25th January 2009

Whiny Tenants

posted in Care and Feeding of Tenants |

So this weekend, bright and early on Saturday morning, I got a very frantic call from a tenant who said that they awoke to find that the their air conditioning system had failed and it was F-R-E-E-Z-I-N-G in the house.

About a half hour later, I got another call from the same tenant urgently asking that I get back to him ASAP because, again, their A/C was not working and they couldn’t heat the house.

I called him back soon after and promised that I would get someone out there as soon as I could. The HVAC company went out to the property, fixed the problem and all was well.

Where’s the point of this post you ask? Well, in case you’re a first time reader, here’s why in bullet point format:

  • The property is located in coastal Central F-L-O-R-I-D-A
  • The temperature descended to a frigid 60 °F that night
  • The property is located in F-L-O-R-I-D-A
  • The average age of the tenants in the house is 30
  • F-L-O-R-I-D-A (!!!)

I mean. People. COME. ON! That night ( and every cold night ) I don’t run the heat in my own house. Why? Because I live in F-L-O-R-I-D-A. In fact, I have never run the central heat in my own house. When it gets really cold for here ( like 40 °F ) I run an electric space heater in the bedroom at night. And not on “high” either.

The main reason I don’t run the central heat is that an electric heating element is the least efficient heat source ever created. For example, incandescent light bulbs are basically better heaters than light sources. Hence, compact fluorescent or LED light sources.

I’m glad that my tenants are doing better financially better that I am, so much so that they would run the electric central heating system in 60 °F weather.

There are currently 7 responses to “Whiny Tenants”

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  1. 1 On January 25th, 2009, Jessica Hickok said:

    waaa! waaa! somebody call the waaaaambulance! 60 degrees and 30 years old? What a bunch of babies. Suck it up Buttercup…you live in F-L-O-R-I-D-A, not Missouri or something other weird state where the high is 24 degrees or lower.

  2. 2 On January 25th, 2009, Personal Finance Ology said:

    lol yea, what a bunch of babies. 60F is shorts and a t-shirt weather.

  3. 3 On January 25th, 2009, Tim Hawkins said:

    Question for the landlord since we have a tenant that whines too: how does an incident like this color future “issues” and possible adjustments to their rent?

  4. 4 On January 25th, 2009, TheLandlord said:

    Tim,
    To answer your question: When it comes down to it, I decide whether to run right out. Turns out that in this situation, an electrical fault caused the heating system to fail. So I sent an A/C tech right out.

    As far as rent adjustments: They pay market rent. If they scream unnecessarily, I just ignore them until I’m good and ready to call them back (i.e.- Normal business hours during weekdays)

    Thanks for the comment!

  5. 5 On January 26th, 2009, snoe said:

    Oh yes, I feel your pain.

    Same thing happened to me. They even had the audacity to tell me that their toddler was going to fall ill. As a landlord you hear these stories enough to quickly note voice inflections, past references and such to know what is in fact complete and utter BS. Regardless, I had quickly addressed the concern and there was absolutely no need to try to drill into me any need for hasty action. Luckily, he learned how to reset the breaker as I instructed and the child did NOT freeze to death.

    This happened two years ago and was by no means as cold as it was last week.

  6. 6 On January 27th, 2009, Meg said:

    The best is when they call you to complain when they haven’t paid their rent that month. Hmm, let me just hop to and pay somebody $100+ to fix that leaky faucet when you owe me $750. Riiiiiight.

    Seriously, you also have to remember that just because it’s 60 degrees outside doesn’t mean that’s how cold it gets inside. If the place has any kind of decent insulation it probably wouln’t dip below 65 or 68, especially with several people in the house.

  7. 7 On January 30th, 2009, Tony Sena said:

    As I was reading I was expecting you to say somewhere in the midwest where they got hit with the ice storm but Florida? The weather channel showed that it was 72 degrees today! You should have told them that there is this great invention called the blanket, so use it until the HVAC Technician can get there.

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