It's an EMERGENCY!

Fire, Flood, Blood

That's the description an Apartment Manager would give when describing a situation worthy of using the after hours emergency line, and or banging on their apartment door after hours.
Even then, I would argue that blood is questionable.
I guess it depends on the location of the accident.
If in the midst of a druken stupor, you ram your head into the door because you forgot to open it first, that is not an emergency, nor cause for a nasty review on Apartment Ratings. Installing automated doors on apartments seems both costly and stupid. Moving on.


Alas, as many Apartment Managers know, the term emergency appears to be subjective. Thus indicated by the following submitted stories.


"I was watching a movie with my husband when someone comes and starts banging on the door. It scared the $%^& out of me. When I opened the door I expect the building to be on fire or thought someone was dying. Instead it was the new tenant that lives below. She was pissed because she wanted the maintenance man(who is also my husband) to come over RIGHT NOW and install a bidet so she could use the bathroom. It was nearly 10:00 P.M. I explained for almost twenty minutes why that was not an emergency, and why we weren't responsible for installing it in the first place. She wouldn't hear of it....I ended up slamming the door shut, and then she sent a nasty email to my boss saying that we refused to install the bidet and thus she couldn't use the bathroom...and yet, she had lived there for three days. Where was she going before that?"

--Ashley P.

Maybe you should have offered her a role of toilet paper to suffice for the night?

"I was out with my husband when my babysitter called because someone had been banging on the window, she was scared and had all the lights off and was hiding with our three year old in the room. We rushed home and found a tenant(and it was 11:00 p.m.) who was not knocking on the door, or using the emergency line like a normal person, but banging on my window because his microwave wasn't working. Seriously? How is not having a microwave an emergency?" 

--Nancy S.

Hey when a man wants microwave popcorn, a man wants microwave popcorn. I totally get it. Even though I am not man.


"We live in Portland Oregon. Our outdoor pool is only open 3 months out of the year....I am a single mom with a 5 year old and a 7 year old. We have a very strict schedule that we follow...One night at 8:30 P.M., my kids are sleeping and I am lying in bed in pain as I hurt my back earlier that day(I am very accident prone. If there is a hole, I will step in it...more than once). My entire house is closed up and lights are off and I hear a pounding on my front door and come running out of my room thinking fire, flood, or blood. I open the door to find the 11 year old kid of one of my tenant. I'm panicked at this point thinking his mom is dying or his apartment is on fire. I ask what is wrong. His response, "When is the pool going to open?"
REALLY???? 
I politely tell him that he is interrupting my private time and that this was my home, not my office...that he can come talk about it tomorrow. 
He replies, "Can't you just tell me now?"

--Kristen T.

Apartment Managers have private time? What?


"In the middle of the night someone was banging on my door. I opened it and found the girl from the building across the street(I manage several beach style buildings on the same street). She was in her underwear crying because her apartment was on fire. I ran out outside and sure enough, her apartment wasn't on fire, the whole building was on fire. I assumed she had already called 9-1-1, and (I) put some clothes on and ran over. When I got there, I found her roommate outside crying, and several other tenants taking pictures but I found out no one had called 9-1-1 yet. For reals, everyone thought coming and getting me was the first step?" 

--Raymond G.

I once had a tenant call me because he thought he was having a heart attack, a HEART ATTACK. Turns out he was right, he was. I told him for future reference, calling 9-1-1 first would be a faster, and not to mention, a more logical approach. Seeing as I am useless in any medical emergency situations.