My little PITA who has been fairly quiet since I gave him the Happy Clause letter a few months ago has recently started complaining again.

Complaint #1: He told me he has ants in his living room. I asked him if he sprayed any ant killer on them and he said no, but he vacuumed them up real good and they are still there. I told him to go get some ant spray and spray along the baseboard around the room and if the ants continue to be a problem let me know.

Complaint #2: He told me yesterday that his toilet seat is loose. I went there this morning and the little plastic nuts holding the seat and lid down were loose. It took me about 15 seconds to tightened them.

How does this 35 year old idiot not know how to tighten those 2 little nuts on his toilet? I've been a landlord for 20+ years and have never had anyone ask me to tighten the toilet seat, I think this is something they would just do themselves.

How does this 35 year old idiot not know to use ant killer when you see ants? He thought vacuuming would get rid of them?

Mind boggling!!!!

This 35 year old idiot doesn't know how to handle things like tightening a toilet seat because people like you have done it for him his whole life! ;-)

I'm pretty sure my 12 year old daughter could have handled this on her own.

Or Linda J, the more they ask for, the higher the rent goes?

This guys toilet nuts weren't the only things loose.

Been there, done that. It was quite a few years ago but I had a tenant that called and said that their toilet seat was broken. He was paying higher than I thought I could get rent so I went over and it was loose nut/bolts.

Another time he called because the lights in the front hall stopped working. Come to find out whoever did the electrical in the property didn't put correct switches in and the minute he turned off the light switch on the down stairs the upstairs no longer worked. It took a few moments for me to figure that one out but it was ok.

This issue, like many, is resulting from unclear expectations.

Ants...could be bugs of any kind. Roaches, silverfish, millipedes, spiders, etc. What does your lease say about who is responsible for bugs? My lease is clear: we offer "30 days bug free guarantee." We pay for one treatment if issues are reported in the first 30 days, and after that the resident is responsible. Period. So if your guy had called me, I'd simple respond, "Let's look at what we agreed to on page 3 of the lease."

Loose toilet seat. Again, how does your lease say that maintenance issues are to be reported and how will they be handled? My lease is clear: non-emergency issues must be reported IN WRITING or through our web-site to be scheduled in our monthly maintenance program. What that means is they have to DOCUMENT each issue (what, when, where, etc) and then WE schedule it at our convenience sometime during the month. I have my guy bundle up all the issue that I deem appropriate to correct and we knock them out all at once vs. running over right away to fix this or that in a "onesie, twosie" way that costs lots of time and service call charges. If the issue is a non-issue (i.e. my light bulb blew out), I respond: "Thank you for the maintenance request. Light bulbs are a consumable item that the resident is responsible to replace as needed.

Please see page 4 of the lease for more information." I have this saved in a Word document and it is quick to copy and paste into an email and change "light bulbs" to whatever the item is.

Lastly, all calls go to voice mail unless I NEED to speak to that person. 9 times out of 10 I do not. I'll usually wait 30 minutes to an hour to return the call to give me time to think about the appropriate response and to give them time to figure out a solution on their own. It's often a pleasant surprise when I return the call and they say "never mind, we figured out how to do X".