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.  

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!!!