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Saturday, February 22, 2014

Your apartment flooded, but didn't call me because . . .

Ya cannot possibly make up these stories and the excuses given for these blunders!

We had a tenant, who had suffered a terrible accident, which left him not only physically handicapped, but with some quirky short-circuits in his logic. Despite those very broad allowances, this one still boggles my mind!

A flood in the middle of the night . . .

He rose in the middle of the night, and upon discovering a serious flood, chose to clear what he could off the floor, and then went back to bed! He didn’t want to wake us up in the middle of the night

I don’t care what time of day, when there is a flood, CALL US!

The next morning, he continued picking things up off the floor, but still didn’t call us.

His neighbor did. He is not much brighter: but at least HE called.

I flew downstairs and discovered that the water had now seeped into the next apartment: Two units were now underwater, and it was all preventable!

The 2nd tenant just laid in his bed

I had mustered some help: the water shut-off valve was found, wet vacs were deployed and urgent calls made to our boss and the plumber. It was all-out chaos.

However, the 2nd tenant, just lounged in his bed, which was a box spring and mattress on the floor, and next to it was his TV, also on the floor. The man was not dressed and was barely concerned about the ankle deep water, and the people trudging through his apartment. I made the very strong suggestion that he should move his TV OFF the flooded carpet. I actually had to explain that water will short out the TV.

He then asked, "WHERE should I move it?" AAAARRRRGHH!

It got worse

When the pipes under the foundation first broke, we could have contained the damage to just ONE unit, but remember, the tenant didn’t want to wake us up and disturb our sleep. (Remember that phrase!)

The apartment was so badly damaged, he lost most of his furniture and bedding (no renter's insurance), and since the floor had to be ripped up with a jackhammer, the man had to be temporarily relocated.

Guess where?

Not only was the tenant handicapped, he had a large dog. We knew he wouldn’t do well in a motel, so we invited him to bunk with us. My brother-in-law, a non-smoker, gave up his own bedroom for him, and permitted the tenant to smoke in the bedroom IF he only smoked in a certain chair next to a certain dresser: NEVER in bed. I placed a large towel to mark the area and to protect the rug. (We just had all new carpeting and linoleum installed.)

Guess where the cigarette burns were? Yep, next to the bed, the kitchen floor AND in front of the sofa.

The Finale

We asked him to be careful smoking: our floors will remember him.

We clearly stated, “No company.” Yet, my web cam recorded many people lounging in our living room while we were out. We juggled beds. We had another large dog underfoot in addition to our 95 lb Labrador, which left a very unhappy kitty scrambling for new hiding places. We lost a lot of sleep, our privacy, bathroom schedules and my desperately needed quiet morning coffee was invaded with chatty conversation (I do not do well in the morning before coffee kicks in). Oh, I had to 'serve' coffee. It's a small kitchen with two men underfoot. Plus the chaos of contractors stopping in. Did I mention that I freelance from home? May I get some sympathy?

He moved out a year later and has since asked to rent here again. No. We went the ‘extra mile’ in customer service, and never mind the preventable flood damage. The Business Manager has repeatedly declined his request. Whew!


2 comments:

  1. You need two types of applications. Both in black print to be completed using black ink. Give everyone an I.Q. test. An applicant scoring less than the brightness of a refrigerator light bulb would be given an application on black paper. Then, file it in the blue bin.

    ReplyDelete
  2. See my posts on Social Pages and Facebook. Too many have flunked their I.Q. tests by using their real names on Facebook. I guess the concept of Pseudonyms to hide their trashy behavior is above their IQ.

    ReplyDelete