Gratuitous Vacation Pictures

Carolsue swears Luigi's company is a front for something. I tend to agree, but I am hard-pressed to figure out what it could be a front for. An illegal tamale stand perhaps? Probably not. Tamales aren't easy to make and I am of the mind those folks can't handle anything more complicated than successfully tying their shoes on the second try.

When I first hired Luigi, they were a rock star of a property management company. This isn't as much a bias, as it was empirical evidence: I had interviewed every company in Birmingham. But now the honeymoon is over. Given we are expecting hoping to close our accidental business this year, I am biding my time with these folks out, but I have to tell you, my patience is at an all-time low. Most of my lack of patience stems from stupid regular e-mails I get from Flunky the Maintenance Asshat.

I am not making this up when I say the man looks like the comic book store owner from The Simpsons. Stereotypes are earned, and this man has earned every one of my predispositions he emits from every pore. He doesn't like me and makes no secret of it. Though I am not a fan of his, I would like to think I am more professional.

A few weeks ago, after threatening for years, the tenants in Moody moved out. I instantly took the house out of management. Nobody over in Luigi's office said anything about it, and I just figured my e-mail to every e-mail address I had over there saying, "When the tenant moves out and everything is wrapped up, take the home out of management please," pretty much covered it. If Luigi or Flunky didn't do anything with this news, I knew their bookkeeper would.

While sitting on Uncle Sunshine's island in Florida a couple of weeks ago, Flunky sent me a startling e-mail. I was startled because he admitted to something that anyone who manages ANY property should never, ever admit. His e-mail said,

"We don't have keys to your home in Moody. Do you want to pay for re-keying the front only? Or do you want to pay for re keying the front and back?"

I never did answer his question because I had several questions of my own. The biggest one was, WHY? Why do you not have spare keys to this house? HOW? How is it possible you don't have spare keys? WHEN? When are you going to get the keys back from the tenant? I even said, "This is property management 101. Property managers are supposed to have a copy of the keys."

Flunky wrote back, hemming and hawing, blaming me for taking the house out of management being the main reason they were, four weeks later, just getting around to breaking the news to me they didn't have the keys. Meanwhile, who is to say the tenant actually moved out? Who is to say the tenant didn't just give the place up to a drug using lunatic. Or worse, what if the former (I hope former) tenants gave the key to their neighbor and my most loathsome former tenant, the man who lives directly across the street, Mr. Smith? I am sure there are other scenarios that I haven't thought of, or worse, ones I have, but it boils down to this: THE TENANTS HAVE NOT RETURNED THE KEYS AND NOBODY OVER THERE IS THE LEAST BIT CONCERNED.

When I asked Flunky if he had keys to my other properties. I also advised, "Before you guess the answer, go check. If you don't have keys, why not? I want an exact date that you will have them. You work for me, not the tenants." That sounds professional. Probably.