What Renters Want with Jessica Fiur: Apartment Birthday Party Problems Solved

Birthdays are awesome. Sure, some people don’t want to draw any attention to the fact that they’re a year older. But the positives—cake, presents, cake, random people who you haven’t talked to in 10 years wishing you happy birthday on Facebook, cake—definitely outweigh the negative feelings about aging. And birthdays are even better when there’s a party involved. But, if you don’t want to have your party or your kid’s party “somewhere” and would rather just have it at home, it might be difficult if you’re living in an apartment.

After all, space might be limited in an apartment unit. And your refrigerator might not be able to fit the cake. If you have a doorman, they’ll be calling you every five minutes when guests arrive. Neighbors might complain if the music is too loud or if people are making too much noise walking around. Plus, the ponies might get scared in the hallways.

This is where property managers could step in. Is your community set up for birthday parties? You probably have a big common area—maybe even one that has a kitchen area. If you don’t already, set up a system where residents can rent out these common areas for their parties. This way they have more space to spread out.

But, duh. “Tell me something I don’t know,” you’re probably thinking. “OK,” I’m thinking. (Look at us! We totally have that cool ESP thing going. Guess how many fingers I’m holding up!)

My daughter at her recent first birthday. Am I using a picture of my adorable baby to get more clicks on this blog? Yes. Also, look at those cheeks!

How about having community party packages, or a community party planner (or both)?

You can have set packages for residents to pick from—maybe a basic package includes the common room for two hours, with cake, and someone to help set up tables and then clean up. Then you can go up from there. Provide different options for decorations. Maybe keep a list of preferred vendors with anything from entertainment to music to photography. And it doesn’t just have to be kids’ parties. You could have packages for adult parties (Not “adult” parties, but, no judgments), where you could offer food for adult palates such as goat cheese something or frizzled something else or creme de whatever (I’ll stick with the pizza and Doritos for my party though, thankyouverymuch).

This could really appeal to residents. Then they wouldn’t have to do anything after they pick a date and send out the invites. Residents wouldn’t have to worry about other residents wandering in the space, because you’d be acting as a party cop. And they wouldn’t have to clean up! That’s always the worst part of parties! (Well, actually writing Thank You notes is. If you included that in your package deal, you could charge a ton for it though.)

This would be a great way to earn some ancillary income for the community. Plus it would be a unique selling point that you could highlight in your marketing and on the community website. If your common space was amazing, you could even offer this service to people who don’t live in the building, to open it up to even more people.

Of course, taking care of your residents and making sure the community is running smoothly is your main priority. But, as long as the parties weren’t taking away from this, why not?

Does your community do anything for birthday parties?

-Jessica Fiur, Senior Editor