As with any other business, property management comes with its own difficulties and stressful situations. Each manager will likely experience a “trying” time, to say the least, when working with tenants, renters, staff, or any others throughout the course of his or her work. Take a look at some of the following “property management horror stories” to see if you have experienced any of the below, or if there is a lesson to be learned from others’ experiences.
Don’t End up in These Property Management Horror Stories
A tenant or renter may do or say something absurd or even dangerous, offering their own reasons for doing so (whether those reasons are valid or not). This is the beginning of many of these property management horror stories, submitted by manages who have “see it all.” It can be difficult to say what is the best course of action in these scenarios, but the top priority should always be safety.
In one case, a manager reported that an employee on site lit a fire outside of the unit in keeping with “a ritual based on their religion.” It’s hard to wrangle situations that deal with issues of religion, but this could be extremely hazardous if that fire were to spread and get out of hand. Freedom of any kind is not worth putting so many others at great risk, so the manager needed to tactfully speak with the tenant about the practice so as to prevent accidents while also respecting their religion.
Some other stories include inappropriate behavior in fitness centers, overflowing sewage, a nearby tornado, and a resident threatening others. The managers who had to deal with these incidents rarely did so alone, often calling on their maintenance or legal teams, and in one case, the local police. The lesson to draw from this is that you aren’t expected to deal with catastrophe by yourself, and in fact the scenarios are often more easily solved with the aid of others.
A concern you may have is the discomfort that could come with confronting a resident or tenant about a behavior of theirs that needs adjustment. If it is more of a nuisance to others than a danger, you may be hesitant to approach them for fear of an uncomfortable relationship in the future. With that said, there are certainly ways to approach these people to discuss your concerns without ruining your professional relationship. For example, if a single person is breaking certain rules, you can send a reminder out to the entire building so that he or she doesn’t feel singled out.
A lot of situations within these “property management horror stories” require quick thinking and action. A property manager always has to be on the ball, ready to jump into a situation at a moment’s notice. In the case of the sewage overflow, “there was already about 3 inches of sewer water flooding the floor” when they arrived onto the scene. At the very least, if the person is not able to get to the property right away in off-hours, there should be plans in place for someone to get there nearly immediately, if possible. Otherwise, there could be hugely expensive damage done… which there was, in this case.
Many of these situations can also be avoided with things like a functional security team and system, a well-establish set of rules and regulations for tenants’ and renters’ use, and an easy way for the property manager to get in touch with his or her own team and those same tenants/renters. Communication is key in all things, so practice clear communication in order to avoid encountering any “horror stories” of your own.
In order to work to that effect, you want to make sure you have a solid property management software within your business to handle some of the details quickly and effectively. This is where Budgetrac property Management software, offered by Anton Systems, comes in handy. This system gives you access to property data anywhere and on any device so that you can take care of business 24/7. Making sure you’ve covered all your work bases is easier than ever when you can access this information whenever and wherever you want, not to mention that Budgetrac enables the comparison of tenants and assists in identifying troubled tenants.