys so I will wait to tell it as one crazy story when it is over) with some tenants that didn't even end up moving in.  The issue is something we were trying to work with them to resolve.  This is two girls moving into a very large, very nice unit. One of the girls had lived with us in a different building the previous year and was always kind of a disaster, but for some reason I had a soft spot for her.  When she was having trouble with her uber mean room mates last year, I helped her find a solution that involved a crazy room mate swap.  I didn't make them change leases, or pay anything crazy for the move.  I just made it happen.  I have let this girl sit in my office and cry just because she needed to.  I don't do that.  I am not that person.  I have said over and over that I am not their mother, I am not their counselor, I am not their friend.  But I made the mistake of actually liking this tenant.  I accidentally gave a shit.

Yesterday her mother called me to discuss the on going issue and informed her daughter would not be living on any of our properties and would not be moving into this apartment.  (all details will be shared at a later time)  She proceeded to call me so many names and say such heinous things to me that I finally cried.   She brought up my children.  She addressed my skills as a parent.  I have never met this woman in person.  She told me I was a swindler and a liar and that I should be ashamed for leading impressionable young adults into such a terrible situation.  She informed that I am a bad person and that I deserve whatever awful things come my way.  This is all over $450 that she wants back. $450 is all it took for this woman to feel like she had the right to tear down another human. 

I get threatened with lawyers all day.  It is part of the awful nature of property management.  I see insane things and deal with absurd situations daily.  I fight about money constantly.  I am used to people calling a Bitch.  I have been called pretty much every name you can imagine.  But this woman made it far more personal.  She took the time out of her day to make sure I felt like the smallest person on the planet.  I know that I shouldn't have let her get to me.  I know I should have just given her my standard 'feel free to call our attorney'.  But she knew just what to say to shut me down.  I went home last night and could barely even function.  Every time my kids were in the room I had to fight to not think about all the things this woman had said to me.  A woman who doesn't even know me.

I am fighting right now, as I type this, to not feel the burn of the stuff she said.  Not because it is true, but because it was just that mean and awful.   I am truly shocked by the thing people are willing to say and do just to get their way.  When it comes to my work I do everything according to the lease and according to our states landlord/tenant law.  I do that specifically so that no matter what b.s. a tenant or their co-signors try to give me I know I am on the right side of the law.  I know that when they make their idol threats it doesn't matter.  This woman didn't want it to be about right vs wrong or about resolving the issue.   She just wanted to make it about making another human feel bad so that she could feel better. 

Well you win lady.  I feel bad.  I actually feel beyond bad.  But I don't feel bad for you and now I sure as shit don't feel bad for your daughter.   I feel bad because I allowed you to speak to me that way.  I feel bad because I allowed it to effect me on such a level.  I will get my shit together and move on.  And I will just remember that Karma forgets nothing.