Kirby, my property manager who handles my two homes in Calera e-mailed me this past Wednesday. There was some sort of air conditioning mishap at the Waterford home. The air conditioning gizmo-thingamabob leaked and now the the baby's room is flooded. There is rotted drywall and a mildewy carpet.
He said the air conditioner was fixed and the he would send me pictures. I have to say, the pictures look like rotted dry wall and the picture with the bucket of water on the floor suggests there might be a water leak.
My first thought is: how did the tenants not know there was an issue until it got to the point where the floor was saturated? Come on! The house is seven years old. The roof doesn't leak. Surely they went into the baby's room in a 12-hour time frame and might have noticed an issue. The husband is a plumber. The wife sells real estate. They know a few things about homes.
Kirby has sent me follow-up e-mails to this since then. Most of the time he was tentative, with an overall scenario of: mildewy carpet, wet drywall. He did suggest I might want to file an insurance claim. He also has brought up every single time he e-mails me that he would hate for something to happen to the baby down the road because of a mold issue.
It took me until Thursday night before I finally figured out the subtext: Kirby was assuming I wasn't going to fix the problem. He--as a property manager who probably deals with grumpy landlords on a regular basis--is used to landlords blowing a gasket when they get news like this. As a property owner, I can see where he is coming from. Personally, I don't want to replace the carpet for that room. I don't want to spend tons of money replacing drywall--and I don't know if I need to.
Friday I called Kirby. In my message I told him I am committed to getting this fixed properly. I don't know what that looks like just yet, but I won't have moldy carpet. I won't have a non-working air conditioner. And, I am committed to having satisfied tenants. Hopefully those things can be achieved without a humongous expense.
Friday, April 23, 2010
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3 comments:
I agree with your assessment. Another (or second part) to his attitude may be a simple "cover his ass" scenario. If he has it in writing that he made you aware of possible future issues due to this problem, no one can ever come back on him and say he misrepresented the problem to the owner. He sounds like an ethical by the book kinda guy. You were incredibly fortunate to have found him.
Both of my property managers are pretty wonderful.
hopefully he wasn't dropping a hint that was first dropped by the renters .. that mold claims might be forthcoming. :^/
i always love hearing from a tenant that they thought i should know about a problem .. that started .. several months ago .. :^/
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