Black Slime

I just listened to a voicemail from one of my tenants, claiming that “Black Slime” has rained down in her bathroom, and that the water comes out of the spigot “brownish”…She was “Out of the country for ten days,” important that she let me know that she was traveling abroad so I’ll think that she is worldly and cultured. Also good to know where they are spending their money, although she has already paid her January rent in full and on time.

 

I returned her call, only to get voicemail. The super is heading up that way to show some vacant units, so I asked her to check it out. I’ll be down there tomorrow, so I need to know if need to buy anything from Home Depot before I head out, such as Draino for her to drink, or rat poison to sprinkle on her cereal. 

 

I shouldn’t say that, because I try to hold myself out as an example of a professional property manager, albeit one who focuses on the affordable housing sector, not the slumlord that people like to call me…

 

But you have to understand, at anyone time there are at least 10 to 20% of your tenants driving you crazy, while 80 to 90% just shut up and pay.  Guess which group this particular tenant is in.  Anyway, this is the same tenant who was away all last Summer (she’s a teacher), who was visiting her husband (!), who lives in the second city.  When she came back, guess what? Black slime!  At that time she refused to pay her rent and threatened me and informed me that it was a health hazard and that she was educated and didn’t have to live like that etc…Also, I found out, she had been letting her sister use her apartment, and her sister trashed it, clogged up the drains, and failed to report that the bathroom ceiling had collapsed from an earlier leak upstairs that was repaired.

 

Well I fixed everything as soon as she let me in to the apartment to do repairs,  which was after the Legal Aid attorney told her she couldn’t withhold rent and that by law she was required to give me a chance to make repairs.  Of course she didn’t, she called the office of code enforcement first, so they could write up violations.  When she finally let me in, the plumber pulled various hair braids out of the drain (clearly my fault), at my expense, which cleared up the black slime right away.  As for the ceiling, if someone had been home, or informed us that the apartment would be vacant for the Summer, or if her freeloading sister had reported the ceiling collapse, I could have taken care of that right away too. But no, it’s better to blame the landlord and call the city.

 

This is a tough business sometimes.  I’ve earned every freakin’ penny I’ve made and I deserve to be rich!