Policies and Procedures do WORK
Like many landlords and property managers, I require that repair and maintenance requests be presented in writing....e-mail is preferable; however, where emergencies are concerned * FIRE * FLOOD * BLOOD * I'll take an emergency phone call or voicemail message with a call back phone number.
Over the weekend a resident (single man who indicated he had been a homeowner in the not to distant past) called me Sunday afternoon saying he did not have hot water. Now our 20+ page Resident Handbook provided to him when he moved into the property in July advises on how to reset GRIs, as well as check breakers (all the way OFF and then switch to ON). I requested that he check the breaker and e-mail me the specifics of the situation...he continued to call me and leave voicemail messages Sunday night and I finally received a short e-mail from him on Monday morning.
I had our repairman check the hot water heater on Monday only to find the electrical breaker was off...once it was turned on, the thermostat was reset and within 20 minutes, the resident had hot water .
The resident then e-mailed me that he had tried the breaker and thermostat reset procedure on Sunday which he neglected to advise me of in his Monday morning e-mail or his Sunday voicemail messages. On Tuesday, our repairman replaced the elements and thermostat and the hot water is back on. While this second repair was being accomplished, my husband was at the property. The resident started commenting on my non-responsiveness to his Sunday phone call and his numerous voicemail messages. My husband was amused.
When my husband advised me of these comments, I knew my procedures as outlined in our Resident Handbook were working by enabling me to be more responsive to my residents and client owners. Had this "resident" followed the instructions in the Resident Handbook on reporting maintenance requests via e-mail and to fully describe the problem, the situation would have been handled prior to his arrival home from work on Monday. However, since he called on the weekend, did not provide a full description of the problem or his attempts to correct the situation, he was without hot water for 24 hours longer than necessary.
