Parent drama

This is not student housing. This is "grown up, got a job, pay-for-the-unit-not-the-room" living.

Yet that is how it's being used. We expected roommate situations since we are located close to a university so this is not a surprise. But if you are here to avoid student housing, we do expect you to act like an adult.

A group of students are splitting a townhome (6 students to be exact, yikes). Because there are so many of them, we told them to set up automatic rent payments for their portions to avoid one person paying late and having it affect everyone. This worked out dandy while there were only 5 of them, and then the 6th person joined.

The first two months came back with non-sufficient fund notices for this 6th person. This then meant their rent was late and the unit was charged late fees.

The adult thing to do would be to come to the office and correct any incorrect bank information, but that would make my job less dramatic, and we can't have that!

The parents of the student call to whine and complain over the fees and tell me that it's my fault (obviously I control the banking system, which is why I make $13/hr).

This happens each month for the next 4 months. At this point, it has become such a problem that we have cancelled all automatic payments and the students have to bring in a check for their portion.

Parents called again today. I tell them we are only taking checks, and they complain that I have not reversed the bank charges. These complaints continue for 20 minutes. I finally tell them, "Sir, I am very sorry but unfortunately you are not a lease holder and am unable to disclose further information. Your child will need to bring a check from now on, and we have cancelled auto payments. Have a good day." Queue parent freaking out for my rudeness.

These are clearly the moments that we, property management employees, live for.

-K.