In my almost 12 years of managing rental property, I’ve had to only have to deal with one major house fire, one molitov cocktail and one almost serious fire just today. I consider myself fortunate, but my hard work and obsession with checklists is paying off. More and more of our tenants are taking good care of their properties, keeping their smoke detectors working properly and my staff is doing a good job of keeping periodic inspections on each of our 200+ properties.
But back to the seriousness of today. My tenant calls in and says “Uhh… yeah I’ve got a little problem.” Surprisingly, he was very chilled out about this. Most of my tenants are drama queens and I get such exaggerated stories, but this one was actually pretty even keeled about the whole situation. So I pressed him a little further….
I ask: “Uhh… what kind of problem?” (I find it easy to match his zen like attitude.)
Tenant: “Well, I was in the shower…”
Me thinking, not saying: “Mayday! Mayday! I don’t want to hear about you in the shower!”
Tenant interrupting my thoughts: “…and when I got out, I noticed the side of my house was on fire.”
Me shrieking: “What?! Is everyone and everything okay?!” <—drama queen!
Tenant: “Yeah, it’s all good, the fire department got here pretty quick and got it out. Everything is fine, except there is a little bit of siding damage.”
Me: “Mmmm…kay, glad to hear you all are safe. I will send my crew out to evaluate the damage and let you know where we will go from here. I’m assuming that your smoke detectors are all in place and working, right?”
Tenant: “Yes, they are.”
Me thinking, not saying: “Uhh… they better be.”
Me, now saying outloud: “Well thanks for calling and letting me know.”
I breathe a sigh of relief and make myself a cold Diet Coke on the rocks. You know, because I’m chilled about this kind of stuff. * insert sarcasm here * Until I saw the pictures that my maintenance crew took…. O.M.G. this could’ve been way worse.
This could've been way worse.
A little more than "just some siding damage."
We’re still determining the cause and I will keep you posted as to how this happened. However, as with any fire, I take this as a moment to broadcast this important PSA—- please, please remember to check the smoke detectors in your home. Be sure that they are properly working and that there are fresh batteries in them. Smoke detectors save lives. At least they certainly did today.
