I'm in the midst of the moving game. That's where you find yourself frustratingly playing games with both your current landlord and your soon-to-be new landlord. Not surprisingly, they each have their separate but similar goals...to fuck around with you simply because they can.
Let's get you up to speed. As you know I decided not to renew my lease here at the NOT luxurious Bellagio. After a grueling day of munching on reality pie I found it rare to find a decent new apartment in my acceptable price range but I finally settled on one that was...okay. Now the thing about this new place isn't so much the amenities and physical appearance of the apartment. I have yet to see those, even though we've been going through the pre-lease process now for almost three weeks. It's the behavior of the staff there. Amazingly, it reminds me exactly of the shady-ish staff here. Is there a college course in apartment leasing management that teaches people how to be this, well, weird?
You know about Alex (aka "Stretch") the maintenance guy here at Bellagio who during a repair visit rubbed out incriminating evidence of poor maintenance as he's vowing he's all about doing a good job for the tenants.
Then there's Miriam, the lady in the office. She's not the original one who I signed my first lease with but she's the one I signed the second with. Is she the manager? On the web site it seems to indicate that position belongs to a guy named Will who I've seen through the glass wall in his office but never met. Well this chick was the one who sat there and poorly tried to justify the retroactive billing of yet another dubious fee which the leasing company somehow "forgot" to bill us for over the previous year. She didn't have her rebuttal script rehearsed very well and was ill-informed as to what the fee was for and why I shouldn't be upset over it.
Let's not forget Edwin. Though he seems so nice and our mutual gaydars should set off some unspoken "family stick together" bond so I can get special treatment, especially as a respected Elder Gay, I get the sense he's been screwed over for a promotion in his job. A couple years ago, he was acting as the de facto manager before Miriam and Will showed up. He pranced around the property with his little chihuahua and made sure everyone received a queenly wave. Well, maybe he wasn't that obvious but it felt good having a visible, approachable management team member around.
The soon-to-be new place, Landmark at Woodland Trace reminds me of Park Central a little, Though I'll see the place tomorrow, my unit should be very much like the apartment I had at that complex so many years ago. It'll be, believe it or not, my first solo full one-bedroom apartment since 2002. (All Koyo dwellings have either been studios, shared, boarding rooms, or just a temporarily available mattress or couch.) With vaulted ceilings, updated cabinets, and an in-unit washer and dryer, it really will be like my pre-Koyo life. Or so I hope.
The staff at the new place have been a bit flaky and I've caught them several times already "forgetting" concessions or discounts promised. They have a funky system insulating them from calls too. I swear, it seems like if they don't have your phone number "approved" your call to them automatically goes to an off-site call center where the rep implies they're in the leasing office and the manager is "not available right now but they can take a message and have her get back to you" sounding like a well-repeated script. Very shady. The reviews online for this place are almost as bad as the reviews for Bellagio. Well, almost. They have a 38% approval rating. Bellagio's is 9%.
Well Daniel, the twink "family" leasing rep at Landmark who's been handling me of late just called back, and within an hour of me calling him so I guess that's a good sign. The apartment is ready for my walk-through later this afternoon. I told him I'd be able to come by tomorrow. Oh, but he surely doesn't neglect in informing me that the lease will be forwarded over to me for me to sign. Oh yea, he wants me to sign it first before even seeing the unit. Ugh. Doesn't he know us Elder Gays are too smart for that?
Plus, I'm a freakin' dinosaur, I want to sign my name in real ink on real paper. The way we used to do it over a decade ago. Back in the stone age.
Let's get you up to speed. As you know I decided not to renew my lease here at the NOT luxurious Bellagio. After a grueling day of munching on reality pie I found it rare to find a decent new apartment in my acceptable price range but I finally settled on one that was...okay. Now the thing about this new place isn't so much the amenities and physical appearance of the apartment. I have yet to see those, even though we've been going through the pre-lease process now for almost three weeks. It's the behavior of the staff there. Amazingly, it reminds me exactly of the shady-ish staff here. Is there a college course in apartment leasing management that teaches people how to be this, well, weird?
You know about Alex (aka "Stretch") the maintenance guy here at Bellagio who during a repair visit rubbed out incriminating evidence of poor maintenance as he's vowing he's all about doing a good job for the tenants.
Then there's Miriam, the lady in the office. She's not the original one who I signed my first lease with but she's the one I signed the second with. Is she the manager? On the web site it seems to indicate that position belongs to a guy named Will who I've seen through the glass wall in his office but never met. Well this chick was the one who sat there and poorly tried to justify the retroactive billing of yet another dubious fee which the leasing company somehow "forgot" to bill us for over the previous year. She didn't have her rebuttal script rehearsed very well and was ill-informed as to what the fee was for and why I shouldn't be upset over it.
Let's not forget Edwin. Though he seems so nice and our mutual gaydars should set off some unspoken "family stick together" bond so I can get special treatment, especially as a respected Elder Gay, I get the sense he's been screwed over for a promotion in his job. A couple years ago, he was acting as the de facto manager before Miriam and Will showed up. He pranced around the property with his little chihuahua and made sure everyone received a queenly wave. Well, maybe he wasn't that obvious but it felt good having a visible, approachable management team member around.
The soon-to-be new place, Landmark at Woodland Trace reminds me of Park Central a little, Though I'll see the place tomorrow, my unit should be very much like the apartment I had at that complex so many years ago. It'll be, believe it or not, my first solo full one-bedroom apartment since 2002. (All Koyo dwellings have either been studios, shared, boarding rooms, or just a temporarily available mattress or couch.) With vaulted ceilings, updated cabinets, and an in-unit washer and dryer, it really will be like my pre-Koyo life. Or so I hope.
The staff at the new place have been a bit flaky and I've caught them several times already "forgetting" concessions or discounts promised. They have a funky system insulating them from calls too. I swear, it seems like if they don't have your phone number "approved" your call to them automatically goes to an off-site call center where the rep implies they're in the leasing office and the manager is "not available right now but they can take a message and have her get back to you" sounding like a well-repeated script. Very shady. The reviews online for this place are almost as bad as the reviews for Bellagio. Well, almost. They have a 38% approval rating. Bellagio's is 9%.
Well Daniel, the twink "family" leasing rep at Landmark who's been handling me of late just called back, and within an hour of me calling him so I guess that's a good sign. The apartment is ready for my walk-through later this afternoon. I told him I'd be able to come by tomorrow. Oh, but he surely doesn't neglect in informing me that the lease will be forwarded over to me for me to sign. Oh yea, he wants me to sign it first before even seeing the unit. Ugh. Doesn't he know us Elder Gays are too smart for that?
Plus, I'm a freakin' dinosaur, I want to sign my name in real ink on real paper. The way we used to do it over a decade ago. Back in the stone age.