Never judge a book by its cover. That's what we've been told, and we've all seen that it's true. If you have ever had to appraise renters, you know how true that can be.
There's a young couple that lives in the apartment next door. She is quiet, an educated professional who works full-time and from their apartment. Her boyfriend, on the other hand, is a 20-something teenager. He plays (occasionally) semi-pro football and coaches for a local high school, wears his hair down to the middle of his back and is covered in tattoos, his favorite one is where a porn star signed her name and he had it tattooed. He is a fan of heavy and thrash metal music and video games. They have a pit bull.
The woman who was our on-site manager is responsible for this. She either quit or was fired, I never got the real story, but I took over for her as on-site manager. She told me that if anyone asked, the dog was a boxer. I am quite certain that the duo next door was her way of "sticking it to" a management company with which she'd become displeased. If that was indeed her intention, then her plan backfired.
In the three years that these two have been my neighbors, I have yet to hear any music or video game noise.
Someone forgot to tell the dog he is a pit bull, I've seen hamsters more deadly. Having known them as neighbors, friends and tenants, you couldn't ask for better. They are responsible dog owners, courteous neighbors, respectful tenants and just plain good people.
The couple that had previously rented next door was a pastor and his fiance. They were just starting their "church" and had no meeting place, so Wednesday night services were held in the apartment. The noise wasn't bad when the pastor was delivering his sermon, but the period of "fellowship" afterward became quite loud. As they gained members, it was not uncommon for them to have upwards of fifty people crammed in their living room. As is common with any gathering, the more people there are, the longer they stay, and the more noise they make. Often on Wednesday nights, I would be at their door as late as midnight, hammering on it because they couldn't hear over the chaos.
At first I was nice, asking them to please be considerate. Then I posted a nasty letter on their door, suggesting in my sarcastic way that maybe God frowns on people who disrupt the sleep of their neighbors.
The previously mentioned on-site manager had two part-time jobs; she was never at the building to witness this, and my complaints fell on deaf ears. My saving grace was that the pastor's only job was being a pastor, and the fiance's only job was being the pastor's fiance. It appears neither job could pay the rent, so after only about six months, they moved. Unfortunately, they had recommended two members of their flock, who took up residence in our community just before I began my tenure as manager.
Two of the "church" ladies each rented an apartment, and they played at being friends, while each constantly tattled on the other to me. Every day, I would find a note taped to my door.
"She let her dog pee on your porch"
"She let her kids light fireworks in the alley"
"Her husband slams the gate on purpose."
This note was followed up by the tenant and her kids vandalizing the gate so not only wouldn't it slam, it wouldn't close at all.
I have served, off and on (and off again) as manager to this building over the last three years. I thought maybe I could do it as a full-time career, but I now despair for this world and its future. People are nuts!
A year before I became manager a very sweet, older woman moved in. She had custody of her two grandchildren. She was here for two months and all was well. Then her ex-husband came to stay with her.
Apparently, she had lost her job and couldn't afford the apartment, so he was there to help pay rent. I had only seen him a few times, and though nothing seemed amiss, I just got a bad feeling.
After only a few weeks there, he showed his true colors, getting drunk and threatening to kill the manager and one of the tenants. He assaulted my husband, who in turn bashed him in the head with a barbecue lid. He retreated to the apartment, and it took half a dozen officers, with guns drawn, to subdue him. The man turned out to be a nightmare, a 55 year old lifetime gang member who'd spent more time in prison than out. His sentence was six years.
One of the "church ladies" had a boyfriend move in with her. He was a convicted felon who started selling drugs from the apartment.
He accosted a tenant in the laundry room. The management company told her she couldn't let him stay there, so she'd sneak him in the kitchen window. They thought it was great fun to push the bed right up to the window, open the blinds and have sex where everyone could see and hear. She was finally evicted, leaving a filthy, cockroach-infested apartment.
A very nice exchange student from China moved in, along with his friend. "Don't worry," they told me, "We are students, all we do is study." That was true for only one of them; the other was a partier, with an endless succession of loud, giggling girls and even louder racing-style vehicles. He didn't take me seriously when I warned him about our parking policy, and was incensed when one of his vehicles was towed. It was amusing to see him stand outside the building, because he truly believed the police were going to come to arrest me. It was not so amusing when he plugged the upstairs sink and let it run, causing water damage to two units.
There was a teacher with a young daughter, who resided in their unit for two years. They picked my stint as manager to move out. I have never seen such filth; it took multiple bombings and sprayings to get rid of the roaches. The linoleum was curled at the edges, and there was a crust of food and dirt at those edges that, in places, was an inch thick. The urine stains the dog left looked like the rings of a very old tree. The paint and acoustic ceiling were not just peeling, but pulling away from their surfaces in sheets. I can only guess that they ran a humidifier or vaporizer day and night.
The unit took two weeks to be ready for the new renters, a couple placed by the property supervisor himself. "Good kids," he said. In less than a year, those "good kids" made a mess of the unit. Their application stated that they had one "well-behaved" cat.
The three cats that were left in the apartment shredded the brand new carpet, and what didn't get shredded, was stained with urine and feces. Neighbors called animal control because the renters would disappear for a week at a time, leaving the animals alone. There was a strange apparatus bolted to the kitchen ceiling, the upstairs toilet was dismantled and there were unexplained brown spots on one of the bedroom walls.
They also took all of the light bulbs.
The first tenant I rented to was a bubbly single mom. She was adorable and the guys here just loved her. She turned out to be a bit of a flake, she liked to party a lot and had lots of loud friends. She left after only eight months, going back to her ex-husband. She stops by every now and again, because one of her friends lives directly opposite my unit. When she referred him, and he came to apply she pleaded with me, "Don't judge a book by its cover."
As a tenant and as a neighbor, I wish I could clone him.