I work in an office where we rent out houses. I’m sitting at the walk-in client desk with two coworkers. A man comes in.

Man: “I’m here…” *mumbles* “…again…” *mumbles* “…new bathroom…” *mumbles* “…showerhead…” *mumbles* “…and fsh-fsh-fsh.”

Whenever the man mumbles, it is in another language, so it’s easy to conclude that the man does not speak Dutch well. This is about 70% of our clientele, so we always do our best to understand what people are talking about.

Me: “Okay, you said you got a new bathroom. May I have your address?”

I get the address.

Me: “I see you indeed had a new bathroom installed. And something went wrong with the showerhead?”

Man: “No, no!” *Mumbles* “Not showerhead, but when water…” *mumbles* “…and then fsh-fsh-fsh.”

Me: “Do you mean the water is not coming out of the shower head? Or that it’s very soft?”

I’m thinking about water pressure.

Man: “No, no! When water, then fsh-fsh-fsh. And light. When click-click, also fssssh!”

The man walks to the nearby wall, pretends to click on the light, and then “draws” a line from the “light switch” to the ceiling. He makes weird gestures while saying, “Fssssh…”

Me: “Eh… the light… Do you mean sparks are coming from it? Eh… little stars?”

Man: “Yes! Yes! Click-click, stars!”

Me: “Do you mean from the wires? Can you see the wires?”

Man: “Yes! Yes!”

Me: “Okay, so possibly open wiring. That’s not good.”

Man: “And showerhead… and little girl, cry, cry, cry! Water come…” *mumbles* “…and then plick-plick-plick.”

Me: “Hold on… Are you saying stuff comes from the ceiling? Like… eh, sand? Is it raining sand?”

Man: “Yes! Yes! Raining white sand and little girl cry, cry!”

Me: “Is the sand thick or thin?”

Man: “This thick.”

Me: “I think the plaster might be coming loose from your ceiling. I’ll arrange an inspector for you.”

Man: “Yes, yes, thank you. And rubber at water tap.”

He mumbles and makes a gesture that, at least in the Netherlands, means “wanna f***”.

Man: “And rubber. Shower head.”

Me: “Well, since I’m calling an inspector for the wires and the ceiling, I will also ask him to check out that rubber for you.”

Man: “Thank you, thank you!”

I call an inspector and he’s available the next day. The client goes away — happy, presumably.

My coworkers start to laugh when the man leaves the building.

Me: *Turning red* “Gee, thanks. I could have used some help, you know?”

Coworker #1: “No, no, we’re not mocking you! I’m just amazed!”

Coworker #2: “Me, too! I had no idea what he was talking about! How did you ever come to the conclusions of the plaster or the wires?!”

Coworker #1: “And I still have no idea what he meant with the…”

[Coworker #1] repeated the man’s improper gesture.

The improper gesture: making a ring with your thumb and index finger and then “thrusting” your other index finger through it. It turned out that the man was trying to demonstrate that the hose from the showerhead was not connected well to the tap and was leaking.

The company I work for deals with Housing. People move all the time, but once in a while, it’s because someone passes away. Because some people try to commit fraud (pretending someone died to dodge paying costs), we are required to get a copy of the death certificate.

I get a notification of someone’s passing, but instead of the certificate, we only get the invitation to the funeral. When we discover this, it’s the time of the funeral, so my coworker sends an email asking for the death certificate. We get no response, so a couple of days later, we call. No contact.

Our procedure tells us to cancel the cancelling of the contract, but we want to try one more time. I finally get a hold of the daughter; she rents with us, as well, and her birthdate says she’s middle-aged.

Daughter: “Oh, eh… the certificate… I didn’t send it? Oh, I have it here… Where is it… Here it is. But how do I get it on a computer?”

Me: “Do you have a smartphone? Yes? Do you know how to take a picture and email that? All right, then just email that picture to [address]. As long as we can read it, it’s fine.”

The daughter promises to send the email straight away! But it doesn’t come. Two days later is the first inspection, so I ask the inspector if she wants to ask for the death certificate. Perhaps the daughter wasn’t able to do it after all.

According to the inspector, this is how the inspection went, paraphrased.

Inspector: “Good morning.”

Daughter: Good morning. Can I help you?

Inspector: “I’m here to inspect the home of your mother. My condolences.”

Daughter: “But my mother doesn’t live here.”

Inspector: “Eh… According to my file, this is the house of [Mother], right? We received a request to cancel the rent because she passed away.”

Daughter: “Oh, she did, but she didn’t live here. She lived [a couple of houses away]. Oh, dear, I have an appointment with the inspector over there now!”

Inspector: “That would be me. Ma’am… which rent needs to be cancelled? Your house or her house?”

Daughter: “Her house, of course!”

Inspector: I see… Ma’am… I’m afraid you cancelled your house’s rent, not hers. But it’s okay; we can revert that! How about we go to your mother’s house together?”

Daughter: “Why?”

Inspector: “To… do the inspection?”

Daughter: “Oh, right! Where are my keys?”

Inspector: “Do you mean the ones in your hand?”

Daughter: “Huh? When did I grab them?”

Eventually, the inspector went with the daughter to the other home and did the inspection. They also went back and the inspector took a picture of the mother’s certificate. They calmly said goodbye.

When the inspector returned to the office, everything went super hectic for a couple of hours to revert one cancellation and start a new one, making sure all was documented.

Because of the gut feeling of the inspector, it was decided a social worker would check up on the daughter, as well. It might have been grief that caused this, but let’s be rather safe than sorry. Unfortunately (but understandable), due to privacy, I won’t be getting any more updates.

My husband and I are renting an apartment. When we signed contracts, there was an option to pay either online or through check. Online had a 3% convenience fee, which was about $35 a month, but paying with a check didn’t. We opted to pay with checks.

I go to pay for the upcoming month.

Me: “Hi there. I am here to pay next month’s rent.”

The employee at the desk pulls up our account, makes a face, and shoves a paper across the table to me. 

Employee: “I need you to sign this.”

Me: “What’s this?”

Employee: “We’re creating an account for you and moving your payments online so we don’t have to keep going to the bank to deposit your checks.”

I glance through the paper and see that there’s still the convenience fee. 

Me: “Are you willing to waive the convenience fee?”

Employee: “No. You will need to pay that.”

Me: “No, thanks. We’ll continue to pay with checks.”

Employee: “We want to move everyone to online payments for our convenience.”

Me: “It’s more convenient for me to walk down here and save $35 every month. Unless you are able to waive the fee, I’m not signing up for online payments.”

She wasn’t pleased, and we went back and forth a little until I reminded her that in the contract we signed, only we could change how our payments were made; the apartment complex could not make the changes for us. I can’t say they were all that happy to see us when we went in to pay our rent and ask for receipts for the remainder of our time living there. I’m glad we never signed up for online payments because their reviews had many people complaining about extra withdrawals and continuing to be charged for rent after moving out.

In the 1990s, I was the emergency maintenance man for a few apartment buildings in Minnesota. We took in a new tenant in July one year, and this story took place in October of the same year. We had an early cold snap that year, so it was already close to freezing temperatures.

Me: “Hello, this is [My Name] with [Rental Company]. How can I help you?”

Tenant: “Hi, I think my heater is broken. I’m trying to get it going, but it’s not warming up in here at all.”

Me: “Can I get your apartment building and number, and we can set up a time for me to come take a look at it?”

We set up a time and I head over. As soon as I get in, I spot the problem.

Me: “Sir, have you had the window open all along?”

Tenant: “Yeah, I like having a bit of fresh air coming in. The heater is over here.”

I walk over and see that the heater is turned on full blast, and confirm it is definitely working by holding my hand near it. I call the tenant over and try to figure out how to give him the news without insulting him.

Me: “If you put your hand here, you can tell the heater is working. It just doesn’t put out enough heat to keep up with having the window open. As soon as you close the window, the room will warm right up.”

This was apparently not the right approach.

Tenant: “I’m not closing the window! I can’t sleep without fresh air. I want the heater replaced with the best unit you’ve got.”

Me: “Sir, you already have the best heater system we have. No heater can keep up with winter weather if you have the window open. You’ll either need to close the window or get used to bundling up in warm clothes.”

Tenant: “I’m not doing that! I’ll just buy some space heaters, and I better get reimbursed for them.”

Me: “Space heaters are forbidden in this building. They’re a major fire hazard, and if too many of them get plugged in, it could trip the circuit breakers. I’m telling you, the standard heater works fine, but you have to close the window.”

With that, I left. I let the building manager know what was going on, and he promised to send an official written notice to the tenant reminding him of the ban on space heaters and recommending that he simply close the window and let the regular heater do its job. 

A few weeks later, I got a call from a different tenant in that building complaining that they had lost power. The circuit breakers had been tripped, and my investigation proved that the new tenant had set up at least four space heaters in his apartment because he still had the window open.

The building manager gave him a final written notice that any more problems will force them to start the eviction process against him. Not even two weeks later, the circuit breaker tripped again, and once again, I found the space heaters plugged in in his apartment. His eviction was finalized about a month later, and surprisingly, he moved out without much of a fight. Apparently, the combination of “not having a working heater” and “massive electric bills” convinced him that this wasn’t the best place for him after all.

Related:
A Very Heated Argument

I get a call from one of the residents.

Resident: “I need you to go to Costco.”

Me: “Uh… why?”

Resident: “I need you to see if it seems busy and if the lines are super long.”

Me: “Can’t you call them to check that?”

Resident: “Nah, they’re all a bunch of liars. They’ll say it’s quiet so that they don’t scare away the customers.”

Me: “I see, well I’m sorry but driving to a store just to check how busy it is, is not a service that we provide.”

Resident: “Ugh! Put me through to your boss!”

I transfer the call and I hear the boss listen on their phone for a minute:

Boss: “Let me get this straight, you want me to get someone to leave work and drive to Costco to see if it seems busy only to call you back with this information so that you can decide if it’s too busy for you, personally, to go out or not?”

Pause.

Boss: “Trust me, it sounded ridiculous before “I put it like that.” Have a nice day.” *Click.*