Saturday 8 October 2011

Parking Wars

We had a tenant that we had to evict on our first month doing this job. He arranged to have some storage units dropped off because he was going to couch surf for awhile. He asked where they should be put. I think the easiest place would be the parking spot closest to the door. This is an outdoor parking lot, with no numbers or lettering to assign parking.

No numbers. In any way. Nothing to indicate where you would park. Just want to be clear here-its a blank piece of asphalt(with a few weeds)

Anyway. It so happened that he parked his storage unit where this guy usually parked, and was told by the previous manager was 'his' spot.

So he calls all angry. To be honest, he has one of those. "even when I'm happy I sound angry" accents. I think its a result of dictatorship rule.Someone should author a study. He can't park in his spot! The world is ending.

So I ask, "well, can you park next to it?" In the blank, wide open space adjacent to the storage unit.

"That isn't my spot. This is."

Awesome. The logic runs deep in this one.

I finally talk him down from the ledge and convince him that maybe next to the storage unit would work given its 10pm and I don't give a shit.

I'm getting in my car the next day, and I hear some strange sounds coming from the rear parking lot. Its this guy, dragging some old furniture out of the covered parking.

So I yell down, "hey dude. What up?"

"Well, I can't park in my spot, so I'm going to park here."

So, just to paint a portrait here. Parking next to the offending storage unit is too easy. Instead, we'll drag the crusty furniture out, where it will become wet and crusty furniture and you will now take that spot, which just so happens to be destined to become MY parking spot.

So i tell him no. Put the furniture back where it was, and I tell him I don't care what his issue is, he can park next to the box, or on the street.

And I can feel it coming. I see it before he thinks it. It's getting closer. And he says it.

"you know, you don't care about my issue because I'm black."

And for a second, I actually pause to consider the professionalism of my response, but its too late. My mouth has opened:

"dude, its not that I don't like you because you are black. I don't like you because you are a prick."

First month on the job, and I've already opened myself up to be fired. Or promoted as it turns out. My employers get my sense of humour. The conversation kind of ends on that bombshell.

Then on christmas eve, he decides to steal someone else's parking spot. Dinosaur had to go and mediate that one at 11pm.

Then, after the storage unit went away, several others parked their cars in his spot, and he took to blocking them in. Once, at 2 in the morning, we had an all out fight in the lobby, involving me calling tow trucks, to which he sat in his car and played chicken. Another time, he had blocked another girl in and at 7 in the morning I had to fight with him to get him to move the car.

Finally, I ended up filing for eviction, but managed to break him enough to finally understand the issue and then he moved. My file to support the eviction was thick by the time we were done with him.

It actually worked, that after coming very close to kicking him out, we managed to become 'friendly'.

Besides, this wasn't the only problem we inherited from the previous manager...

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