Let the record speak for itself...

If you’ve followed me on Facebook at all over the last five or six years, you’ve probably seen some of the stress and drama I’ve been dealing with. Most of it centers around one thing: the apartment complex where I live.

I’ve lived in my current apartment for five years and have signed six leases. In all that time, I have never once been late on my rent. Like clockwork, when my direct deposit hits, I either pay immediately or closer to the due date. Either way, it gets paid.

In the early months, I actually paid my rent about two weeks in advance. When my direct deposit shifted from the second Wednesday of the month to the 3rd, I switched to an early-deposit checking account so my rent would still be paid at least a couple of days before it was due.

At the very beginning, I paid by check a few times. That ended quickly after the management company at the time, Village Green, misplaced one of my checks. Since then, every rent payment I’ve made has been through the online rental portal.

There were a few moments early on that had me biting my nails. I would submit my payment before my direct deposit officially cleared, assuming it would hit on time. Most of the time it did. A few times it didn’t, but thankfully it never became an issue. The rental portal marks rent as “paid on time” the moment you hit submit, even if it takes a few days to fully process and show up in your checking account. Some people might call that risky. Personally, I don’t have much of a choice when my income arrives on a fixed schedule.

One of my biggest pet peeves is how rent payments are handled by management companies. They insist rent be paid on or before the due date, yet they start complaining even before that date arrives.

I understand that some tenants struggle to pay on time and that it creates extra work for management. I truly get that. But when the majority of tenants are seniors, there is no excuse for a complete lack of flexibility. Most of us receive our direct deposits on the 3rd of the month, sometimes earlier if the 3rd falls on a weekend or holiday, unless you have an early-pay account.

Rent is due on or before the 1st. I accept that. What I don’t accept is a two-day grace period followed by threatening letters. A reasonable approach would be rent due on the 1st with grace through at least the 5th. Sending warning notices or posting them on doors while tenants are still within the grace period is wrong. There’s a big difference between someone who is consistently late and someone who pays within the first few days every single month. Respect costs nothing.

And about those advance payments I mentioned earlier. Even when I paid two weeks early, I would still find a notice on my door by the 2nd of the month claiming I owed rent and that it needed immediate attention. That kind of thing causes unnecessary stress. All it would have taken was a quick glance at the account to see the balance was $0.00. Rent was already paid.

Instead of operating like a competent and respectful management company, they chose to rattle loyal tenants.

Today, I finally received my complete rental ledger, from my original deposit and first month’s rent through the present. Not a single entry shows I was ever late. No late fees. No penalties. No added charges. Every month my balance was either $0.00 or a negative amount, meaning I had a credit.

I do plan to talk about the poor maintenance this building receives, because that deserves its own attention. But that’s a separate issue, and a separate blog entry.

For now, the record speaks for itself.