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My landlord's handyman told me to stop using the app and just call the office, and my $75 late fee vanished | Apartment Hunting Hacks - Librear

the_kelly•8d ago

My landlord's handyman told me to stop using the app and just call the office, and my $75 late fee vanished

So I pay rent through this portal the building makes everyone use. Back in March it crashed on the 1st, I paid on the 3rd, and they hit me with a $75 late fee. I fought it for two weeks over email with the property manager and got nowhere. Last week the handyman was fixing my sink and I mentioned it. He laughed and said the office manager hates that portal too, and that if I ever have a billing problem I should just walk down and talk to her in person, because she can waive stuff the manager can't or won't. So I did. She pulled it up, said "yeah this happens all the time," and it was gone in like 4 minutes. Moral of the story is not really a moral, it's that the person who fixes your toilet knows more about how your building actually runs than the person who sends you the emails. Does anyone else have a landlord where the front desk is way more useful than the management company?

1 comments

1 Comment

logan_white599h ago

The part about "the person who fixes your toilet knows more about how your building actually runs" is true way beyond apartments. It's the same thing at every big store or office. The people at the bottom of the ladder always know how stuff really works because they're the ones dealing with it every day. The managers just look at screens and send emails and have no clue what actually happens on the floor. I've seen it at hospitals, at schools, at the DMV, everywhere. So your move was smart, skip the chain and talk to whoever actually touches the problem. The $75 disappearing in 4 minutes proves the whole system is fake anyway. If one person can delete it that fast, it was never really about rules, it was about who you know.