assorted rental company events
Jan. 12th, 2023 09:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
edenfallingSome stuff about my main job (contains reference to human death):
1) A long-term elderly tenant died in their room around January 1, and the body was not discovered until the evening of January 5 when tenants in the neighboring rooms reported a weird/bad odor. The tenant had been sick for a while, and had been in the hospital a couple times toward the end of 2022, but you never really expect a death, you know? Unfortunately our emergency contact information was out of date, so it's up to the police and social services to identify and notify next of kin, and who even knows what's going to happen to any estate.
We're working to get the apartment into shape for a new tenant, but that's a hell of a project for a small room, because the now-dead tenant had lined the doorframe with duct tape so thickly that the lock got dislocated, the carpet's a dead loss, the mattress and box spring were also a dead loss, and the window frames might have rotted. So repairs and cleaning are going to be a process.
2) Another tenant in that same building (but on the third floor, not the ground floor) abruptly turned their key in and announced they were breaking their lease. We knew they were having second thoughts about their renewal for 2023-24, but we had no warning of the move-out despite what their email claimed. So that's another apartment being turned over -- we had to repaint, which is done, but as of today the carpet still needed to be steam-cleaned.
3) I have put together a kit of staging materials for whenever those turnovers are finished, because we have NO photos of the ground floor room and only three really old and terrible photos of the third floor room. I feel kind of shitty being pleased at the chance to get them staged, photographed, and videoed -- I mean, a person died! -- but getting staged photos and video of every apartment is part of my job, and specifically one of my big ongoing projects, so. :/
4) We have a weird mid-year turnover-with-intervening-sublet going on in one studio apartment right now. We agreed to the lease assignment instead of a sublet partly because the outgoing tenant was leaving the country to care for a sick parent and we figured any further financial contact would be a mess, and partly because the outgoing tenant was a pain in the neck and it's much less stressful to never have to deal with them again. But! This meant the apartment was mostly empty today, so I grabbed the chance to stage it and take photos and video. We had some photos and a video from 2020, but they were cruddy photos (I didn't take them), and Lawyer Man was still hoarding the iPhone at that point so the video is honestly kind of janky even though Social Media Guy did the editing -- I professionally disapprove of Lawyer Man's camera work.
Anyway, editing those photos and replacing the old video is low on my priority list, but I'm glad to have the raw files in the bag.
5) Another studio apartment was sitting empty because of an abrupt tenant move-out, but in this case we are about 99% sure one of our current tenants is going to upgrade from an efficiency to the studio. We always allow upgrades, for obvious financial reasons (if you must have an empty apartment, better it be the smaller one with lower rent), and given the housing market, we can probably fill their old apartment without too much trouble.
6) Because I moved my vacation from Xmas weekend to New Year's weekend (thanks to winter storms and cancelled flights), I didn't get the quiet downtime to sort through all of our old architectural sketches. I think perhaps I should do that this weekend -- just haul the whole stash into the conference room and devote an afternoon to sorting and labeling.
...
I think I will do that. I really want to cross that project off my to-do list.
I'm sure there are other things that have slipped my mind, but eh, that feels like enough to make a post.
1) A long-term elderly tenant died in their room around January 1, and the body was not discovered until the evening of January 5 when tenants in the neighboring rooms reported a weird/bad odor. The tenant had been sick for a while, and had been in the hospital a couple times toward the end of 2022, but you never really expect a death, you know? Unfortunately our emergency contact information was out of date, so it's up to the police and social services to identify and notify next of kin, and who even knows what's going to happen to any estate.
We're working to get the apartment into shape for a new tenant, but that's a hell of a project for a small room, because the now-dead tenant had lined the doorframe with duct tape so thickly that the lock got dislocated, the carpet's a dead loss, the mattress and box spring were also a dead loss, and the window frames might have rotted. So repairs and cleaning are going to be a process.
2) Another tenant in that same building (but on the third floor, not the ground floor) abruptly turned their key in and announced they were breaking their lease. We knew they were having second thoughts about their renewal for 2023-24, but we had no warning of the move-out despite what their email claimed. So that's another apartment being turned over -- we had to repaint, which is done, but as of today the carpet still needed to be steam-cleaned.
3) I have put together a kit of staging materials for whenever those turnovers are finished, because we have NO photos of the ground floor room and only three really old and terrible photos of the third floor room. I feel kind of shitty being pleased at the chance to get them staged, photographed, and videoed -- I mean, a person died! -- but getting staged photos and video of every apartment is part of my job, and specifically one of my big ongoing projects, so. :/
4) We have a weird mid-year turnover-with-intervening-sublet going on in one studio apartment right now. We agreed to the lease assignment instead of a sublet partly because the outgoing tenant was leaving the country to care for a sick parent and we figured any further financial contact would be a mess, and partly because the outgoing tenant was a pain in the neck and it's much less stressful to never have to deal with them again. But! This meant the apartment was mostly empty today, so I grabbed the chance to stage it and take photos and video. We had some photos and a video from 2020, but they were cruddy photos (I didn't take them), and Lawyer Man was still hoarding the iPhone at that point so the video is honestly kind of janky even though Social Media Guy did the editing -- I professionally disapprove of Lawyer Man's camera work.
Anyway, editing those photos and replacing the old video is low on my priority list, but I'm glad to have the raw files in the bag.
5) Another studio apartment was sitting empty because of an abrupt tenant move-out, but in this case we are about 99% sure one of our current tenants is going to upgrade from an efficiency to the studio. We always allow upgrades, for obvious financial reasons (if you must have an empty apartment, better it be the smaller one with lower rent), and given the housing market, we can probably fill their old apartment without too much trouble.
6) Because I moved my vacation from Xmas weekend to New Year's weekend (thanks to winter storms and cancelled flights), I didn't get the quiet downtime to sort through all of our old architectural sketches. I think perhaps I should do that this weekend -- just haul the whole stash into the conference room and devote an afternoon to sorting and labeling.
...
I think I will do that. I really want to cross that project off my to-do list.
I'm sure there are other things that have slipped my mind, but eh, that feels like enough to make a post.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-01-13 07:31 am (UTC)I have questions, but obviously, different country, different laws and you're not a lawyer. Do you have to disclose the death in the residence to the next prospective tenant?
From memory based on an incident in a friend's family, I think local laws say a death is only a legal disclosure for a sale not a rental and that loophole is how real estate agents recommend getting around the disclosure. Rather then going for an immediate sale, they suggest it go up as a rental for a few years prior to selling. Of course, this does not take into account the gossipy neighbour side of things, but apparently the distance of multiple occupants since the incident is enough to cover you as a seller for lack of disclosure. I would guess this is not so much about superstition as it is about removing a lever that could allow a buyer to argue down a selling price.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-01-13 04:08 pm (UTC)