Choose Your Roommates Wisely (Part 2)

Don’t worry, you didn’t miss “Choose Your Roommates Wisely (Part 1)” – it was written over on Zillow’s blog here.  In a spinoff post from the original that I wrote for Zillow, I have added this second part about choosing your roommate wisely.  Call it a series with sarcasm.

Roommate drama can be the biggest pain in the backside, especially when you’re their landlord/property manager and they drag you into the middle of it.  I certainly get my fair share of it usually around the first week of the month, also known as “rent week.”  Typically it happens when one roommate has paid their portion of the rent and the other has not.  I get a lot of requests from the “good tenant” to contact their “deadbeat roommate” and see when they will pay.  Here’s my answer to that… “um, no.”  Plain and simple.  Because here’s how I see it, and how our office policy goes–

1) I look at the rent payment as a whole.  Although I do mark where each payment came from, in all reality I don’t care who’s paid what and when.  I don’t decide how the tenants are to divide up the rent and who should pay what portions and when.  That’s your deal, not mine. Therefore if the rent is not paid in full, you are all late in my mind.

2) I don’t get involved in domestic disputes.  Whether they are between a boyfriend/girlfriend, husband/wife, or just two people who were considered besties just before they decided to rent a place together.  If your roomie really did steal something from your room, then call the police, not me.  But the domestic disputes do give me good blogging content, so keep ‘em coming.

3) I’m not your Mom.  I have two kids of my own that have their disputes over whose turn it is to play the Xbox 360 that I have to referee.  Most of the time, my kids have three times the maturity that some of my tenants have when it comes to handling their disputes.  I am their Mother, not yours, so you kids go work it out and let Mommy have some alone time! *angry eyes*

4) I don’t get paid enough for this.  Granted, I make a good living at what I do, but I don’t get paid near enough for hearing out Tenant fights.  Therefore, when tenants call wanting me to take so-and-so off the lease agreement or change something in the lease, I say “no problem” and charge them a $150 Lease Change Fee.  Or they have the option of leaving things like they are and working it out.  Like I said, I don’t get paid enough to hear the complaining and try to fix the problems, so I am going to charge you for it. Call your shrink to hear you out about how your roommate is such a loser.  They are probably cheaper than I am.

5) You should’ve chosen your roommates wisely.  Use your head, if there is a chance you won’t get a long with your new BFF, then maybe you should consider keeping them as your bestie and not your roommate.  Find someone you do get along with or find a less expensive place to rent and live alone.  Because maybe, just maybe, you’re the problem– not them.

Just saying. </random rant>

Tagged as: choose your roommates wisely, Dizmang Properties, for rent, getpaul, landlord, property management, tenant disputes