The fire

So we had a small fire this week at one of our units.  Nothing major. Just cosmetic damage.  Everyone was fine and walked away unharmed.  We have been getting people in as quickly as possible to begin repairs, all while dealing with the fire marshal and working on insurance issues.  I suggested the tenants get a hold of their insurance agents to get an adjuster there for their renters insurance to make sure they were covered.  Should be simple right?  Nope.  Never is.

First the tenants inform me that they are not filing this with their insurance because the fire wasn't their fault.  It was a trash can fire in their loft.  Their thought and reasoning is they weren't home when it started, so it isn't their fault.  I explain that it doesn't matter if they were home, and it isn't about fault.  It is about making sure all of their stuff is covered.  One of them at this point tells me that he is pretty sure we have to cover any damage and what not.  I try to explain that no, we won't cover their stuff.  That is exactly what renters insurance is for.

So of course one of the moms call me.  And she is of course an attorney.  (too much face palm) She wants to know why we are removing evidence from her sons loft.  I explained that the fire marshal had already been there and taken pictures and had told me he wasn't coming back.  I explained that we had taken a million pictures and that everything that was removed will be kept at our office in the even that the fire marshal wants it.  I also suggest to her that they contact their insurance company so that their adjuster can come and assess any damage.  She too tells me they will not be paying for a thing. And she just can't understand why we are trying to pin this on the boys.  They weren't even home.

So I explain to this mom and lawyer that I am not trying to pin blame or anything on anyone.  I am not removing 'evidence'  I am trying to follow a procedure.  There has been a fire.  We are thankful that everyone is ok and there wasn't much damage.  Insurance companies need to be called.  And it doesn't matter if they were home.  A fire started in their trash can.  In their unit.  That damaged their things. This is exactly what renters insurance is for.  She, like her son, informs that is not what renters insurance is for.

Through all this I have encouraged the two boys not to stress out about this.  It is getting repaired, the electrical has been inspected, and the unit is safe to live in while we do repairs.  They need to focus on tests and finals.  Not this.  After all this encouragement I get angry calls from their mom about harassing them, and angry texts from the tenants about bothering them with all this during finals.

I encourage them. I help them. I drove down here the night of the fire to make sure everyone was ok.  I encouraged them to have their own insurance adjuster come look so they don't feel like anything that happens going forward isn't correct.  I suggest they call the fire department to get a copy of the marshals report.  But I am awful.  I am harassing.  I don't know anything.  I truly just can't win with these people.

A little catching up

Never mistake the absence of posts for the absence of idiocy.  Sometimes I just don't have time. Sometimes I just can't bring myself to think about the dumb stuff they do.   But here are a few gems from the recent weeks:

We fired our head maintenance guy.  We hired a new guy.  He called in for his first day.  Came in late on his second. And needed to leave early on his fifth day.  Shockingly, we let him come back for a second week.  He threatened to quit no less than 6 different times, because the job was just too stressful.  This man was a retired police officer and ex military.  I just have no words to explain how confused I was by him not being able to handle the work load and the mean little college kids.  We let him go after week two.



In January, one of our maintenance guys called me in a panic to come look at something the tenants were doing.  Never a good sign.  I rush over to the property he is at to find tenants attempting to clean up after a party from the night before.  They live in one of our bigger units in a nearly 100 year old building with the original hard wood floors. The had just dumped bucket after bucket of bleach water onto the floor and were using brooms and mops to push it out the front door.  When I say buckets (plural) that is not an exaggeration.  It was multiple full mop buckets.  I made them stop dumping the water and get it wiped up and pushed out the door very quickly.  They just couldn't not understand what I was so upset about.  They assured me this is how you clean wood floors.  After explaining to them, that no that is not how you clean wood floors and giving them a long list of reasons why, they still didn't understand.  We are now on month 3 of monitoring the basement under their unit to make sure there are no issues and I can only imagine the damage that will have to be repaired when they move out.  100 year old hard wood floors.  Buckets of hot bleach water.  Seriously



All the power went out on the west side of town the other night.  Blocks and blocks without power.  Someone had hit a pole.  It was 9 at night. I got the first call and explained they would have to call the utility company.  They were upset that I couldn't just tell them when the power would be back on.  I tried to explain that I had no control of the city and the utilities and that it wasn't just their unit or building or even block but nearly the whole west side of town.  We are talking multiple square miles of no power. Then the calls just kept coming.  I basically spent two hours repeating that I don't actually control the power company.  I do, however, love that they think I am that powerful.