Quiet People Should Be a Protected Class!

April is National Fair Housing Month. I’d like to make a suggestion. Could we please petition Congress (I know, almost an absurdity at the very suggestion) to create a subsection of protected classes and include QUIET PEOPLE? 

I rent an apartment. This is my second renewal which means I am in my third lease. However, it is under duress that I am re-signed leases because, although I like the apartment and I LOVE its location (balcony faces a pond and a beautiful tree full of singing birds, quacking ducks, screeching geese (and I don’t mind those sounds) I unequivocally detest the noise my neighbors make.

At 12:44 am music blaring, at 2:05 am and the music is turned down but the bumping bass is still rattling and reverberating throughout each and every wall of the master bedroom, living room and kitchen. My only recourse is to try to sleep in my Office which is not really set up for sleeping. Usually I resort to medication because once my brain is activated in the middle of sleep, it is very, very, near to impossible to shut it up, too.

I considered moving to a senior community, except I don’t qualify. 

I would love going to a Grad Student Housing apartment community, but I don’t qualify.

I cannot find a single family house that I want to pay so much for.

I am now considering going back to being a homeowner. For my own peace of mind even though it would be difficult to tackle all those weekend maintenance chores on my own. It would be a burden having to pay someone else to do them.

It would be simple to solve this problem though if every apartment community was required to set aside one building devoted to the Quiet Person. You know that person – he works all the time, doesn’t practice a musical instrument for hours at a time, is not hosting rock concerts in his living room every night or every weekend, and pretty much sticks to saying “Hello” and “Have a nice day!” whenever interacting with the immediate neighbors as he delivers his rent check on or before the first of every month. Yes, having that kind of rental opportunity would definitely make me a lifelong renter for the rest of my life.  

Residents Are Real Chatty Cathys

This is the kind of situation that must drive Residents crazy and I understand completely because it kind of drives me crazy, too. My daughter moved back into an apartment community where she had lived with a roommate for a short time. She liked the community a lot, not just because they pay for the gas utility and she is always cold, she lives in a cold weather climate and well, you get the picture but also because she feels safe there. She has a couple of co-workers who also live in the same community. One of those took a six month lease and it is up for renewal.

Those of us in Property Management should not kid ourselves. Residents talk. They do talk about how much their rents are and we are only deluding ourselves to think they don’t compare their rent amounts.

She found out that her co-worker’s new rent amount is going DOWN if he renews for another six months. “WTH(eck)?” she asked me. I kind of shrugged my shoulders.

“It’s the time of year,” I guessed. But honestly, it should not be less; at the least, it should remain the same, wouldn’t you think? And this is a big company in Indiana. They are known to NEVER run specials or lower rents even when they have a huge number of vacant units.

So, I’ll offer a word of caution. Offering a lower rental price at renewal may be your strategy; however, it offends those Residents who did not take that short term lease. It offends those who chose to stick it out a year trusting that you will make their year worry-free and thinking they were locking in a great rent rate for an entire year. How is it fair to lower someone’s rental rate when the person took a shorter term lease and was NOT even charged a premium for that convenience? Explain that to me so I can explain it to my daughter, please.

A New Kind of Discrimination?

Earlier this week, a couple came in to the Leasing Office to talk about their need for a two-bedroom apartment. Actually, one half of the couple came in to ask to look at floorplans. I sat down with him; it appeared he was in a hurry. We talked about what would be available now and next month. He asked if I would show him the two-bedroom I had to use as a Show Unit. Since it was already leased with someone moving in later in the week, he understood he could not rent this one.

I get his ID and walk out with him, only to see his van parked, motor running and people in it waiting. He explains that is his wife and children are waiting. I was curious as to why they didn’t come in, too, but I figured maybe the children were napping or something. Anyway, we go to the apartment and I show it to him and he smiles as soon as he walks in and sees the large, open living room. He almost seems to float through and then turns and asks if his wife can come to look. “Of course,” I say.

I stand at the open door and his wife gets out of the van, hands me her ID and runs inside. It is raining, well, sprinkling. (It hasn’t rained all summer!) She comes in and practically runs through and runs back to the van and I hear her telling her husband the minute she leaves, “I like it! I like this!”

Her husband begins to pull out of the parking space [Normally, we walk to apartments to tour on foot, but it happened that it had been sprinkling off and on, so that day we drove over.] and lowers his window to ask about the Townhouse floorplan.

I think to myself, well, that is not in your stated price range …. But I don’t say it to him. I tell him I will stop and get the key, which I do and we go over to the Townhouse. Now, this unit is available and rent-ready, so I am hopeful that they may like it, but fearful that it is out of their price range. When we get there, the entire family gets out of the van and we go over to tour the townhouse. As soon as I open the door, the parents begin to smile and look at each other and they begin to ask all kinds of questions. They are so excited! After completing the tour and answering their questions, I ask the Money Question, “Would you like to reserve this one? You really seem to love it, and…” I started to continue when he interrupts me and says, “My wife wants this one.”

After making all the disclosures as to rent rate, I notice how the kids are antsy and tired and one is crying. He tells me he will bring his application in and pay the fees in the morning on his way to taking the children to school. Sweet!

Between the time he comes back in and his Application is finally Approved, he calls me at least four times to ask if they will be getting the townhouse I showed them. Each time, I try to reassure him that it will be same one I showed them. They are moving in tomorrow. He came in a few minutes ago and once more I reassured him that the townhouse will be theirs. I feel like giving him a hug so he will believe me (I don’t.)

He turns to me as he is walking out the door. “We have been other places and they show us a nice apartment and we say we will rent that one and they tell us we have to take a different one.” I ask him if that is because they show only a Model.

“No, it is not always that. My wife thinks it is because they don’t like us. They do not want to rent to people who have a boy like ours.”

“This townhouse is yours. Don’t worry! I hope your family will be very happy here!”

Their son is autistic. I wonder to myself, “Is this a new kind of discrimination????”

Prospects Say the Darnedest Things

The other day I received a phone call from a Prospect wanting to know about availability at our community. Since I had just gotten a cancelation (Boo Hiss!) on a two-bedroom unit, obviously I was happy for the opportunity to re-lease it quickly. Right off the bat, though, this person’s phone demeanor was … honestly, not pleasant. She made an appointment to come in, which she did yesterday.

She was early for the appointment, which is one hundred times better than being late! She brought an accordion file folder with her and placed everything on the table in the Leasing Office. With what I now know to be her typical “directness” she began interrogating me about policy and procedure. Immediately, it put me off – not necessarily making me defensive, but I thought, WT*? You aren’t even a Resident and you are questioning every possible scenario that could come up in a lease situation. I wondered if she’d had some terrible issues somewhere else, so I asked her, but she said she had not.

I asked for her ID and went to tour the community and the available apartment. (I admit, it was kind of hard not to think ugly thoughts about the person who was a perfectly wonderful elderly woman who had had to cancel her lease! Were it not for her, I would not have to be with this mean person.)

On the way to the unit, Ms. Prospect asks me, “Are there any children here?”

I asked, “Why do you ask that?”

“I don’t like kids. I don’t want to live anywhere near kids. They’re loud and where we live now, they have a kid and when they play, they make all kinds of noise. I think they let the kid ride his tricycle all over the place.”

“Well, there are some children here. I don’t control that,” I said. “I do understand your concern though.”

“Oh, I know you can’t answer this question because of Fair Housing, but I just want you to know I don’t want to live around kids,” she said.

“If you understand that my renting to families is a Fair Housing question, then you know there is nothing I can do – or want to do – about families living here. I do know there are people who don’t really enjoy children. I get that. I really do. ”

After that little exchange, I was ready to say something else entirely, but we continued to the apartment. She loved it and made another appointment to bring her husband back over the weekend. I hope her husband, as a police officer, will be more respectful or at least open minded.