Thursday, August 19, 2010

Tenant Tribulations: Warm Cup of Whoa!?

I am trying to fill a rental property for a client and had a very interesting experience.  I received two voice mails from this perspective tenant.  On the first message she was irritated that there wasn't an address advertised.  On the second message, hours later, she was perturbed that I had not called her back already.

I called her the following morning and set up an appointment.  Apparently it was her, her dying husband, her sister, her mother and her sickly father that were all hoping to consolidate their housing situation into this particular property.  

So they show up to look at the home.  The first thing I notice is a bumper sticker on the car that says "Why don't you have a warm cup of shut the (insert the worst expletive that comes to mind here) up!"  How nice to see an elderly woman and her middle age daughters emerging from a vehicle broadcasting that warm fuzzy message.

They decide they want to rent the house but then refuse to pay an application fee. They left but later that day they showed up at my office with the applications filled out, the application fee in hand, and some "extra" money ($28) thrown in.  Was this a bribe attempt?  Hmmmm....  I asked the applicant if she was in good standing with her landlord she explained that she was the former property manager there, had been fired, and there had been an "accidental" discharge of a firearm and so they were being "asked to leave". Double Hmmmmm.....
  
Needless to say the application was rejected by the owner based on the huge exceptions we would have to make to the rental criteria. When I informed her of that she was angry and asked me why else they were being denied.  I explained the firearm discharge didn't help either.  She says: "Why did you tell the owner that then?!"   

Sometimes life just makes you chuckle.

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