It's that time of year again. The time when landlords post notices on doors. The time when lease renewal forms are mailed to your house on neon paper with dangerous words like EXPIRATION"" and ""FINAL WARNING.""
It's time to let strangers traipse through your apartment day after day so your landlord can find new renters.
This can range from seamless to problematic. Most people spend a very short amount of time looking at any given apartment. They take a quick glance around, maybe ask a few questions, look at the dimensions, and are done and out the door. Others want to investigate every single detail, and while this is probably a good thing for them, it's annoying for the current occupants. Answering a few questions about the place is one thing, but moving beds and desks around so someone can check the dimensions with a tape measure goes a bit too far.
But, few people take full advantage of the apartment showing. Your landlord wants to show his best face in order to attract new renters. Renters want landlords to come through on a lot of promises.
For example, last year, my roommates and I thought we had found the Holy Grail of renting: a decent apartment at a good price with a responsive landlord.
Well, as you can guess, it hasn't turned out so well. The hot-tub can't keep its temperature above 70 degrees, centipedes, mice and other friendly creatures - I think I saw a cougar once - freely roam the premises and the kitchen ceiling randomly dumps a nice brown substance onto our food at random intervals.
Oh - the basement entrance, while handy, doubles as an excellent location for transients to make a midnight stop.
We called our landlord, included nasty letters in our rent checks, but to little effect. Occasionally a repairman would stop by and half-heartedly fiddle around with plaster, air filters or poison, but nothing of significance was accomplished.
So when notices of showing started showing up on our door, we decided - and by we I mean my roommate Charlie - to have a little bit of fun with whomever was showing the place. When the hapless employee showed up with potential renters in tow, Charlie answered the door and the ensuing conversation went a little bit like this:
Charlie: ""You're here to fix the furnace, right?""
Employee: ""No, well, actually - ""
Charlie: ""Ah, so you're here to get rid of the rats?""
Employee: ""Not precisely - ""
Charlie: ""So you must be here to fix the leak in the kitchen.""
Employee: ""Actually, I'm here to show the place.""
The damage was done. The poor girl did her best to extol the virtues of our apartment, but the potential renters would have none of it. They thanked her for her time, and left quickly and quietly. The next day, we got a call from our management company informing us that someone was stopping by to fix our furnace.
Next time they show the place, we'll have to make something up. Maybe we'll complain about the lack of naked women.
Yeah. That sounds right.
On one hand, Keaton is glad that he is not participating in the mess that is apartment hunting. On the other hand, he has absolutely no idea where he'll be next year. So, you know, it's not that great. E-mail him at keatonmiller@wisc.edu
