Selling out has been remarkably easy. I was expecting a cosmic struggle between good and evil -- you know, Perretti style. Instead I said the magic words "I want to make a decent living!" and my heart quickly caved.
OK, so I'm not exactly building Trump Towers yet. But I am learning the finer points of property management. For example, tenants have a sense of humor. Some tenants think it's funny to write a personal check for rent, and then claim ignorance when it bounces. The money was there, they say, and it's still there right now, even though they are incapable of getting a cashier's check from the bank. This is hilarious to a property manager, let me tell you. This is especially funny when the tenant does it every month ... and then calls and leaves nasty comments on voice mail because he's being evicted. What is downright laugh-out-loud funny is when the same tenant hires a lawyer in an attempt to get his security deposit back. What a hoot.
Another clever comedic rouse is when a tenant calls to complain something is broken. Normal people call when the sink is stopped up or when the shower won't work. Tenants call when their cable is out, even though we have nothing to do with cable. This leads to a 45-minute conversation about obligations of a landlord with the tenant. Apparently, somewhere in the constitution or the Landlord/Tenant Act, tenants are led to believe they have a right to free HBO. "Well, we just plugged it in and we got it for free when we got here, and now it's not working, so we assumed you provided that. Get it turned on again or we'll call a lawyer!"
Tenants threaten to call their lawyer every day. It really hits the funny bone.
So I've just been yucking it up for the last 10 working days, learning about this new comedy troupe called The Tenants. They will be right up there with The Groundlings some day soon, I'm sure.
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