In my line of work, sometimes we get to see the best, the worst and the saddest in people in this line of work. One of the last claims that I received was for an apartment which turned out to be 12 duplex units about 2 hours away. The complex is generally rented to those with not many resources so that the rents are heavily subsidized. But my philosophy has been, and still is, that a person can still be clean.
I got a call from the manager that more damage had been reported to her so we set up an appointment for today to inspect the additional damage. We were to see 4 units but it turned out to actually be 8 units. As I say all of the units are rented to very low income people, many of whom are disabled.
Some units are as one would expect to find from any group of people, very messy, some downright dirty. A couple of people apologized several times for their mess when in fact the apt was so clean it was difficult to find dirt.
The apartment just before the last one had damage reported by the tenant on the A side, not on the B side. I took one look at the roof, which had an AC pipe leaking still with a puddle of water on the rear of the roof. The roofing was in horrible condition with patched areas lifting. I advised the property manager that it is likely that the B unit had damage as well.
While I got off the roof the property manager knocked on the unit door and finally an elderly woman opened the door just a few inches. She told the property manager that she was sick but the manager told her that we really needed to check for water damage. By that time I was standing just behind the manager.
The manager stepped into the unit with me right behind and the smell was beyond bad, worse than almost anything I’d ever smelled before. I took a huge gulp of fresh air before entering completely but we were only looking at the hall when my breath ran out. The manager and I ran from the apartment gagging my husband and the maintenence man said that we were white as sheets. We decided on the spot that we didn’t care about the damage in that apartment, let the person who repairs tell us what they find.
After sufficiently recovering we inspected our last unit.
My husband and I were feeling dirty and drained so thought we’d stop for lunch before the 2 hour drive home. We found a little cafe we’d not been to before but it was really clean, something we needed at that second. We went in and finally when someone came into the dining room she said that the restaurant was closed. We were disappointed but too tired to care. As we were stepping into our truck we saw the person, at the window, signaling to us to come back. They had decided to let us in after all even though they were closed.
It was so pleasant to sit in a clean place and eat some decent food after our eventful morning and we so much appreciated the fact that the staff let us in after closing. Never fear, we left a nice tip!
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