Crystal Montoya

Why I Dropped Out of School and You Shouldn't; The Fifth Grade.

My first day of school in the fifth grade was the last time I ever got  excited about going to school. Prior to the fifth grade I thought school ruled. I was always the smartest kid in the class - I was the smartest kid in my fifth grade class too but it didn't matter. In grades K-4 I was the kid the teacher called on to help others. I was always the first one done with the stupid little assignments and I could spend the majority of my classroom time on the extra credit little reading program that was in the back of the class - I think it was called SRA. It was a few boxes of short stories that got progressively harder one box to the next. The rule was you had to finish everything in the first box before you could move onto the next. My goal was to finish all the boxes before the end of the year.  After you finished a story, you had a little quiz to take to see how well you comprehended and retained what you read. I loved this program and couldn't wait till I finished my math or other work so I could immerse myself in fiction. Even though I rushed through all of my other work it was always perfect or close to it. It was just easy to me.

I remember one time in the fourth grade, I think it was the moment where I realized not all people are endowed with the same amount of brain power; the class was working on a math problem and the teacher asked me to go up to the board and work it out. I think we were just starting to add more than two numbers together so the problem was something like 39+7+12=  so I went up to the board and wrote it out like this 39+12+7= except I put each number on top of the other like you do when you do a math problem. I could see it would be easier if I cleaned up the way it looked and put the only single digit on the bottom - less space in there to clutter the brain - I don't know. So I wrote the numbers on the board in the order that I saw fit and almost all of my classmates started telling me I wrote it wrong. This initiated a whole discussion with the teacher and the class about how it doesn't matter in which order you write out the numbers that you want to add together. Seriously, she had to show the class all of the ways that this problem could be written and that it would always add up the same. While this discussion was taking place I was bored out of my mind and wondering how long before I would beat all the other kids to the SRA.

It was almost like I already knew everything they taught during the first five years of school, I simply needed a quick reminder and I had it down. I did not need to work at or study anything except spelling. I still suck at spelling even though I spent many an hour during my childhood engulfed in spelling. Sometimes I think our language is just too complicated with too many rules that do not always apply to adhere to but then when I get a note these days from someone who is under the age of 18, I normally cringe at how they've taken the language and cheapened it, ignoring all rules of grammar and spelling, not just an occasional one. My spelling became my stepmother's mission. I think she had nothing else to use to instill hard work and structure into me because I excelled at all of the other subjects. Every Monday I would come home with the list of dreaded spelling words and Brenda would give me a mock test. The words I missed, I would have to write out 25 times and then she would give me another mock test. Believe it or not there were actually times where, even after I had just written the word 25 times, I would still get it wrong. These were bad nights for me. As an adult looking back, I don't know how it's possible that I could have written a word 25 times and then immediately after that spelled it incorrectly. My mind was in my books I think and not sitting at the table writing words. Concentration on something like this for me was brutal, concentrating on something I have absolutely no concern about is still very difficult for me. Go figure.

Not So Funny Property Management Story

I was managing a 150 unit property in a cute little navy town and I was sitting in my apartment one night when I heard this commotion going on outside. It was about midnight and I went to the window to see what the noise was. What I saw were 6 big guys outside drinking beers and screwing around. They were being loud and as I watched, one of them grabbed my rental office sign, started to pull it out of the ground, and was trampling the landscape. I was outraged and I called the police.

I sat by the window and waited for the police who seemed to be taking forever. I kept hearing the commotion, looking out, and the police had still not arrived. So eventually I called back and the dispatcher told me to hold on because there was another incident occurring at the same address. I was like what? No - that was me, I called earlier, same incident! Then a cop car came flying into the parking lot, passed the sign destroying activities, and turned the corner. I was ticked, they just missed it.

I hung up with the police and went outside walking past the group of jerks towards the direction the cop went. When I turned the corner around one of the buildings, I found myself in the midst of 6 police cars, 1 with someone in it and it looked like they were focused on this resident, Susy's apartment. I approached the police and they told me to go back into to my apartment. I explained that I managed the building and I needed to know what was going on. I hated the cops in this town. Anyway, I stepped back and waited for about 5 minutes for him to come talk to me and then I went back up to him, he was just one of like 9 cops that were there, and told him "sir, this is my property and I need to know what is going on." The cop replied "Your property? Okay then there's been a RAPE on YOUR property!" I was dumbfounded.

I knew Susy and I liked her, I felt horrible that this had happened. Her daughter had a difficult disease and I helped do a fundraiser with her to raise money for research. I thought she was a sweet lady. She met her husband within the past 5 years and her daughter was from a previous marriage. Her husband was in the navy and she was the first woman he was ever intimate with, I knew this because Susy told me several times. He was completely head over heals for her and her daughter.

I was very upset about a rape at my building and so were the other women that lived alone with their children while their husbands were out to sea. There were a number of residents outside all very worried and my assistant manager was crying, she cried a lot, bless her. It was drama.

Finally a police officer came and told me what was going on. Susy was at the bar down the road and met a guy who is an aspiring actor/model. Susy got to talking to him because she did a little freelance photography and he was saying he needed pictures for a portfolio. After they discussed this Susy offered to give him a ride home and drove him to her parking spot, he lived in the housing complex just down the street from the apartment building and was suppose to walk the rest of the way home. Susy went up her long straight flight of stairs and turned to the side at the top to unlock her door. When she opened the door, this guy pushed her in the apartment and raped her. She didn't notice him behind her the whole way up the stairs. After he raped her, she put on his shirt. Then, thankfully, her husband walked in, home early from work to surprise her. As soon as Susy saw her husband she yelled that she had been raped and the shirtless guy ran out the door into the woods. Susy's husband called the police and it didn't take them long to apprehend the crazed rapist.

The police officer was very honest and told me there was just no way the guy could have followed her up these stairs without her knowing he was there and that he had never heard of someone putting on clothing that belonged to their rapist. He was convinced that this was a case of a husband who came home early to a wife that was cheating on him and instead of admitting it, this woman cried rape. The other resident who was watching Susy's little girl thought it was very strange too, Susy had come over late and asked if she could leave her daughter with her without warning. It all seemed very suspicious.

The police arrested the young man and took Susy to the hospital. I went home and on my way, ran into the stupid thugs that were partying earlier and asked them to knock it off. They weren't interested in toning it down and instead of argue with them, I gave up and went to bed.

Just as I was falling asleep, three hours after all of this had started, my phone rang. I was ticked. It was the woman that went to the hospital with Susy. Susy was worried that her cat might have run out in all the commotion and wanted to know if I would go and check. I had to maintain my professionalism even though I did not believe this woman had been raped and I was feeling horrible for the guy that was sitting in jail. I agreed to check on her cat. Her apartment was not in any way disturbed as you would expect it to be if a rape had just occurred there. The only thing out of place were a pair of her nasty underwear on the floor next to the messed up bed that I was looking under to try and find that cat.

I found the cat and went back home, walking past the party yet again and went to bed. The next day at work I had a lot of scared residents asking me what I was going to do about the lack of security and very worried that they would be victimized next. All I could do was explain that the accused was someone the victim brought to the property and try to convince these terrified women that this was an isolated incident. I had to remain professional and I could not tell them what the police officer told me; that this was not a case of rape but rather one of a cheating, lying wife who inconveniently got caught.

I despise rapists. I think that aside from homicide, rape is the worst criminal act that occurs in the world. I believe rapists should receive harsher punishments than they do. I think that the women who are victims of rape carry very heavy emotional burdens that can and likely will affect them for the rest of their life. If I thought there was any possibility that this woman was actually raped that evening, I would not be telling you about this incident. I know she was not actually raped. I know she was cheating on her husband who just happened to leave work early on this particular evening. Women who falsely accuse an innocent man of raping her after having consensual sex with him also disgust me. Rape is a very serious criminal act and falsely accusing someone of committing this violent and disturbing crime is horrible.

I was very disappointed in Susy after this incident because as I told you before, we were very friendly. I was hoping that after the dust settled she would come to her senses and confess the truth to her loving and dedicated husband. This man loved her so much that I'm willing to bet he would have forgiven her. Instead they reported this incident to our great military because her husband was a soldier and our great military sprang into action to take care of this family who was struggling with such a horrible experience.

Mr. Susy felt they had to move, he could not handle being in this apartment where this incident had occurred so the military paid their new deposits, and for movers to relocate them to another apartment on the property. They also gave Mr. Susy a sum of money to take Susy out and show her a good time, get her mind off of this experience. Susy came bouncing into my office 3 days after the incident showing me her new upgraded wedding ring. She got a much larger new diamond in her ring with the money the military had given them. Susy was ecstatic. I was really grossed out.

When they went to court, the result was that the accused rapist was not found guilty. It was her word against his and the jury believed him. I wonder how much they considered the fact that Susy was wearing her rapist's shirt in their decision. Susy and Mr. Susy were horrified by this outcome and felt that justice had not been served. I think Mr. Susy wanted so badly to believe his wife because it was a lot easier than accepting the alternative. I was totally relieved with this because I was afraid that this young man would be spending the next 10 years of his life in jail. 

When you work in property management you become intertwined in the personal things that happen in people's lives such as this incident. You see domestic violence, adultery, financial stresses (I once had a resident lose 3 Million dollars in one day when the Dot Com companies crashed), and other personal things that in most customer service based jobs you would never know about people. You are amazed by what people do, how they live, and sometimes you end up being emotionally invested in their situations. I have been turned off and disgusted by people before but this was the worst example I have ever seen of someone with no regard for anyone but herself.

Mrs. Jackson, You Can't Do That!

I was sitting in my rental office one gray morning, coding bills when one of my residents came running in frantic about something. Unfortunately, she did not speak good English, she was a gorgeous, tiny, Asian woman of about 30 years old. I didn't actually know her, she had never been to the rental office before in the 2 years that she lived on the property. She was trying to explain what the problem was but I was not able to understand her so she finally grabbed me and motioned for me to come with her so I did.

She took me over to where the problem was and there was Mrs. Jackson standing outside and I noticed a box tipped over on the stairs above her with it's contents strewn all over the place. The tiny lady was trying to explain that Mrs. Jackson hit the box out of her hand while she was trying to carry it downstairs. The tiny lady was trying to move out. I asked Mrs. Jackson her version of what was going on and with breath so full of alcohol, I'm sure it was flammable, Mrs. Jackson spewed out that these people have been a pain in the butt since the day they moved in and she was sick of it. Mrs. Jackson's language was much stronger.

The tiny lady was offended, obviously able to understand English, even when it's mixed with a bunch of "french" and tried to say that she has not been a problem, that in fact Mrs. Jackson was the problem. Mrs. Jackson, who was a very large lady, by the way, both tall and wide fired something back at the tiny lady with her everclear breath, using even more colorful language.

I found myself right in the middle of this nasty argument going on between these woman. From what I could gather, Mrs. Jackson did not like the tiny woman and her family, they both started insulting each others children which is when I knew this was getting ugly, you just don't talk crap about a woman's kids. I decided that this was very resolvable and I simply said to Mrs. Jackson "The tiny woman is trying to move out, if you just allow her to do that, then you'll no longer have to deal with her."  It seemed really cut and dry to me.

Mrs. Jackson disagreed and at this point I had her standing right next to my right side and the tiny lady standing right next to my left. The tiny woman agreed with me and tried to reiterate to Mrs. Jackson that she just wanted to move out and if Mrs. Jackson would just allow her to go up and down the stairs with her boxes, she'd be gone by tonight. Mrs. Jackson replied with "F you!" The tiny lady called Mrs. Jackson something that I didn't quite get but it inflamed Mrs. Jackson.

The next thing I knew, Mrs. Jackson took one step with her right foot, raised up her huge fist and flung it with extreme force past me and cracked the tiny lady square on her right eye. The tiny lady immediately hit the ground and I mean immediately. Mrs. Jackson had just reached around me and knocked this lady out. Seriously.

I was shocked. All I could say was "Mrs. Jackson! You can't do that!" She looked at me and said "I just did!" and then she turned and walked into her apartment. The tiny lady came to and I watched as her eye swelled right before my eyes and this incredibly beautiful woman suddenly looked like Oscar De La Hoya. I scooped her up and took her to my office, got her some ice out of the clubhouse freezer and called the police.

The police in this town were horrible, I have never experienced a worse police department in any city, anywhere. Anyway, they came and saw the damage this monstrous woman had inflicted on this tiny little woman and went over to talk to Mrs. Jackson. The officer came back and said he issued her a citation to appear in court and told her to allow the tiny woman to move out of her apartment.

What? The tiny woman and I were both amazed. I said "You mean you are not taking this woman to jail? I just told you that I witnessed her clock this woman right in the eye and knock her ass out and you're giving her a citation? I thought there were laws that whenever there is a domestic violence situation that someone goes to jail, this is crazy!" The officer was all high and mighty and started asking if I really wanted to question his judgment and me being the feisty little girl I was and knowing that if this had been me I would want this person in jail said "Yes, I do want to question your authority, this is the stupidest decision I've ever seen a cop make!" The officer then made me give him my driver's license and my boss's information and confirmed he would not be taking Mrs. Jackson to jail, his explanation was that she had kids at home. I said "Well as drunk and violent as Mrs. Jackson is, the kids would probably be better off if she were in jail." The cop looked at me like he wanted to slap me and told me I was really pushing it, my boss would hear about my attitude and he left.

So the tiny little lady went back to her apartment with ice on what used to be her gorgeous eye and the day went on. Later, the tiny little woman's husband came into the office and was irate about the whole thing. I don't know why but when something happens at a property you manage, the people living there feel that you are to blame, no matter what the circumstance. This man was very angry at me and while I tried to explain that I did everything I could he left my office angry.

They turned in their keys the next day, they were moving out of state so they would not be able to go to Mrs. Jackson's court date and she was going to get off scott free. This little lady looked horrible with a huge black eye and even had a cut on her lip. Mrs' Jackson's fist was bigger than this woman's whole face.

The cop never did call my boss but I started getting pulled over in this town way more than what was reasonable and it was always officer idiot. He came to my property several times for various things and always made the most ridiculous judgment calls and I always let him know that I thought he was wrong. My driving record suffered but at least I stood up for what I thought was right.

B302, Not E302!

I was working as an assistant manager at a 200 unit property over ten years ago (back when I was still a young person). I was also living at the building as often times you do in property management. Now, of course it makes sense that the office staffs do not get romantically involved with the residents and this was the policy within our company. However, when you live where you work and you work really long hours, it is quite difficult to find other places to meet members of the opposite sex. Not to mention this guy was very nice looking. He had a strong, tall frame, great blonde hair with natural highlights, wonderful blue eyes and a smile that would knock your socks off.

I admit I was interested in dating this resident and when he asked me over one night to hang out, I went. We were in the middle of a heat spell in the middle of August. The kind of record breaking heat that makes you miserable, temperatures were reaching 100 degrees or more everyday for nearly a week. I remember trying to choose just the right outfit because my clothes had been sticking to me like orange peels on oranges at work all day. I found something to wear and headed over to my prospective new boyfriend’s apartment.

He was close to my age and living with a couple of roommates so his apartment was not overly impressive but I could tell he had made some effort to straighten it up a little before I got there, with the exception of the stench. I couldn’t help wondering why he had not changed his cat box as the smell was overwhelming in this heat. After about 15 minutes, I recommended we take a walk because whatever the smell was, it was completely overpowering. We did take a walk and we had a wonderful time together. At the end of our walk, he dropped me off at my apartment door and we made plans to see each other again the next evening. I was positively giddy.

So the next evening arrives and we still are experiencing the worst wave of heat that I ever remember having in our state. It must have been 96 degrees at 7 in the evening. I again took extra time choosing just the right outfit and making myself look as pretty as one could when she is dripping with sweat. We were planning on going out to dinner. I arrived at my heartthrob’s house and he let me in. Again, the stench in his apartment is simply overwhelming, so bad that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, it is not coming from the cat box. I ask him about it because it really is more than any person should be able to live with and while his apartment was not immaculate, it also wasn’t disgusting. I certainly didn’t see anything that would produce this lingering odor that was so vile it made you want to consider just not breathing anymore.

My new love interest gave me this look of complete embarrassment and agreed with me. “I know, I can’t figure it out. It’s not the cat box, I’ve made all my roommates soak their socks in bleach and put their shoes outside. I can’t figure it out but it’s disgusting!” We left quickly and had a wonderful dinner. We went to my apartment after dinner because the smell in his was too horrid to face and we had some drinks together. We stayed up talking way too late, we both had to work in the morning. He went home and I finally got to bed very late.

Morning came way too quickly and I was absurdly late for work. When I arrived to the office it was locked up and knowing that my boss was probably not late as well, I went out onto the property to see if there was something going on. My question was answered quickly when I approached the building where my new love interest lived. There was an ambulance as well as a van that had this huge phone number painted across it 1-800-4NO-REEK. I was a little baffled as I continued towards the building. Once I got close enough I could see all of the commotion going on in B302, the apartment upstairs from the one my boy - friend lived in. I went up stairs and my manager explained to me that the resident who lived in that apartment had passed away of natural causes much earlier in the week.

Well, I guess you’ve surmised by now where the smell in my friend’s apartment was coming from. It really was bad. It was one of the most difficult things our team has ever handled but we rose to the occasion. We had to do a lot of work to get this apartment cleaned and refurbished.

We reported the incident to the main office and made sure we were doing everything we needed to do on our end. Our manager got a call from her boss, the regional manager, letting her know that he had contacted the parents of the person who died to express his sympathy. Our manager immediately questioned this because she had the file and this man had absolutely no family listed, which helped to explain why he had gone unnoticed for nearly a week. The regional manager confirms that the person who passed away lives in E302 and I watched as the expression on my manager’s face turned to complete terror. I was only getting one side of the conversation but I was guessing what was going on. Our manager said “No. The resident lived in B302.” Silence and then our manager said “Hello?” Then after a moment she said “No (boss' name!) I did not tell you E302, I said Bah BEE 302!”

Okay so now we had a whole other set of problems. It turns out that our regional manager mistakenly grabbed the regional copy of E302’s file. The young 25 year old man that lived in E302 was alive, very well and on an extended weekend that he had not told his parents about. For at least a couple of hours the parents of this young man believed that their son was dead and the person who broke the news to them was their son’s landlord. Their son was on holiday so they could not reach him which is what they were frantically trying to do when we called them back to explain it was a mistake. A decision was made to send these people flowers and would you believe the regional manager made us get the flowers and figure out what to put in the card! I offered to help our manager with this task because she was already overwhelmed with the events of the day and this became crystal clear when I received her reply to my offer in high volume through gritted teeth “I will do it because otherwise it will get screwed up!”

We were afraid we may have litigation coming our way because of this incident, especially after a few days, when we saw our very alive resident from E302 and asked about his mother. He told us that she had just been to the first therapy session she had ever had in her life but that he thought she would be okay. Thankfully, they did not sue and everything eventually got back to normal.

I only was only subject to the smell but our manager walked into to this apartment to do a welfare check for this man's friend and saw what he looked like. When you see something like that it stays with you for awhile and it did stay with our manager. She is an extremely strong woman with one minor exception. She has an extremely weak stomach, she would gag over a lot less, and after having to deal with the passing of this resident she was having a hard time. She cooked for the crew a lot and we were supposed to have spaghetti at her house a couple of days after this happened. We ended up having pizza because she got an image in her mind while cooking and tossed her cookies right in the pot.

As far as me and the boyfriend went, you can probably guess that since I’m married to Dickie (thank goodness) it didn’t work out. He was a nice person and it had nothing to do with the man passing away of course. Still, my nose always twitches a little when I think about that guy I had the crush on. What a horrible odor.

They're Watching Horno!

I was managing a building that had more children living in it than adults. This is not common and with so many kids comes lots of little mishaps and adventures. There was one family in particular that were simply a pain in the butt. They had three boys and they were never supervised. The oldest was about 12 years old and then there was an 8 year old and a 5 year old. They were adorable with big brown eyes and messy mops of dark curls upon their heads. They were also trouble. Constantly getting into mischief.

There was the time I got a call from the downstairs neighbor because they were making paper airplanes and throwing them off their third floor balcony which doesn't sound that bad but they were lighting them on fire right before they threw them. Of course when I knocked on the door, I had six angelic brown eyes staring up at me as if they had been doing nothing wrong. There was the underwear section of the J.C. Penny catalog that a very angry mother brought into me along with the 8 year old. I guess he was looking at it with his friend, the angry mother's innocent child, in the bushes.

I had spoken to their parents on numerous occasions regarding the litter that always accumulated outside of their door, the chalk drawings that adorned the walk ways, the gutters that had been pulled down while trying to climb up the building and never got much cooperation. I tried to keep them busy by employing them to pick up trash around the property in exchange for cookies. This lasted for about a week and they lost interest. To top it all off their parents were consistently late on their rent, causing me and the rest of the staff not to get our full bonus. These were not favorites among the residents I had at the building.

Then one beautiful spring afternoon a little round boy of about 8 years old came running into my office. He was out of breath and obviously very upset about something. At first all he could get out was "Miss Crystal, Miss Crystal!" in between his heavy breaths. He calmed down enough to say "They're over there watching horno, HORNO!!" My assistant manager was in the office looking at him sideways. You could tell she had absolutely no idea what horno meant. For some reason, don't ask me why, I almost immediately realized he must be talking about pornography.

The child looked up at me, a horrified expression on his face and fear filling his innocent little eyes and I looked down at him very afraid of what he was about to lead me to. I said "It's okay honey, show me where they are" He led me outside of the rental office and I was not at all surprised to end up in front of the door of the 3 troublemakers.

I knocked on the door and I could hear shuffling. I knocked again with more force this time and after a bit more shuffling, the 12 year old finally came to the door. His eyes were as big as silver dollars. The front door of the apartment opened right into the living room where a huge screen television was in plain sight. At that moment, the only thing that was displayed on this enormous screen was pure penetration. I hope I need to explain no further. I was shocked and my informant was covering his eyes and squirming.

As I looked around the room, I saw at least 15 other boys sitting in the apartment unable to peel their eyes off the screen. Their mouths were agape and I'm not sure that a 10 point earthquake could have broken their concentration. They ranged in age from 5 up to about 14. I wonder if the troublemakers charged admission.

Anyway, here I was looking at these poor innocent children learning about sex from a nasty video tape that ended up having the wonderful title of Smell My Fingers, trying to decide what to do. I had no legal right to enter the apartment but it took me less than a second to do just that. I couldn't allow this corruption to continue, I was just sure that the God loving parents of all these little boys were going to stone me because I'm suppose to provide a wholesome place for their children to live.

I walked into the apartment, hit eject on the VCR and with my sleeve to protect my hand grabbed Smell My Fingers. I told all of the little boys to go home and I glared at the 3 culprits. I said with gritted teeth, "I will be speaking to your parents about this young men and until I do you had better not leave this apartment!"

I went to my office and put Smell My Fingers in a drawer and then immediately called the father of the troublemakers. I explained everything that had just happened and he said something like "Okay, thanks for letting me know" WHAT!? I went on to try and explain that his children were really causing a lot of trouble and he told me he was at work and asked if we could discuss this later.

I spent the rest of the afternoon calling the mothers of all the boys on the property to break the news that they had just been exposed to one of the rawest sexual visions that I myself, as a grown woman, had ever seen. I was trying to do damage control because I knew otherwise I would be blamed for defiling their beautiful babies. Luckily most of them were understanding, but surely a little disturbed. I did have 1 or 2 that were ready to lynch the parents of the troublemakers but I was able to calm them by assuring them that the parents were mortified about the situation and extremely apologetic, which was stretching the truth slightly but the last thing I needed was a hanging on my property.

So later that evening, just before I closed the office, I received a call from Mrs. Troublemaker. I thought thank goodness someone in this household has some sense and wants to express their humiliation and regret that the possibility of this even happening was in their home. Imagine my surprise when instead I heard "Hi, I was just wondering if I could come get my tape." Uh, Ummm, "Sure." So Mrs. Trouble arrived in no time at all to reclaim her beloved Smell My Fingers. The only thing she said on the way out was "Thanks!"

I still to this day have a hard time believing that this is actually how it all happened but I am telling you the complete and honest truth. I really wanted to send these people a legal notice but I could find anything in their lease that said they could not leave their porn laying around for their children to watch with every boy on the property.

Adventures in Leasing

I was managing several apartment buildings at once and the one that was giving me the most current trouble was a 56 unit building in a trendy neighborhood just outside of downtown Seattle.

The building was absolutely gorgeous and brand new but it had a few drawbacks. It was such a small building that staffing was difficult. It required someone who could cater to the upscale clientele, handle the paperwork and banking, as well as do all the cleaning and minor repairs. I was having a very hard time finding this magic person and I ended up covering the office more than I would have liked.

I had our first move out four months after we opened because someone broke their lease. I needed to get the apartment turned quickly because luckily someone new was moving in. Now this building was busy because construction crews were still there finishing up, we had vendors there all the time and we were getting a lot of walk in traffic.

I was signing a lease and the phone was going nuts when the carpet cleaner that I had sent up to the apartment that needed to be turned came down and said "There are bleach spots in the closet, do you want me to dye them." I had seen the spots during my walk through inspection and hadn't planned on dying them because they were small and didn't show badly on the already light colored carpet but I changed my mind when he asked because it was a brand new building and I wanted the apartment to be like new. So I told the carpet man to go ahead and dye the spots.

When the carpet man was finished I was not in the office so he dropped the key off in the mail slot and I did not get a chance to inspect his work until that evening. When I walked into the apartment I was mortified. The carpet man had dyed the entire carpet and he had done the worst job of dying a carpet that I have ever seen.

The color was not uniform, it faded from darker to lighter throughout the room. It looked awful and the other problem was that the carpet was so wet the baseboard around it absorbed the water like a sponge. The baseboard was rippled and expanding. It was totally ruined. I had someone moving into this apartment the next afternoon and now I had to replace the entire carpet and all the baseboard. I was less than happy.

At the time, I was working with the most knowledgeable and hardest working maintenance supervisor I had ever hired. He was fabulous with maintenance but I think he would admit he's a little rough around the edges with people skills. That was fine with me because I needed someone who knew maintenance, I had the people skills under control and in the case of the carpet man, and Sonny’s rough around the edges personality was just what I needed to make sure they got this problem solved for me ASAP.

I called the carpet cleaning company and demanded a meeting with the manager at my property so he could see this carpet. I told Sonny that I wanted him to speak with the carpet manager and get this issue resolved because I had appointments and I was busy. I also knew that Sonny would not take any crap; he would make sure it got done and we were not charged for it.

So I was waiting for the carpet manager to arrive and he called me to tell me he was running a little late, but he'd be there in 5 minutes. 5 minutes later I see in our camera system that there is a man wearing khaki pants, holding a clipboard outside of the entrance. I call Sonny and I buzzed him in the building. Sonny came out and introduced himself and they headed up in the elevator to look at the carpet.

Less than 10 minutes later Sonny came back downstairs with the gentleman; he was actually there to see an apartment. I did have an appointment with this man but he had arrived early and since the carpet man said he would be there in 5 minutes, I made the dreadful mistake of assuming and took this man to be the carpet man. I explained this to my customer and he was very understanding. I took him up to the 2 bedroom apartment he was interested in and made small talk. He was very nice and seemed to be at ease. When I had shown him the whole apartment and the courtyards I asked him for a deposit to hold the apartment. He gave this to me readily and I rejoiced in having rented the apartment. This man was quite please too, looking forward to moving in.

While I was showing him around, the actual carpet man showed up and they did agree to replace the carpet and baseboard. I had to move up the customer's move in date by one day but he was okay and all was well.

Sonny came into my office after the real carpet man left and sort of sheepishly asked me how my tour with the other gentleman was. I showed him the deposit check and did my patented leasing dance for him to let him know I had secured the rental. He looked at me in awe and great amazement and bowed to me several times as if I was a Goddess and he did in fact say I was THE leasing Goddess. I just thought he was playing around to make me feel good because rentals were slower that I would have liked and on only 56 units, one rental can make a huge difference.

I went home and was having a quiet evening when I got a call from Sonny's wife. I had met her a couple of times and we were on friendly terms. When I answered the phone all I could get out of her was hysterical laughing at first. She has an infectious laugh and today is my best friend but back then I had just met her and I couldn't figure what was so funny but knew it had to be good.

She was finally able to compose herself enough to tell me that when Sonny got in the elevator with the mistaken carpet man, they had quite an interaction. Sonny means no BS when he's at work and just isn't one to really engage in small talk. In addition, this was the person who was responsible for our completely destroyed carpet so he wasn't about to engage in pleasantries with him.

They get in the elevator and our customer that we assume is the carpet man asks if we have a hot tub. Sonny says "Yeah, why do you care?" They continue to go up and Sonny proceeds to tell this man how unacceptable the carpet is, this is a really high end building, we get a lot of rent and we're not going to put up with shoddy work. They walk into the apartment and Sonny's right on it showing the man the inconsistencies in the color of the carpet and the ruined baseboard. The man agrees with sonny that it really does look bad but offers no solution to the problem so Sonny is getting frustrated. He's trying to explain that it has to be fixed and the man agrees. Then the man asks Sonny if this is a one or two bedroom apartment. Sonny replies by saying "It's a one bedroom, you MORON" At this point the gentleman just simply tells Sonny that his appointment was to see a two bedroom apartment. This is when Sonny immediately, I'm sure with several apologies along the way, brought the man into my office.

I had no idea our maintenance supervisor had just called him a moron. The man gave me no indication that he was upset by the berating he was welcomed to the community with. He was pleasant and rented an apartment from us.

Once this registered with me I had to laugh too. No wonder Sonny thought I was some leasing phenomenon. I would have bet a million dollars if I were Sonny that there was no way that man would move into a building where he had been insulted so often within the first few minutes of arriving. He did move in and may still live there for all I know. He was always very nice and had a great sense of humor. That must be what saved us and he knew for sure that we were not going to allow any shoddy work to be performed at this building.

So that my friends is one of my most bizarre leasing stories.

I was managing several apartment buildings at once and the one that was giving me the most current trouble was a 56 unit building in a trendy neighborhood just outside of downtown Seattle.

The building was absolutely gorgeous and brand new but it had a few drawbacks. It was such a small building that staffing was difficult. It required someone who could cater to the upscale clientele, handle the paperwork and banking, as well as do all the cleaning and minor repairs. I was having a very hard time finding this magic person and I ended up covering the office more than I would have liked.

I had our first move out four months after we opened because someone broke their lease. I needed to get the apartment turned quickly because luckily someone new was moving in. Now this building was busy because construction crews were still there finishing up, we had vendors there all the time and we were getting a lot of walk in traffic.

I was signing a lease and the phone was going nuts when the carpet cleaner that I had sent up to the apartment that needed to be turned came down and said "There are bleach spots in the closet, do you want me to dye them." I had seen the spots during my walk through inspection and hadn't planned on dying them because they were small and didn't show badly on the already light colored carpet but I changed my mind when he asked because it was a brand new building and I wanted the apartment to be like new. So I told the carpet man to go ahead and dye the spots.

When the carpet man was finished I was not in the office so he dropped the key off in the mail slot and I did not get a chance to inspect his work until that evening. When I walked into the apartment I was mortified. The carpet man had dyed the entire carpet and he had done the worst job of dying a carpet that I have ever seen.

The color was not uniform, it faded from darker to lighter throughout the room. It looked awful and the other problem was that the carpet was so wet the baseboard around it absorbed the water like a sponge. The baseboard was rippled and expanding. It was totally ruined. I had someone moving into this apartment the next afternoon and now I had to replace the entire carpet and all the baseboard. I was less than happy.

At the time, I was working with the most knowledgeable and hardest working maintenance supervisor I had ever hired. He was fabulous with maintenance but I think he would admit he's a little rough around the edges with people skills. That was fine with me because I needed someone who knew maintenance, I had the people skills under control and in the case of the carpet man, and Sonny’s rough around the edges personality was just what I needed to make sure they got this problem solved for me ASAP.

I called the carpet cleaning company and demanded a meeting with the manager at my property so he could see this carpet. I told Sonny that I wanted him to speak with the carpet manager and get this issue resolved because I had appointments and I was busy. I also knew that Sonny would not take any crap; he would make sure it got done and we were not charged for it.

So I was waiting for the carpet manager to arrive and he called me to tell me he was running a little late, but he'd be there in 5 minutes. 5 minutes later I see in our camera system that there is a man wearing khaki pants, holding a clipboard outside of the entrance. I call Sonny and I buzzed him in the building. Sonny came out and introduced himself and they headed up in the elevator to look at the carpet.

Less than 10 minutes later Sonny came back downstairs with the gentleman; he was actually there to see an apartment. I did have an appointment with this man but he had arrived early and since the carpet man said he would be there in 5 minutes, I made the dreadful mistake of assuming and took this man to be the carpet man. I explained this to my customer and he was very understanding. I took him up to the 2 bedroom apartment he was interested in and made small talk. He was very nice and seemed to be at ease. When I had shown him the whole apartment and the courtyards I asked him for a deposit to hold the apartment. He gave this to me readily and I rejoiced in having rented the apartment. This man was quite please too, looking forward to moving in.

While I was showing him around, the actual carpet man showed up and they did agree to replace the carpet and baseboard. I had to move up the customer's move in date by one day but he was okay and all was well.

Sonny came into my office after the real carpet man left and sort of sheepishly asked me how my tour with the other gentleman was. I showed him the deposit check and did my patented leasing dance for him to let him know I had secured the rental. He looked at me in awe and great amazement and bowed to me several times as if I was a Goddess and he did in fact say I was THE leasing Goddess. I just thought he was playing around to make me feel good because rentals were slower that I would have liked and on only 56 units, one rental can make a huge difference.

I went home and was having a quiet evening when I got a call from Sonny's wife. I had met her a couple of times and we were on friendly terms. When I answered the phone all I could get out of her was hysterical laughing at first. She has an infectious laugh and today is my best friend but back then I had just met her and I couldn't figure what was so funny but knew it had to be good.

She was finally able to compose herself enough to tell me that when Sonny got in the elevator with the mistaken carpet man, they had quite an interaction. Sonny means no BS when he's at work and just isn't one to really engage in small talk. In addition, this was the person who was responsible for our completely destroyed carpet so he wasn't about to engage in pleasantries with him.

They get in the elevator and our customer that we assume is the carpet man asks if we have a hot tub. Sonny says "Yeah, why do you care?" They continue to go up and Sonny proceeds to tell this man how unacceptable the carpet is, this is a really high end building, we get a lot of rent and we're not going to put up with shoddy work. They walk into the apartment and Sonny's right on it showing the man the inconsistencies in the color of the carpet and the ruined baseboard. The man agrees with sonny that it really does look bad but offers no solution to the problem so Sonny is getting frustrated. He's trying to explain that it has to be fixed and the man agrees. Then the man asks Sonny if this is a one or two bedroom apartment. Sonny replies by saying "It's a one bedroom, you MORON" At this point the gentleman just simply tells Sonny that his appointment was to see a two bedroom apartment. This is when Sonny immediately, I'm sure with several apologies along the way, brought the man into my office.

I had no idea our maintenance supervisor had just called him a moron. The man gave me no indication that he was upset by the berating he was welcomed to the community with. He was pleasant and rented an apartment from us.

Once this registered with me I had to laugh too. No wonder Sonny thought I was some leasing phenomenon. I would have bet a million dollars if I were Sonny that there was no way that man would move into a building where he had been insulted so often within the first few minutes of arriving. He did move in and may still live there for all I know. He was always very nice and had a great sense of humor. That must be what saved us and he knew for sure that we were not going to allow any shoddy work to be performed at this building.

So that my friends is one of my most bizarre leasing stories.

My Experience As the Easter Bunny

Many of you know that I worked in the property management industry for more than 10 years. I spent much of that time on site managing apartment buildings and opening brand new buildings before I went to work as director of marketing and education for the Puget Sound region of ConAm Management’s 8000 apartment units. I worked for ConAm Management during most of my career. I also worked for a couple of other small management companies and spent the last year and a half of my career in property management working as an account executive for Apartments.com.

I know many of the people that read this have some experience or currently work in property management so I thought it may be fun if I shared some of the stories I acquired during my career in that field. I plan to post a new property management story each week. I hope you will be entertained by some of the off the wall stuff that I witnessed when I managed apartments buildings. This week I felt it would be appropriate to tell you how my career in property management began.

My career in property management began when I was 17 years old. I was living with my dad and he had a friend staying with us. My dad and his friend went out one night and when I got up in the morning, dad’s friend had met and brought home a woman. I got to talking to the woman, it turned out she managed a large apartment community, and needed some help. She asked me to come to work for her and I did. I didn’t really understand what my responsibilities would be until I arrived at the community and they handed me a full Easter Bunny suit to wear, it was a couple of weeks before Easter, Yes, a bunny suit, the big furry white kind with a huge head and pink belly. It had big ears and whiskers.

I was a bit surprised at first that an apartment community needed a bunny rabbit on the payroll but I was easy going and since my whole head was covered, I was free to make a fool of myself. My actual job was to wear the bunny suit and hold a sign that said “All Good Bunnies Live Here”. I was to stand at the main entrance of the property and try to attract the attention of people passing by. It was even better if I attracted the attention of people who actually wanted to move into the apartment building. They paid $5.00 an hour plus one additional dollar for each person who rented an apartment while I was outside. I worked four hours a day. I made about $115.00 dollars a week.

I had a walkman at the time and listened to music while I worked. They did not allow me to sit down and I and got quite bored just waving to people so I started dancing. I actually ended up with some fans; people would drive by every day, wave, and honk. I also encountered a lot of people who had an unhealthy distain for the Easter Bunny. It was shocking how much people hated the Easter Bunny sometimes. They would call me bad names, throw things at me, spit at me and made mean hand gestures as the drove by. Little did I know, but kids also seem to hate the Easter bunny and one day when they got off the bus on my corner they all ran up to me. I, of course thought the cute little guys wanted hugs from E.B. but I was very wrong. Before I knew it these monsters were attacking me from every angle. A troop of 8 year olds jumped me and since wearing an oversized bunny suit does nothing for your coordination they were winning. Luckily, a concerned resident who was driving into the property saw the bunny beating in progress saved me. She yelled at the kids and they ran off. They gave a radio after that so I could immediately report any bunny abuses.

After Easter, the bunny was no longer relevant so they put me in a Barney suit. Most people don’t like Barney. I lost my fans, they didn’t wave anymore, and the haters became even more hateful. I started to realize that I didn’t want to work as a human cartoon anymore.

I was a very enthusiastic employee and my manager didn’t want to lose me so she made me a recreation attendant. I was responsible for kids club which was the equivalent of babysitting 15 cranky 8 year olds, the same ones who beat me up when I was the Easter Bunny as a matter of fact. I also kept the tanning schedule and cleaned the clubhouse. I wasn’t happy in this job either but at least I was getting better hours so I made a little more money. It was shortly after this that I learned the girls in the leasing office were making $65.00 per lease they secured plus their hourly wage. I later learned this was not a typical commission in the industry. I was shocked, here I had been out dancing on the street corner getting ambushed by munchkins while they were sitting in a plush office wearing gorgeous suits and it was rumored several times that they were making more money than the manager. I knew what my manager made because she was very vocal about it. If the leasing agents were making more than her, then I wanted to be a leasing agent! As a high school drop out, I never thought I could make money like that but then I realized it was possible because I knew I could become a great leasing consultant.

I went to my manager and I told her I wasn’t happy as a recreation attendant. I knew there were no leasing positions available but I thought I could plant a seed for when one did open up. She asked me if I’d be interested in painting the exterior stairwells. It would mean more money and I’d get out of the recreation center so before I really thought it through, I jumped at the opportunity.

This was a dirty job, these stairwells were nasty. You had to start at the top and very thoroughly sweep the stairs and railings with a hand held broom. When you got to the bottom there was a corner under the stairs and garbage, dirt, and dust would accumulate as well as spiders, lots, and lots of spiders. Once you had the entire stairwell clean, you could start painting. I worked with one other woman and we painted all the stairs and landings for a four hundred unit community. It was exhausting. I left at the end of each day covered in dirt and paint; there was even dirt in my teeth. The worst day I had was when I spilled the better part of a 5-gallon paint bucket in the middle of a sidewalk that was not supposed to get painted. Luckily, a maintenance technician came by at that moment and recommended I just paint the sidewalk. I think my head would have exploded if he hadn’t of come by.

They hired me as a leasing consultant after the painting job but I’ll tell you more about my property management adventures one day next week