Let the games begin

The letters about the inventory for auction went out yesterday and I got my first head ach today.   Today went by kind of hectic but not out of the ordinary.   Till 5:45 this afternoon when one of my auction tenants stops by.  Now I haven’t received a payment from her (that didn’t bounce) since she moved in.  Yet today she shows up and wants to pay now.  Hey I like that kind of enthusiasm, just tell me where it has been for the past three months. 

Now let me tell you that the computer happens to be turned off at the moment she comes in ( another long story for another rime).  So we must wait for the complete boot up to happen. Then she has some disputes on the total amount.

Side bar here - the reason we got the new program is because the old program would like to add charges at random. 

Yes I know there is a problem and yes I know how to fix it.  The problem is the info I need is in her file and the calculations are going to need to be done by hand.  Then once the proper price has been set I will need to figure out how to make the new computer to accept the discounted price.  Did I mention it is 5:45 heading to my 6 o’clock closing and this will make me work past 6 which I do not get paid for.

By the way did I mention that this process is taking to long for her and I am putting her out?  You see she has places to be.  This is the kind of attitude that really bothers me.  She has put off taking care of this bill till the last moment making me wait three months to get paid, yet waiting fifteen minutes so I can charge her the proper amount is cramping her style.

Simple answer… I cut her a hand receipt … refilled my coffee and fixed the problem.  She was out of my office at 6 and I took the next 10 minutes and patched the paperwork.  She will never understand how rude not paying your bills can be, but that’s ok I had hot coffee and a quite office.  Unfortunately this is what will great me in the morning.

I need to do some filling to find my desk.  

The first is down, five more to go

The next Big step to Auction.

I mailed out letters to my tenants who are on the road to auction.  I hate these letters for many reasons but the top reason is the attitude I get from many of the customers.  Now please understand I have 90% of my tenants are great people fun to visit with and never give me any problem, what I get from the bottom 10% is this look of disgust as they walk into the office as if I was the problem.   I have even had customers tell me “why are you threatening me with these ugly, mean letters.  You know I always come in and pay my bill”.  What are they thinking the account is over 120 days late and they have not responded to my letters, or phone calls, yet I am supposed to psychically know what day they are going to pay!  Most likely they will also want me to waive the fees.  Man I wish I was golfing.

Here is what is actually coming my way.  Out of the six letters I sent two will pay up quickly one will make a fight out of it and I will get 90% of what they owe, but only after I cut their lock. The other two will end up in the auction and one of those two spaces will look like this.

I stared with just over 20 units going to auction three weeks ago and this is what I am down to.  When I get the rest of the units filled I will probably get a better sized auction going, but with just over 200 units rented I should be happy with 2 to 3 units every 6 months.  

 I should start hearing back from my letter as early as tomorrow.  

Now that's diffrent

I started working in storage 20 years ago, and spent the first 18 years in Southern California. So what is in Oklahoma that is sooooo different form So. Cal? Ice!

I know tornados seemed like the best bet, but the real answer is ice. California can get its rare tornado and it’s straight winds can be just as impressive as out here on the plains, but Ice now that is something that you don’t get in the land of Hollywood. The year we moved to Oklahoma we experienced some record hot months and some of the hardest winters. Trying to explain to your wife and kids that this is not the way winter is normally in Oklahoma for two years in a row is a challenge. I did tell them that we would be experiencing fore seasons. I did not tell them that it would happen all in one week.

Collection calls have started!!

This week I started collection calls to facilitate an upcoming auction. What that means is that I have 22 units that could be heading to auction. To get to the final stage of auction you need to start filtering who can be justified at auction. When I get to auction day I want to be crystal clear in my heart and mind that the units that are auction have had all the chances allotted by law to catch up their account and save their stuff. Sometimes good customers get behind and this first step (collection calls) will give them the time to catch up before the more drastic steps are taken. Good customers who fall behind are only one kind of customer I get to deal with. There are several other categories of customer that fall into the general category of my personal aneurism.

The first of these is the “Oh Woe is Me” client. You get into this customer almost always by surprise. The call starts off normal enough. The customer answers the phone happy with a jovial “Hello”. I announce my self and ask to speak to the customer. From this point the sound and domineer of the customer starts to decline. The woes are different but all sound the same, I lost my job, I have been sick, I got a boil on my butt. The cost of whatever is killing me and I just haven’t had a chance to catch up…. This is the type of client that will eventually come to the office in a brand new BMW and pay with a real platinum card. They don’t think I notice things like that, but I do.

Another sub category of My Personal Aneurism is the “It is Not My Fault”. With this customer they will try to prove that they do not deserve to be in auction. I have heard all sorts of stories and not all made up. In fact most stories from this category are true. What the customer just does not get is that none of it really matters. The contract is in their name and there is a balance owed. These are the facts that count, but I will still spend 20 to 40 minutes hearing that my ex-husband was supposed to pay this bill, or my uncle said he moved everything out 6 weeks ago. When customers let other people have control of the unit, is when I end up here.

The last type I will mention is “It’s Your Fault”. This is the one I like the best/least. In this situation I will not be able to find the customer. The phone numbers will be no good and the mail will be returned, so as a lost ditch effort I start searching the internet, 411 and any other way to find people and I will get a number. I finally get the customer on the line and they want to know why I let the bill get so high before I called…. This is the one that really hurts.

I just met the Stooges

My week ended up with a phone call from the boss wanting to talk about collections.  The truth is I have put collections on the back burner and replaced it with things that seemed more important at the time.  Wake up Bob, there is very little that is more important as keeping up with collections in this business. So collections become top priority Monday morning. 

Now for the cool thing that happened Friday.  Right after the call from my boss I get a call from one of my really bad tenants, who pays up everything she owes! If the story stopped here it would not be worth telling, so here is where the weird begins.

My tenant, who has been in an over lock status for over a year, (yes that is possible when they keep paying up everything but $15  then fall into the rears again) decides that she needs to get into her space on Saturday.  Her problem is she has no idea where her keys are.  My offices is closed on the weekends so I could only cut the lock if she made it in by 6 o’clock, if not she will have to have a lock smith cut it or wait till Monday.  Six came and went and she never showed. 

Saturday morning the phone rings and for some reason I answered it. It is my customer calling to let me know that she thinks she found the key and could I take the over lock off.  Since she won’t be coming by till the evening I told her I would take it off when I left the property in the afternoon. Here is where Larry and Curly show up.  Around 2 o’clock I am in the house getting ready for this evening when a man walks in to my house. Let’s call him Larry. I look at him and say get out of my house. So he takes another step deeper in. I stand up and yell “Get out, get out, get out”, while charging at him. Larry just stands there. As I get within striking distance I point at Larry with my finger (did I mention I was polishing my boots at the time) Larry finally starts backing up while looking at my hand which has a rag wrapped around my index finger that is covered in shoe polish.

 I have no idea what Larry must be thinking but he is moving backwards so I press my advantage. “Do you always walk into people’s homes without knocking” I yell as he crosses the threshold.  Now that he is outside I give him a moment to speak. Larry says “ I thought this was a business”.  I tell him to go back to the unit he came from and I will be right out.  19 degrees and I am barefoot, you bet I going back inside. 

By the time I get my shoes on Larry has told his friend about the crazy storage man with the shoe polish of death and they have decided to make a hasty retreat, but a I catch them at the gate.  The story that Curly tells is that they were trying to help a friend out and came up to see if they could get into her unit. That’s right this is the brother and his friend of the customer who paid up yesterday.  They had got one of the locks off but could not get the other.  This is what prompted Larry’s visit into my living room. he was looking for some one to cut a lock off. I told them that I had the over lock keys on me (I held them up for proof) and I would be happy to take my over lock off if it keeps them out of my living room. This is when Curly looks at my keys with the big yellow key on it and says “Is the over lock Yellow”? I replied in the affirmative and he tells me “Oh yeah, we cut that one off.  We weren’t sure if that was ok”.  Larry adds “we can pay you $5 for it” Maybe Larry thought I might have some polish in my pocket. Now I can’t believe I said this next line, but I did. “Boy’s now we do have a problem. Cutting my over lock is a crime.” … My wife is right sometimes I say the corniest things. At this point I am so flabbergasted at Larry and Curly and I might as well lump the tenant in there too and call her Moe, that I shake my head and tell them to just go. Tell Moe to call me on Monday and we will straighten this out.  Well I don’t know how straight I can get this we these three.

The morel of the story is: If you haven’t seen your things in over a year, If you haven’t got a clue where you keys are, and you make choices like stooges, then don’t expect to get into your space on my day off.

Second morel: Beware of crazy storage man with his shoe polish of death!!!