Be Nice to Your Landlords

When thinking back on my life, my mind usually jumps to the extreme stories I have accumulated. I have come in contact with so many crazy people throughout the years and have been put in odd situations. While my personal life has been what I would consider a unique culmination of outrageous experiences, I feel that my professional life has followed somewhat of the same pattern. I have multiple jobs. I work at an apartment complex, an after school program, I babysit, and I sell Mary Kay (sometimes). I have always been hard-working at jobs and definitely appreciate the value of a paycheck. I love being able to say that I am fully independent and have been for years, even though at times it is terribly hard. Some days, I definitely day dream about being able to relax, go to the beach during the summertime with friends, and go on Spring Break trips. I have never been able to do any of this. Because of my bills, I have to work as much as possible. So when I do not have school, I am working, which brings me to my blog topic.


I have worked in the apartment industry for about four years now. When I started working, I had no clue what it meant to be a leasing consultant. I just thought I was supposed to wait around to see if anyone wanted to tour an apartment, give them an application, and the job would be cake! WRONG! I started working at a college-based property and was quickly promoted to Leasing Manager within five months since I had quit school to pursue this career. (Please note that none of these stories are based on the property that I currently work for and that I will not give the name of the company because I do not want to talk bad about any job).
So, if working at an apartment complex isn’t as easy as people think, you might be wondering what it entails. Well, this series of blogs will go over some of the most extreme people/situations I have dealt with.


There was one resident that started out as such a nice guy. He quickly was surrounded by trouble and we were trying to figure out what he was up to. His neighbor’s apartment was broken into and robbed. Days later, his front door was beat down with a hammer. He got into a fight in the middle of the day with his neighbor. When he came to the office to complain about the fight, I had to talk to him about it. I told him I would get paperwork together and bring it to his door for him to fill out a complaint. This is a trick I was getting good at. The trick is to not let yourself into their apartment, try to get them to invite you in so you can sort of snoop around and see what is really going on.


I went over to deliver the paperwork as promised and he invited me in, just as I thought he would. Since I was a 19 year old and most of my residents were around the same age, they thought of me as a friend and usually told me more than they should. What happened next, I wish I did not have to see.


I was sitting on his couch, wondering where all of his electronics went. He used to have a huge flat screen TV on his living room wall. He usually walked around the property in a huge sweatshirt, which I found odd because it was summer time. When I went to his apartment he had on a t-shirt, which made his track marks on his arms very visible. While in the middle of filling out his complaint, his eyes rolled back and he passed out. It was at this time, that a needle fell out of his pocket. I didn’t know what to do, but I was able to wake him up. He just started talking to me like nothing happened. Minutes later, it happened again, but this time he was having a seizure. I was able to call an ambulance and it turns out he had overdosed on heroin. He ended up being okay, but it was definitely scary to be put in that situation. I later talked to my boss about not feeling comfortable being in resident’s homes. Luckily, I was there, but I did not like being put into that situation.


The point that I want to end with is for all of you that live in an apartment complex, be nice to your landlords. You never know what they have had to deal with that day.