Back in the summer of 2010 when I moved into my present apartment, cable and internet were free. That was the enticement for moving in, besides location. After about three or four years, I had to pay a $50 internet/cable fee upon apartment lease renewal. That still felt virtually free.
Enter the latest Property Manager/Leasing Agent, whatever her official title, La Jefa (the woman boss). She is about the fourth (and the worst) one to run the show since my living here. I’d heard the grumblings early on, but when I got the notice to renew my lease, I gleefully noticed that if I signed a 14-month lease rather than a 12-month lease, my rent wouldn’t increase. I thought that was pretty reasonable. Then I read the fine print: The cable/internet fee would be $50/month!
For most, that wouldn’t be too bad; however, since I’d recently started getting my internet service from a different internet service provider (ISP), I felt that I should only pay $25/month since I only used the cable service provided by the apartment complex. Sounds reasonable?
Apparently not. I spoke to the assistant in charge, who’d relocated with La Jefa from San Antonio, and explained to her that I had to change my ISP because the computer program that I depended on for work was no longer compatible with the original ISP. She did some verbal tap-dance about getting in contact with the original ISP to see what could be done. I emphasized that the tech guy from my company had told all agents to switch since this particular ISP wasn’t compatible due to the data ports not communicating. I could barely explain the situation since I only understood technology on a need-to-know basis, but she understood less.
I returned the following week in order to pay my rent and follow up on the internet/cable fee. Again, she gave me the same song and dance about contacting the original ISP, scribbling more on the same post-it note where she’d taken notes before, which I recognized as kicking the can farther down the road. She even verified my phone number, the same as she’d done the previous week.
The week after that, I got La Jefa, Queen of the Smooth Talk. She painted this picture about how I was so spoiled as a long-term resident since I was well taken care of here. Placing her hands atop my thick file, she told me that I didn’t appreciate how well maintained the property was nor did I value all the amenities I had since I’d been protected in this apartment complex. She encouraged me look around and compare since a long time had passed when I’d last hunted for an apartment.
Of course, she threw in the line about talking to the original ISP and made that false empathetic face as if she commiserated that I’d have to pay for two ISP services although I only used one. Yet the bottom line was all apartments had to pay $50/month to share the costs. Even the empty apartments had their fees paid by the property owners. Then she added the ridiculous statement of how the property actually paid $70/month for internet/cable and only asked us to pay $50. Besides they could have raised rents too, but chose not to do that in the same year. (Did you catch that? The implication of the arbitrariness of raising my rent, potentially pricing me out of my apartment.)
Then she wanted to throw me a bone by suggesting some little upgrade such as a ceiling fan or some other bullshit that I half heard because I was fuming. Then I suggested that they install a garbage disposal. Her fake-smile mask broke into a true look of surprise. “You don’t have a garbage disposal?”
I assured her that nothing in my apartment had been upgraded since I’d moved in nearly 8 years ago. As a matter of fact, my maintenance guy happened to be in the office during this part of the conversation and confirmed I was living in the most underdeveloped apartment in the complex. She immediately told me that she’d order the part and get it installed.
She emailed me the new apartment contract, which I couldn’t open until a few days later when I was calmer. Reading through it, I saw that the listed rent charged was $56 more than what we’d agreed on. I immediately called the leasing office. Fortunately, the one person in the office who I actually got along with answered the phone. I’ll call her Office Angel. Office Angel confirmed that the market rate always showed on the first page, but then an apartment concession rate addendum, or some similar-sounding legalese, was found elsewhere in the contract.
I looked at the table of contents and told her that no such page was part of this contract. She accessed the contract and confirmed that the page was missing. So, I exited the document and waited for her to email me the corrected one. In the meantime, I shared with her my appreciation of how she handled business. Office Angel informed me that her last day was two weeks away. I screamed in agony. No surprise. I wouldn’t want to work with those two other “bottom line” bitches.
I told Office Angel that I’d been reading up about the horrible side of the rental property culture in the US and how it was completely unnecessary to keep raising rents, pricing people out of housing. On my way to the fitness room, I dropped by the leasing office to show Office Angel a copy of the book I was talking about.
As soon as La Jefa saw me she offered me some trite apology about screwing up my apartment lease renewal, then said she could help me since Office Angel was about to deal with a prospective renter.
I hushed that bullshit. “I just stopped by so Office Angel could take a picture of the book I’ve recommended to her,” I said, placing the book on Office Angel’s desk.
Of course, there was no way La Jefa couldn’t read the title for herself. What a delicious moment! I couldn’t have planned it better myself.
In the meantime, I’ve increased my work hours slightly. With that small tweak, for the first time ever, I made the national rockstar list with the company for my weekly performance. That was energizing. Being an independent health insurance agent means that I didn’t have to polish up my resume for a better job or strategize of how to ask for a raise with some asshole boss. I just tweaked my schedule. Plus, since I’ve been doing this job, I’ve also improved my skills. Now, I’ve got the motivation to do better so I can have my mad move out money! Better to move out than be kicked out.