After being in property management for many years, I have heard a lot of stories. It seems sometimes, that almost everyone has one. I have heard some really sad stories, where good people have gotten a raw deal, and I have heard some far fetched, someone trying to pull one over on you stories.
There have been people who pull up at the office door, with a truck loaded with all their stuff. They walk in the office and say we need a place to live and we need to move in today. That is almost always a big red flag. Then there are others who try to lie about something that is really easy to check out. I once had a young lady come in and turn in an application. She had on scrubs and wrote down that she worked for a Veterinarian’s office. The number she put down was obviously a cell phone number, so I looked up the number for the Veterinarian’s office and called to verify her employment. They had never heard of her. I called the number that she gave me out of curiosity, and a young lady answered the phone. She just said hello, so I asked is this such and such Veterinarian’s office, and she said oh yeah sorry, Such and such Veterinarian’s office, how can I help you. When I spoke to the applicant, she admitted she had borrowed her friend’s scrubs to pretend she worked there, because she was actually a stripper and was paid off the books.
I once had a couple fill out an application, and put the same number down to contact them as well as their employer. I called the number and the woman answered, pretending t be a business and then pretending to be a different person, who then got the applicant on the phone. The business they put down, didn’t exist and neither one of them actually had a job. They got really angry and came back to office to argue with me.
There are many people who have credit issues, due to their divorce, or have been evicted, but it wasn’t their fault. Even though they had been evicted several times. Some people have had a whole bunch of collections on their credit report, because their identity was stolen, and no one will believe them. A lady threatened me once, when I turned her down for a property and explained it was due to her credit and multiple evictions. She got really angry and started yelling and cursing at me, saying I was a lair, that her credit was great and that she had never been evicted. Her credit was actually really, really bad, and I told her that the evictions were listed in the public records, that she could look them up herself. She wouldn’t stop arguing, so I finally hung up on her. She called back and was sent to my voice mail, where she threatened me and called me the devil’s spawn.
So I guess you could say I have some stories myself. I have been threatened a few times, once I even contacted the police. That time it is was a man who called, actually looking for someone else. I tried to nicely explain that I couldn’t help him, since it was not my listing, but would be happy to try to contact the agent for him. He had a few nasty things to say about Realtors and the mortgage industry and then hung up on me. The next day, when I got to the office, there was a message on my voice mail, from him saying a lot of awful things about me, and basically blaming me for the financial problems he had gotten into, due to getting a mortgage that he really couldn’t afford. Even though I had never met him, nor do I have anything to do with mortgages. He then went on to tell me to watch my back, that he would be looking out for me. That was when I contacted the police. They spoke to him and he seemed to have settled down. His is actually sad story. Unfortunately it is not an uncommon one.
I once went and showed a property to a guy and when we got inside, he closed and locked the front door. I was really nervous, but I opened it back up and waited outside. When I got back to the office and looked him up, it turned out he was a convicted rapist. I have also had people fill out applications and agree to background checks, only to find out they had been arrested several times for armed robbery, assault or drug dealing. It is pretty scary to turn people like that down.
Property management is a very interesting business. You just never know what story the day will bring.
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