Me in front of the controversial tenant fire January 2007
I clearly remember the day that I drove a ton of traffic to my web site.
It’s hard to believe, but it was four years ago this month that this post was written (now hosted on a different site) about some careless smoking of Tenants that burned down one of our rental houses.
The Tenants had a party with numerous people and after they all left the house, they passed out drunk after too many rounds of beer pong, while a cigarette burned it’s way through a couch sitting in the garage. The Tenants were lucky they didn’t perish in the fire.
What made it worse was that they didn’t care about the fire. So I blogged about it. I felt that their actions and response to the damage they caused and their blatant disregard to the people that saved their lives was completely uncalled for. (Boy, I’m not still bitter at all, am I?) If you just now clicked on the link above and read the actual post, just know that you are reading the revised version as I had cleaned it up. My opinions on the situation were very harsh and fired up the readers of the blog (mostly my tenants that lived on that same street).
What I couldn’t believe was the traffic that was driven to the site because of this post. The number of hits sky rocketed and I started to LOVE it. However, truthfully, it also kinda freaked me out at first (hence the reason I cleaned up the original post after I originally published it). But looking back at it now, I wish I would have left it the way it was. I was honest and I was factual, but mostly I was mad. Hear me loud and clear, if you want web traffic, then write about something controversial. But still set rules for yourself.
And now for the mandatory Public Service Announcement…
Boys and Girls– Do not, do not, DO NOT dismantle your smoke detectors. Change the batteries every time you change your clocks. And for the love of all things materialistic, remember to obtain a Renters/Tenant Insurance policy if you rent property. Just remember of the 600+ Tenants we manage, you could be my favorite, I want you to live a long, happy and healthy life. Even if you aren’t my favorite. Love, Your Landlord.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Firestorm of Controversy – http://www.jessicahickok.com/archives/15...
Jessica, great insight. I have been there. I first started blogging about 6 years ago. And I would often challenge authorities and write posts that would either indicate I was having a major meltdown or I just liked to stir up trouble. I really don’t like to do either one. And one day, one of the controversial things I wrote got me in big time trouble. It was ‘t even the way I meant it but it was too late. I admit that I was probably more arrogant than I should have been and it gave me a real wake-up call.
When I started blogging again, I didn’t see near the traffic again. And to be honest, I was a pretty terrible blogger. I didn’t update often at all and I never responded to my [very] few commenters.
I’ve learned that controversy definitely brings attention, but in my experience, it’s usually fleeting. What I think had served me better is community building. That had been my new goal. Well, money would be nice, too. Thanks for letting me ramble on. I may be longer than your actual post now.
Hmm, for some reason, my iPhone made all my verbs in my last comment past tense. In the last paragraph, just change those verbs to present tense and they’ll be less confusing. Thanks!
Bryan, I would love to know how you set your iphone to change the tense of verbs; sounds like to me your iphone was drunk.
Paul, to be honest, I probably put too much blame on my iPhone. For the record, I think it gets drunk a lot.
{ 1 trackback }