Saturday, January 26, 2008

Floats Like A Butterfly....

Being a Building Manager can be at the best of times frustrating to say the least. There are always a few choice tenants that insist on driving one slowly insane. This week the task has fallen to a young couple that have just recently moved into our building who initially went to great lengths to present themselves as laid back and easygoing when in fact, they couldn't be further away from these traits. They are still desperately clinging to this notion of themselves but I for one am no longer even remotely entertaining this. The gloves are very much off!

In December, they came to see a unit that they previous tenant had lived in for eighteen years and her entire time there, she didn't get any upgrades at all by the look of things. She still had this awful shag carpeting from the seventies for goodness sakes! Not only was everything in the unit old but it also was extremely dirty. She was a heavy smoker by the look of things and towards the end, she was in pretty poor health so no cleaning was being done either. What a sight this apartment turned out to be!

I actually showed it to this couple as is and explained to them what work would be done prior to anyone else being able to take possession - new carpet, new paint, new flooring in the bathroom and kitchen, new vanity and toilet in the bathroom, etc. They were desperate to move out of his mother's place and as this was the only one bedroom that I had available and would have for some time, they didn't care what shape it was in. They wanted it no matter what. Estimating what work had to be completed, etc we agreed on a move in date of January 12, 2008. What this meant was that in order to reserve this apartment, they would have to leave a deposit of their last month's rent with a pro-rated amount for January due on the day that they moved in to the unit.

My painters started begging for work the day after New Years so I told them that they could start this unit as soon as possible after their paint order arrived. They were to start on the 4th with the carpet installed on the 9th and the ceramic tile laid on the 10th and 11th. Everything else would get completed around this bigger work. There really should have been no problems except for the fact that my painters didn't bother showing up until the 9th and then not again until the 11th so I was forced to have the carpet installed before all of the painting was completed. The ceramic tile and everything needed for this job didn't arrive until late on the 11th. No way that this unit was now going to be ready for the 12th.

I tried contacting the new tenants for four days but unfortunately he had given me his old cell number and even though there was still an answering machine attached to it to leave messages, it wasn't until later that I learned he never listens to them anymore. This hardly helped me as I was attempting to contact them to advise them that their move in date had to be changed.

Of course, they showed up on the 12th at which time, I advised them that the unit was not ready. The ceramic floors still needed to be installed as well as the new vanity and toilet. I said that it would be best for everyone if we rescheduled their move in date until at least Jan 15th. This would give us loads of time to complete everything that needed to be done. He put up such a fuss saying that he had a truck and that it was already loaded, blah, blah, blah.

I said that anytime I had let tenants into a unit prior to it being finished that this had come back to haunt me and that I was extremely reluctant allowing this to occur. He absolutely promised me that this would not be an issue at all, that he just had to get out of his mother's place. I wasn't quite as confident that's for sure. I told him that three days with an empty unit would absolutely guarantee the work would be done, but once they had moved in, I told him that in all probability the exact same work would end up dragging on for a good ten days minimum. He would hear nothing of this so against my better judgment, I allowed them to move their stuff into their unit.

As you can well imagine, this has been nothing short of a nightmare. I knew I should have gone with my gut. Never again, ever. He has turned into the worst kind of anal retentive individual imaginable causing me all kinds of grief and one huge, never ending headache. He is all kinds of selfish and not at all as easygoing as he wants to believe that he is and actually thinks that he is...Too much!!!

TO BE CONTINUED...

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