Showing Apartments with Children should probably not be allowed

For those that don't personally know me(seriously missing out), I have two children.

Two small children.

3 1/2 year old and 1 1/2 year old.

Fun times.

I thought I would take a little break talking about the never ending circus of crazies that cross my path, and tell you what it is like showing apartments with small children.

Because that in of its self is somewhat of a circus.

Story one.

On one occasion I had my daughter with me and we were showing a very sweet elderly woman a studio apartment. As soon as we walked in I noticed it smelled a little musty but I left the door open to try and air it out, but of course my daughter blurts out "It's really stinky in here momma, oh it really stinks" and proceeds to say so in 3 second increments the entire time.

Story two...

I am standing in the kitchen of a one bedroom with two gentlemen when my son comes and stands right in front of us. He squats down and starts pushing with all his might, grunting while his little eyes are starting to turn red and then BAM! a smell that could only be described as a skunk soaked in fish, rolled in poo while eating garlic filled the "spacious" room.

Another one....

I had both kids in tow when I opened the door to a studio that was in the processes of being turned over. I knew the walls were a little tacky so I told the kids to stay at the door. Well, my daughter found a paint stick and grabbed it and got PRIMER all over her hands, arms, clothes, brother and myself. Under normal circumstances that would require

"I told you not to touch anything!" lecture and a timeout.

But I could not very well do that in front of a perspective tenant, so I kept my cool and made my daughter walk with her hands out not touching anything all the while showing yet another apartment, giving them applications and talking for a good 30 minutes about our move-in special.

My daughter stood next to me with her arms out the entire time.

Once they left I called my maintenance man asking how to get primer off. He suggested nail polish remover. So I busted out my remover and got to work. About 5 minutes into our scrubbing session my maintenance man called back to inform me to make sure the polish had very little acetone in it.

I picked up my bottle 100% acetone.

Ooops.

Last one...

I need to tell you that at my house I have an immense amount of throw pillows. My family takes the term "throw" very seriously. Every night when my husband gets home we have pillow fights. The kids love it. When you hit someone with a pillow you say "BAM!"

Now I tell you that so I can tell you this...

I had a young college guy come in looking for a studio. As we are walking the property my daughter says...

"You wanna BAM my momma?"

"My daddy BAM my momma all the time."

He then signed a one year lease.

As a matter of fact all the above perspective tenants wound up signing a lease.

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What to do...

Here is the scenario

You are checking on one of your vacant rental homes.

You walk in the front door.
Looks good.

You wander through the hallways and look into bathrooms.
All is well there.

You take a glance in the backyard
All is clear.

Then you open the door to the garage

huh?!
There is a mattress in the middle of the garage.
Which might have struck you as a little odd

But you are distracted by the two naked homeless people having ..."a moment"

Not so good.

So what do you do?

Do you...

A) Say get the _ out of my house!?

B) Start going over who you will put down as your references on your new resume.

C) Close the door and leave. They need some privacy.

D) Enter own comment

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Adventures in Advertising

I handle all the advertising for the property.
I pick which websites we use.
I write up the description.
I monitor them online if not every day, every other day.
So basically I KNOW what is being advertised.

But almost every single day I get a call or someone coming in saying that we are advertising something different.
"I saw online that you have three bedrooms."
"Sorry we don't but three bedrooms, I do have two bedrooms though."
"No it says right here you have three bedrooms!"
Why argue with me!?
You would think I would know if we had three bedrooms or not.
Do they think I will take another look around and find a three bedroom hiding in the corner?

Or I get..
"I am looking at your advertisement right now and it says that your studios are $700."
"Well, I am not sure where you are looking but I do all the advertising and our studios are $950.00"
"No you are advertising them at $700 so you have to give it to me at $700."
What the....I don't have to give you anything.

I love this...
"Do you take section 8 housing(low income)?"
"No, sorry we don't"
"But it says online that you do."
"Well, I don't know where you are looking but we do not offer it."
"But it says you do right here so you must."
Honestly.
Do you really think it's a good idea to believe everything you read on the internet?

Or I love when people call and ask me how much our apartments are and when I tell them they say something along the lines of...
"What! That is ridiculous! How can you possibly charge that much for an apartment. That is robbery!"

Well first off I am waaaaay less the our neighboring apartments.
Second, you don't have to rent here then.
Thirdly, move out of California.
Fourthly, how is renting an apartment at market value robbery?

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See what I have to work with

I like a full complex.

What apartment manager doesn't?

Well, I guess those that are paid on commission.

But me, I am on salary.

So, the less work I have to do the better.

Plus, I just got a cricut and I am having way to much fun making signs to worry about showing apartments.

Like the cool sign I made for my husband with the directions to the hamper.

He seems to always forget where it is.

Anyways.

Right now, I only have one vacancy.

ONE!

That is awesome considering at one point during the summer I had FOURTEEN!

Scary.

So, I am determined to get this last apartment off the market.

The trouble is, it has been sitting there since November.

Yikes!

Other apartments have come and gone but this apartment has stayed put.

I put in new carpet.

New paint.

Offered a Move-In Special

(which I hate doing)

Dropped the rent

(which I hate even more)

I have done anything and everything I could possible think of.

I do have to say that it is a beautiful apartment.

And I have to say that I am quite the salesperson.

But...and there is always a BUT

The view on this particular unit does leave something to be desired...

I mean who wouldn't want to open their window in the morning and get a good look at the substation?

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TMI to the fifth degree

About three weeks after becoming an apartment manager I developed a coin phrase.

"I could have happily lived my entire life without the piece knowledge."

I find myself saying this at least once a week as tenants/vendors and perspective tenants feel the need to unfold personal information I really did not need to know.

I mean really really did not need to know.

Oh you know I have some examples.

I was touring the property and this person asked to see the "gym. "

Once inside our lovely "gym" this person sat down on the bench lift thing(can you tell I use it often) and announced the only thing missing was a television.

This way he could watch his porn while working out.

And no hint of joking in his voice.

Ugh!?

See, I could have happily lived my entire life without that piece of knowledge.

(would the story make you cringe more if I said it was my bosses boss?)

(...cringes with remembrance.....yuck....)

I have a tenant who is kind of smelly(okay really smelly) and loves to talk and I mean LOVES to talk. When I see this tenant coming I quickly look busy in order to avoid an hour long conversation.

But even if I am on the phone he will simply stand at the counter and wait for me to finish or just go into his conversation anyways.

He will go on and on about religion, politics and how secret cameras are watching us at all times....yada yada yada.

Once he was talking to me about the President is ruining his health, when he started maneuvering his pants and then exclaimed he had a hemroid the size of a tennis ball.

Ugh!

Why oh why did you think I wanted to know that?

Even though I really really didn't want to a mental image popped into my head and I have been trying to erase it ever since....ahhh there it is again....make it go away.

I could have seriously very happily lived my entire life without that piece of knowledge.

See I an apartment manager.

I am not a doctor

I am not a family therapist

I am not your mother

I am not your best friend

I just want to rent you an apartment

I just want to collect your rent

So please please oh please don't tell me about your rashes, hemoroids, porno problems, your history with IBS, and your recent labiaplasy.

Small talk only please.

Pretty please.

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Smile you are on candid camera

We have a lot of vacancies. Every time I rent an apartment, someone else moves out. It's very frustrating. I just want a full apartment complex so that I can just collect rent, boss around maintenance people and watch Oprah.

Is that to much to ask??

Honestly.

Because of this vacancy business I actually have to work more(loud sigh)

So I have been showing a lot of apartments lately and I always find it funny the random/strange/creepy/funny questions that I get.

Here are a few I received lately and I promise, cross my heart that these are true.

"What is this for?"

"It's the living room"

"But what is it for?"

"To put your furniture in."

"Oh, then what is this for?"

"It's a closet"

"But what is it for?"

"To put stuff in"

...and it goes on and on...

side note: please feel free to feel sorry for me because this person actually qualified and signed a one year lease....it's going to be a long year.

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I was showing a couple a one bedroom and I happen to have my little son with me resting on my hip when the man points to him and says

"Is that yours?"

Who, this kid that keeps calling me Momma? Oh no I actually just cleaned out my closet and found him. Crazy huh. I was going to throw him in the DI pile but decided to try him on.

DUH!

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A man comes in and he has a strange odor, a pretty obvious comb over and is wearing alarmingly short shorts made from sweatpants material (I am not sure of what they are called, I personally don't own a pair, nor should anyone for that matter) and a blue shirt tucked tightly into his shorts. He goes down a list of questions about our studio apartment ranging from when the building was built, how many times the apartment has been painted, is the owner a man or a woman and so on and so forth. You know the normal questions you ask when looking at an apartment.

So I show him the apartment and decide to stand in the doorway while he looks just to error on the side of caution since I couldn't decide if this man was dangerous or just really weird. After I show him the apartment we go back to the lobby were he takes a seat at the couch and asks me to sit across from him.

I sit down (noting all the possible exits) and the man explains that he actually lives in Arizona but would like to use our address and a apartment number to receive mail because he is looking for a job here.

Oh okay, yes, that makes perfect sense.

The annoying part is it took me almost 45 minutes to try and convince him it would be much easier to actually live in the same state you work in.

But preferably in a different complex, like on the other side of town.

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~"Is this building made from wood?"

No it's made from straw so try not to sneeze

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