<\/p>\n
I knew a building inspector who could<\/strong><\/span> smell rats.\u00a0 That’s what he claimed.\u00a0\u00a0 He didn’t have to see the droppings.<\/p>\n I knew a custodian who could jimmy almost any apartment door with a credit card.<\/p>\n My dubious talent is figuring if a tenant has skipped out or not.<\/p>\n First, the tenant hasn’t paid his rent. That’s a given.\u00a0 I knock loudly on the tenant’s door.\u00a0 No answer.<\/p>\n I yell “maintenance” a couple times,<\/span> and bring out the master key. I yell “maintenance” a third time, and I step into the apartment.<\/p>\n A couch, a bed . . . always.<\/strong><\/span> Skippers leave behind the heavy stuff.\u00a0 TVs too.\u00a0 Everyone upgrades his TV on move-out.<\/p>\n Some small items stay behind: beer bottles, pennies, unopened bills.\u00a0 Usually enough to fill three or four garbage bags.<\/p>\n The stove: cooked.<\/p>\n The refrigerator: always missing<\/span> <\/strong><\/span>a couple crucial shelves.\u00a0 Why?<\/p>\n Underwear and socks . . . gone.<\/p>\n No socks, no tenant.\u00a0 The guy definitely skipped.<\/p>\n Some of his clothes are jumbled<\/strong><\/span> on the closet floor. Decent stuff too.\u00a0 Skippers are usually too anti-social to take items to Goodwill.<\/p>\n I found a tux left behind.\u00a0 The guy was 6-4.\u00a0 I had the pant legs shortened.\u00a0 (He wasn’t a skipper.\u00a0 He was a dead man. And his place was clean.)<\/p>\n I enjoy wrecked apartments.<\/span> <\/strong><\/span>So would most people, I bet. \u00a0It’s like staring at a car crash.\u00a0 Most of my building managers like trashed apts.\u00a0 (Some managers make extra money on the cleanups.)\u00a0 One manager would gleefully phone me with on-the-scene reporting: “It looks like a cyclone went through here crossways!”<\/p>\n The rat hole tour isn’t for everybody. <\/strong><\/span> One young manager passed on a good show.\u00a0 “I’m creeped out,” she said, standing in the apartment corridor, while I went into the suite.<\/p>\n What’s to be creeped out by a few bottles of beers, cat urine and cigarette butts?<\/p>\n Afterward, I sometimes phone the skipper to make sure he’s definitely gone.\u00a0 I say, “You out yet?” No lectures about housekeeping.<\/p>\n Nobody likes to be criticized on his cleaning skills. And he might come back for his DJ <\/em>magazines — and me. I knew a building inspector who could smell rats.\u00a0 That’s what he claimed.\u00a0\u00a0 He didn’t have to see the droppings. I knew a custodian who could jimmy almost any apartment door with a credit card. My dubious talent is figuring if a tenant has skipped out or not. First, the tenant hasn’t paid his rent. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-landlord-biz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=944"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17128,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944\/revisions\/17128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n—-<\/span>
\n2 of 2 posts for 10\/28\/09
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"