Student Housing Move Outs: What Do I Do With My Keys???

The mass exodus of college students living in apartment communities across the country has begun. And of course, for maintenance teams, this will become the busiest time of year for them as they ready hundreds of “beds” for incoming new residents (and some returning from summer break) in the fall. But for the Leasing Teams out there, it is a hectic, stressful time.

In an effort to organize the move out process (to which many student-residents call “checking out”) some Leasing Specialists try many tactics to help alleviate the confusion. They send out mass emails to the residents with detailed instructions on what is expected and How-To-Turn-In-Your-Keys. They organize the files in order of unit for quick retrieval so paperwork can be signed (that is IF the Move In Inspection report was even completed and returned in the first place.) They create flyers and post on doors the instructions for move out. They set up tables and clearly outline those instructions yet a third time at those tables as to what the student-resident should do.

And guess what? 98% of those student-residents will completely ignore those emails, flyers and still fail to read the signs posted at the move out tables. It’s human nature! Everyone who walks into a Leasing Office EXPECTS human contact. I explained this recently to one person who was lamenting the fact that everyone was coming to her and asking her what they should do with their keys. She was exasperated.

I listened intently and watched as student-resident after student-resident arrived at the Leasing Office. Because so many had signed their leases electronically, paid their rent online and submitted service requests online, they had no idea what the Leasing Office even looked like. Until then. They had no idea what to do and looked like lost puppies with a deer-in-headlights facial expressions.

One suggestion – do all that: send the detailed email, post the flyers, set the tables up with clear instructions – and then GO OUT AND ASK THEM IF THEY NEED ANY HELP. Of course they do! It doesn’t matter how academically bright these Ivy Leaguers are, they still crave the human interaction when it comes to The Process. Too many of them had received the streamlined, ultra easy online application and lease signing at move in, and now, at the move out, with no experience interacting with real people in the Office, what an opportunity we have to gain their stamp of approval, the holy grail of leasing – get a referral – when we simply get up and ask how we can assist. Yes, though you may have given instructions, but isn’t it so much more fun to TALK to the resident (and oftentimes, his or her parents) when they are standing right there?

It sure beats getting a phone call, or hundreds of phone calls, a day or so later from the resident or parent asking about the return of the security deposit. Which is a whole other topic of conversation!

Suggestion - Buy a Vacuum!

Did you know that 87% of people living in an apartment do not own a vacuum cleaner? The great exodus of move outs has begun and it is always a surprise to me when I conduct a move out inspection. I enter with a feeling of dread nowadays, because, in fifteen years of doing these, I have learned to expect the worst and only occasionally am I pleased by the best.

When I first started in this business as an Assistant Manager for a Section 8 property and a small conventional one, I learned early on that many people have no concept of how to clean or keep a home tidy. It has nothing at all to do with money or being poor. Truly, it is sheer laziness, I have concluded. Cleaning products can be made from simple, inexpensive ingredients like baking soda!

I am fascinated by some of the remarks I hear from those Residents (truly wealthy ones who are living off either the University’s dime or their parents’) or those living off the government’s dime, thus ours’. The most common of these is, “I’m busy.”

Whaaat? You’re too busy to pick the beer bottles up off the patio, countertops and floors? You’re too busy to flush the toilet? Too busy to dispose of hairs littering the bathroom countertops – enough to make a wig – by sweeping them into the waste basket? Trash left everywhere. Clothes lying on the floors of closets. Refrigerators left unplugged with food in them … Do people not understand that this food can rot and ruin a refrigerator? I could go on and on with graphic descriptions. I am sure you can add your own scenarios. (Please do!)

I have a suggestion. Instead of giving a 42 inch flat screen TV to entice Prospects to lease, why don’t we give them a nice Hoover after they move in and/or a gift certificate to a one-time use of Maid Service to use at move out time? If they renew, arrange for the carpets to be professionally cleaned? Sure would be helpful to everyone, in my opinion.

Happy Mother's Day

This may come as quite a shock to people, but I am not perfect and I was not a perfect mother. I get lost in a brown paper bag so when I had to drive to Indianapolis the first time, I had no idea where I was going or how to get there. With my daughter in the front seat (about thirteen or so at the time) and my ten year old son in the backseat, I almost lost my mind trying to find the exit of the hotel that night. When I snapped off the radio (why did I think complete silence would give me any better sense of direction? It wasn’t like the night wind would whisper to me.) After yelling that I was just going to turn around RIGHT THAT MINUTE and we would just have to miss that damn soccer tournament because who could find a hotel in the DARK, after all? That was when my daughter piped up, “Take the next exit. There is the hotel – RIGHT THERE. See?”

I can count the number of times I was late picking my son up at high school but goodness, each of my offspring swear it happened every day. Okay, I actually did forget once or twice, but come on, they could have gone to the office and used the phone to help a poor mom out, couldn’t they? To my defense, I was no longer teaching and when running a Section 8 property, sometimes weird stuff happens to push out all thoughts of ordinary living of my mind.

Once, my daughter accidentally locked herself in the downstairs bathroom. I couldn’t get her out. I called a neighbor who couldn’t get her out either. I was considering just breaking the window and pulling her out, when the neighbor called his friend, and they eventually removed the doorknob and we could open the door. From that point on, for the next five years or so, I would yell down to whoever was going to that bathroom, “Remember, don’t lock the door!” (I had an unnatural fear someone would not be able to escape the bathroom again.)

Not to mention, the time my daughter was out with her friends. She had taken my car and I had fallen asleep on the couch downstairs. I woke up just as she was tiptoeing through the living room. “What are you doing?” I asked when she reappeared a moment later carrying a flashlight. I have to go back. I lost the car keys while we were sledding.”

Did I hear that right? “Whaaat???? You lost MY CAR KEYS???? In all that snow?” WWIII was just about to erupt, not because the keys were lost, but because my daughter had the audacity to say, “Well, gosh Mom, why aren’t you asleep? If you were asleep, like normal mothers, then you would never have even known.”

I gave up on being the perfect mother. I made too many mistakes. I’m hoping to make it up when I become the perfect grandmother though … someday. Not any time soon, I’m told. But there’s always hope.