What Renters Want with Jessica Fiur: What to Do When One Resident is Ruining it for Everyone

Some suggestions for when you catch a resident breaking the community rules.

jfiur_infocusBy Jessica Fiur, Managing Editor

When I was a freshman in college,  my entire dorm experienced painfully slow internet speed. This happened several times. Complaints were filed. Maintenance looked into it. Turned out, one of the students was downloading too many movies, which stole all the building’s bandwidth and slowed down the entire network.

(It wasn’t me. I swear!)

This is why we can’t have nice things.

It’s frustrating when there are rules at an apartment community, either unwritten, or very-much written and spelled out in the lease, and one resident blatantly disregards them, causing other residents to suffer, or causing more work for the property management team. Whether it’s abusing the Wi-Fi, walking pets without leashes, not cleaning up after pets, leaving the gym a mess, just to name a few, what do you do if one resident is ruining it for everyone else? You might be tempted to lash out and take away a privilege, but there are other ways to deal with the culprit than just punishing everyone. (For example: If one resident is taking all the chocolate chip cookies from the leasing office, don’t take them away and then only have oatmeal raisin cookies. That’s just cruel.)

Here are some ideas.

Remind residents of the leasing rules. And enforce them. If all dogs on the property are supposed to be on leashes and you see a resident walking a dog without a leash, remind them about the rule. If you just let it go, they’ll do it again. And other people will see it and start doing it. And make sure there are consequences when the rules aren’t followed. “Dog’s not on a leash again? Well, I warned you. Now he’s my puppy. I shall call him Fluffy Face.”

Read the entire blog.