Hit and Run
>> Thursday, November 21, 2013
Found this ad and had to repost, because frankly, if this is the case, any other manager out there about to be a millionaire?
An Apartment Manager NEVER has a day off, example.
I guess it depends on the size of the property. For me, when I managed a 16 unit building, I would go days without someone pounding on my door. When I moved up to hundreds of tenants, I went minutes with out someone pounding on my door.
Another example...
It was a Sunday, my day off, I was at home heating up some dinner for the family when the office phone, my cell phone, the office doorbell and my front doorbell all started screaming at me.
I was flooded with upset tenants who were telling me, and I quote, "SOMEONE has been run over in the parking lot!"
For the record, I would classify that as an emergency.
When I asked if anyone had called 9-1-1, everyone replied with "No we called you!"
Because on this planet an apartment manger is pretty much the same thing?
Uh, no.
I rolled my eyes and darted out the door, not even thinking that I should mention this to my husband, who at the time was in dental school. Because, you know, this person might have hurt their teeth.
As I run through the complex to the back of the parking lot I see a group of tenants huddled together with their hands over their chest, heads hung low, crying and hugging each other.
Holy CRAP!
Is what I said.
I'm gonna vomit.
Is what I thought.
I pushed my way through the distressed crowd, preparing to witness a body strewn across the parking lot with guts and eyeballs scattered everywhere (I have a disturbed imagination).
That, thanks goodness, is not what I saw. What I saw was a poor cat gasping for breath in the parking lot. Now, before you compose a nasty email to me saying that I am heartless…blah blah blah.
YES, a dying cat is very sad. BUT shouldn't a caller clarify that a CAT has been hit in the parking lot and not SOMEONE?
Everyone was yelling at me to help the poor animal. They were even mad at me that this happened in our parking lot. As if it were my fault? Can't make sense of that one.
The cats guts were hanging outside its body so I didn't see much I could do. So, I stood there with the rest of the group watching the poor thing die. There were about twenty tenants all huddled around, and more soon joined.
A car then drove by and one of my tenants peeked her head out to see what the commotion was, and as soon as she saw the dying cat, she slammed on her breaks and burst into tears.
It was her cat.
But, we were a no pet property.
She cried, tenants all comforted her, then they started complaining that it wasn't fair that she was able to have a pet and they couldn't, because the human heart can only be selfless for so long, right? Anyways, the cat died.
Moment of silence for cat….
As soon as the cat took its last breath everyone left. Then there was just me and the cat. I couldn't very well leave it there. So I went back to the apartment of the tenant who said it was her cat, she was all puffy eyed and shaken up, I asked her what she wanted to do with her cat. She asked me not to touch it that her boyfriend would come get it and bury it.
Well, I wait, and wait and waited some more. Finally the boyfriend came and said his girlfriend wanted to bury the cat in the courtyard.
Uh, no.
He shrugged at my shutdown, and then grabbed the animal by the tail and threw it over the fence.
Nice.
Fast forward three days later, I went back to check on the tenant, and to be sure she remembered that this was a no pet property. Well, she wasn't home, but the boyfriend was. For whatever reason he invited me in. Turns out she was a hoarder…..of cats.
That was a fun one to turn over.
And, shortly after this incident, I did have a real person get hit in the parking lot, but that is a story for another time.
Nothing to do with the story above, just a friendly reminder that bathtubs need to be cleaned at least once a year.
Have a great day!