Exciting day yesterday-

So, a couple of exciting things happened yesterday on the Apartment Manager front.

I'll go light hearted first:

BAM! NEW VACUUM BABY!

I give you the Eureka Capture. So I know it's not that exciting, but seriously, this thing is awesome. It's got a POWER PAW BITCH! Oh yeah, stairs beware. And let's not forget about the self cleaning duster. One of the tenants in the building has a house cleaning service, so I took it up to his place to show it off. He was mildly impressed. "It's no Dyson" Well, yeah, the management company isn't going to sport for a $500 vacuum. I'm lucky I got them to give me this one. If it wasn't for the fact that I had been using one from like 1954, I don't think they would have gone for it.

On a less exciting note, one of my tenants tried to off himself yesterday afternoon. A bunch of cops, ambulance, and fire truck pulled up in front of the building at around 2pm. "Are they coming here?" Yep. No one would say anything to me at first but as soon as they realized I was the manager they started to talk. Apparently, the tenant had taken a bunch of pills and a had drank a shit load of alcohol, called his boyfriend and the boyfriend called it in. When the cops showed up, they found that he had also bought a small portable bbq and had lit a bunch of briquettes in the bathtub, then sealed off the bathroom with tape to try and carbon monoxide himself out. (Just for those contemplating this - it doesn't really work, briquettes don't really give off much CO, at least that's what the firemen told me). But needless to say, they rushed him off to the hospital.

Surprisingly enough, he knocked on my door this morning at 10am. He had already been released?! How does that happen? My only guess is that he didn't have medical coverage to pay for it. How incredibly lame is that. "Well, you seem to be in dire mental health, but since you can't really pay for your visit here, I guess we will let you go. Please don't do that again." So who knows. One of the other unfortunate things is that his partner (that is gay companion for all you red state people) wasn't able to get any information from the cops, the hospital, anyone. The cops didn't even call him after I gave them all the contact info. So unbelievable.

But, that was my excitement for the day yesterday. I'm still excited about the vacuum, can't wait to give it a spin this afternoon. I'm sure once I hit the second floor the excitement will have worn off, but hey, that first floor is going to rock!

Oh yeah, and don't forget to go buy a calendar (or awesome pillow) from my wife's shop - see the below post. The more she sells, the more I'm garaunteed to get some Christmas presents.

The All New 2009 Umberdove Calendar!

Wait, let me explain first. What is an Umberdove? That is my wife's online handle. She sells some of her things through a shop called: Etsy 

But the latest and greatest is her all new 2009 Calendar. I know that there are often people who I don't really know but am obligated to buy things for, and what better to get them than a hand made calendar for the new year. You know they want to think about you everytime they look at it. 

The Calendar is prints of her own watercolors with the dates and text over the top.  Here are some pictures of their awesomeness:

And there are more pics in her Etsy Shop. So go check it out and buy some calendars. They are great gifts and there are other cool things to check out.

The Cluster F#&K Continues

Wow, the new job is freaking chaos. I have been going non-stop since Monday.  And unfortunately, the lack of support from the management company is apparent. We (Kelly and I) posted notes on the doors of all the units telling them about the change over, and honestly, every single email I have gotten back from current tenants has something along the lines of, "Looking forward to meeting you and having competent managers in the building!" That was a cut and paste from the latest email.

We are in a building of 38 units and right now there are 9 vacancies. Well, on Wednesday our boss had his weekly meeting discussing the vacancy rate in buildings and our building was top of the list. So I'm guessing he got his ass reamed, and no doubt blamed us (since we had anything at all to do with it - couldn't have been the fuck up they hired before us). Well, he comes over to the building and walks the vacancies with us. That went really well, he was not afraid to spend some money to replace fridges, new flooring, etc. So he writes down all these work orders to put into the maintenance company. Tells us he will take care of submitting all the stuff.  This was Wednesday at like 3pm.  It's now Friday, I call the maintenance company, no work orders submitted. What the fucking, FUCK? Call boss, his reply, "I'll follow up with them." Bitch, I'm going to come down there and punch you in the fucking throat!

I have been showing apartments non-stop for the past 3 days and you can't do me a favor and DO YOUR JOB?!  Needless to say, I'm keeping detailed notes on everything we are doing, appoints for showing apartments, and doing everything through email so there is a valid paper trail of work. Just try to throw me under the bus bitch, I'll pimp slap you.

The saga continues...

The new job.

So, the new job is locked down. We will officially be taking aover as the Apartment Manager Sept 1st. All I have to say is- what a fucking cluster fuck! The management company that is running this show is soooooo disorganized. I'm afraid. It's really no wonder that the last 5 have all failed so miserably. I'm guessing I will pretty much be on my own. We'll see how much support I get. It really is unfortunate because the building has potential, the units are really kickass, but fuck if we can get 4 washers and 4 dryers for a 36 unit building all working at the same time.

I have done two training 'sessions' thus far. One for their computer software - which I need to VPN to their system to use, and oh btw it doesn't work with Macs. I'll have to see about upgrading to OS 10.5 and using Bootcamp. Hmm, maybe I'll just purchase the OS out of their petty cash.

The second bit of training was last night. My direct manager went over signing leases and landlord tennant laws, etc. Let me describe how the meeting went. (Mind you, I have NEVER done anything like this before).

"When going over the lease, you should have them sign here, here, and here. They need to print their name here. Collect money. Here is a packet about landlord tennant laws, you should read that. Any questions? Good, see if you can fill the 6 vacancies before the end of the month."

Us: "We don't have keys, know which units are vacant, have deposit forms, anything that we need to do our job"

Him: "Yeah, you should try to get in touch with the old manager. Alright, if you have any questions email me"

Us: "But..... um..... wtf?"

So yeah, WTF? He gave us absolutely no info but yet wants us to fill the place up. This is going to be a nightmare for the first couple of months. I think once it gets rolling and we are full and really only need to keep the building up, it will be a cake walk.  Also, he informed us that really nothing has been done as far as paperwork goes for the last 4 months, we will need to straighten some of that out. I'll keep you posted.

As for filling units - anyone in the Capitol Hill area of Seattle looking for a 1 bedroom???

The LAN Cometh!

Well, only a couple of days and we will all be drunk and jumping on pool tables. Can't wait! It's going to be great to see everyone and hang.

I'll be offline until then, so see you all then!

BC

Oh, forgot to say, the interview yesterday went really really well. I would say that we are over a 95% lock. So thanks for the well wishes, I'll keep you posted.