An Inspection Gone Awry

Tenant from Hades

It was supposed to be a simple inspection. I’ve been a Realtor for decades and am conscientious with people's property. I coordinated all of the necessary inspections on a four-plex for a three-hour window today so we only had to disturb the tenants once.

One of the tenants is a semi-hoarder and there were papers and trash everywhere. The bedroom floor was covered in clothes, blankets, stuffed animals, and shoes. The Inspector wanted to inspect the crawl space and the only access was through the closet floor in this man’s apartment.

The sewer scope company could only access the line through the closet entry because there wasn’t an outside clean out and I didn’t want them to remove the toilet.  I looked at the closet piled with shoes and tried to figure out an alternative, but unfortunately there wasn’t one. I should have taken a picture right then.

Before long, the bedroom floor was covered with more shoes, the roto-rooter company had their video, and the inspector had finished what he needed. When it came time to close up shop, I asked them both if either of them knew which shoes went back in the closet and which had been on the floor. Claiming ignorance, they put them back as close as what they could remember and left it in better shape than it had been when we got there. 

I received an irate call this afternoon from the tenant about the absolute destruction we caused in his apartment, and he wanted me to come over and arrange his shoes in neat rows the way they had been before (trust me, they weren't). After a fifteen-minute tirade, I told him I would bring my husband and come and arrange his shoes, but I probably couldn’t do a good enough job to satisfy him. As an alternative I offered to provide him a $25 gift certificate to the restaurant or store of his choice, or even cash.

He called the Seller (I represent the Buyer), and the Listing Agent (a good friend who knows me well), and told them both that I was being totally unresponsive and wouldn’t do anything for him! I called him and said I would be over with my husband in half an hour to rearrange his shoes, and he said it has to be tomorrow.

He sent me this note: I have an idea: Rather than inconvenience you and your husband, how about for a $50 USA gift card we call it even? Please advise and thank you.

Smells like blackmail to me. I think my initial offer for a 15 minute job for $25 is fair (that's $100 an hour). When I didn't immediately respond, he sent me another text that said he would report me to DORA, our local board of Realtors, and the police if I didn't send him the $50 gift certificate tomorrow. (Yeah, call the police and tell them someone who was authorizied to be in your apartment rearranged your shoes. I'm sure they'll rush right over.) What would YOU do? (Besides take a picture of the closet before any shoes had been taken out? J ) PS - I ended up sending him the gift cert, even though it rankled me to do so. As our lawyer always said, Just write the check. It's so much cheaper in the end.

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