I had the most amazing run around with a construction company recently. They somehow got me mixed up with people who rented property above one of my rental units. When I found out who they thought I was I almost forgave them for being so rude, as I have been exasperated by those folks myself. The first incident was when their bathtub overflowed and flooded a brand new floor in my commercial unit below. The next time it was their toilet and then their washing machine. Another time they decided to hose down the planter box and all the water ran back onto my ceiling tiles where it pooled long enough to turn orange and when the soggy tiles finally buckled, the water ran down the corner of my office and stained two newly painted walls.
I wanted to scream so loud that Cincinnati Property Management Companies could have heard the hollering all the way to California.
So when this company left a voice mail that they needed me to meet them at my residence in the San Francisco Bay Area about a leak, I assumed they meant my summer home miles away in a different town, as a neighbor had emailed to say there was a notice on my door with a number for me to call about a leak in January. When I phoned, they asked for time to research it and said they would call me back. So that is who I thought I was playing telephone tag with for two weeks in February. By coincidence, the two different companies had similar sounding names and each was run by a father and son team. So when the one guy said that I had spoken with his father, I naturally thought he was the other guy's son.
Finally I suggested he e-mail me with the particulars. Amazing how much more effective the written word can be. The kid apologized profusely when he discovered that I was the one he was supposed to be helping and not the culprits causing the problem. I told him to send them a BIG bill.
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