I'm wondering if anyone else has been through what I am going through, with tenants who never give you peace.

Sometimes I feel like I'm their free 24/7 complaint line. Luckily they are mostly texting, but the problem is any single thing you answer or respond to, you get 4x as much back. The conversations NEVER END.

They want to argue, complain and chit-chat about other tenants and their behavior, ask needless questions, and on. Things like, "What date was it when I first started renting? I can't remember." "I lost the deposit slips and can't find them anywhere! I don't know how I'm going to pay rent" followed by 4 more texts then "OMG, I'm so glad I did find them, whew! Thank god for that." Eight about a roach they saw, all their worries about the tenants upstairs being messy and a back and forth about using bug spray, how they can't live here with bugs they'll have to move if nothing is done, and hiring an exterminator.

I once had about 15 messages from one tenant about the city not coming to plow the street in front of the building, the one single time we had a snow all winter. Something I have no control over. I ignored them all as they piled up and finally got one huge page long apology at the end of the day after the street was finally plowed and telling me how relieved they were. Good lord!

I had one last night just push me too far, "I said ma'am, you really don't have any problems that I see. I have a lot of problems to deal with here and I am sure my day was much worse than yours, Good Night."

The next day I was presented with "I just wanted you to know what you said yesterday was extremely rude! I feel I can let you know when there are problems here, its my right as a Tenant", and so on and on and on.

Do you answer every question, say look don't contact me unless its something important? Or just straight up ignore half of them.

Does any one have any kind of SMS message filter where they can at least route all this incoming tenant crap into a folder and just deal with it once a day.

I'd like to be able to converse with friends and family without being stressed out every time I look at my mail. Thanks for any ideas.

At orientation before they move in I tell residents to email me, not text. I've trained most to do that. I instruct to only text if it's a true emergency.

You could give them a google voice # to text to and only check it at your convenience. I have mine to not ring and check it a couple times a day. I don't always answer when I see the text.But at least the phone isn't always pinging. Before I set things up this way my piece of mind was always interrupted.

Duplexer,

1. Set up Google Voice texting. We do it from a desktop with a full keyboard and spellcheck.

2. Don't respond instantly. Let them learn you are not responding right away. We hit the texts first thing in the morning then mid afternoon.

Very few need immediate response.

3. Review you New Resident Orientation. THAT is the time for questions. A poorly trained resident will drive you batty with problems.

4. Upgrade your lease. A proper lease covers everyday LL/T issues. We simply respond with a reminder "Lease line 436 states to not park on the grass "

MANY LL frustrations come from not having a strong lease to be your management guide.

5. NEVER let them see you sweat. Be professional at all times. Remember in their mind it's all about them. They are HAPPY you have problems.

We work to make ALL messages cheerful and freindly - because the written word only conveys about half your nice attitude.

And in the Millennial / IGen world of texting lighthearted is the norm.

Take a breath and don't let them get under your skin.

I have a business phone and I tell them that we monitor it by remote a couple times a day. I've heard them say what if it's an emergency? To that I tell them call 911 if there is a fire, or people lives are in jeopardy.The sticky ones are involving a neighbor or another tenant.I might send a letter telling them to please get along..if its a tenant I might intimate that if they don't, we might have to raise rents due to the fact it costs us as we have to deal with complaints and corrections.

I learned a great phrase from a small town constable, which was the only sort of police for that town. So one of his common responses were, so what you want ME to do about it!? Implying it was not his job to do much about many things. I think that phrase would work very well about complaints such as the city is not plowing my road. I tell the tenant to call the city if they want to, but why call me?

For some things, that they complain about, I might tell them that we keep track of all the service calls and complaints and since they cost money to address, and are we trying to keep your rents down for the next evaluation of what it costs to run things at your unit.

I think that seems to hit them more than anything to not make frivolous calls. However, we make it VERY clear that anything that is potentially damaging to our property must be reported or you may be responsible for fixing such damage. We might follow that information up with a "form letter" reminding of that every 6 months.

"Thank you for letting us know."

Then a short appropriate response to the matter at hand:

"We don't control the city plowing schedule but I'm sure they will be there by end of day." for instance.

Oh another thing,..I tell them BY LETTER.,that due to new rule,.(I don't say whose rules ) All complaints UNLESS AN A EMERGENCY must be summited by MAIL.

I only respond to texts or calls during business hours 7-5. I'm slowly transitioning my tenants away from calling my phone to using Buildium to message me.

Long term I think I'm just going to use another line as a work phone and shut it off at night and on the weekends.

>>TEXTING IS A VERY IMPRECISE WAY TO COMMUNICATE>>

Its also way less emotional and gives you time to think about your responses, let people cool off as well as having a record of everything they said, and you said and when. Which is vital if any lawsuits or court happens.

Suit yourself, but there is no way I am switching from texting to phone calls, or face-to-face confrontations. NO WAY.

Honestly I feel like some of these tenants especially older women..... its like they have to complain and hear from their landlord every single day. One has gone ballistic over bugs, I finally told her look ma'am if you keep your food in sealed containers and spray there is NO possible way you can have a roach problem.... they have nothing to eat but poison. She then sent 3 more texts wanting to keep the conversation going which I just ignored. I'm not going to spend the whole day arguing with a tenant.

Well that didn't work. Two days later there were 3 more phone messages, followed by a text saying "I just wanted you to know I'll be moving out at the end of this month" and "If you won't answer me about the roaches at least you can do something about the water leaks."

I then groaned and texted back, "Ma'am this is the first time you've mentioned any water leaks. I'm working at another building but I'll come over right away and take a look, OK?"

I drive all the way over there and the water leak turned out to be moisture around one of the taps, it wasn't even dripping. I said I will see if I can find some plumbers tape and this shouldn't be a problem.

However, she was sniffling and clearly had been crying heavily. I said what is the matter and she said she saw another roach under the sink, which she demanded came from the tenants upstairs, and that I hire an exterminator.

I told her ma'am once again our policy as written in the leases and texted again yesterday is we will spray anytime, and you've already sprayed but if you want to hire a private exterminator the tenants will have to arrange this themselves.

We do this because we want tenants to have a financial incentive to keep the apartments bug free.

She says OK I have someone in mind to hire snif snif but they wont let them in upstairs so what's the use. I said I will come and open the door after giving them plenty of notice, I will post it on their door, OK?

More back and forth emails after I leave. Why should I pay for all the exterminator she suddenly decides, why aren't they chipping in. I said have you even asked them? No she says, I will ask tomorrow but I know they'll say no. Go ahead and ask and let me know what she says.

I then text the other tenant and say the downstairs tenant wants to hire a private exterminator per the lease option and recommend they pitch in also, it would save money and be much more effective to do the whole building at once.

Bearing in mind I've only seen one single dead roach in the building so far.

Its maddening. I have only 5 tenants and am barely getting by with expenses, but I could not handle one more single tenant, 5 is my sanity limit. I don't get days peace without some drama. Any more and I'll be drinking bug poison

mike [CA] Oops sorry, I wasn't able to go back and edit. I see you were saying to email instead of text I just hadn't read through all the answers yet.

I may look into the email requirement in future leases. Though I don't doubt they'll consider everything an 'emergency' and worthy of texting anyway.

Right now I only have one tenant who keeps contacting me over every single thing that happens. It has gotten to the point that I finally trained her. Well, for the most part.

They pay well. She takes care of the place although her adult daughter and grandson live with her and they are slobs.

I just got to the point that I do not reply at once. Sometimes, depending on what it is I don't reply at all. I might make a note to check the situation out at a later time.

Train the ones you can, dump the ones you can't. You have to stick with the rules you created in your lease. If the upstairs people won't give you access then boot them. It is your property and those are your rules. Downstairs keeps bugging you and crying about stuff then explain what needs to happen.