So, as part of my job, I have to make sure that when people move out of their apartments, they clean up after themselves. Typically, it's not so bad. People want their damage deposit back, and they know that I'm a bit of a hard ass, so they do a decent job of making sure that the scuffs on the walls and the skrim in the tub gets cleaned off.
Sometimes, however, I run across some son of a bitch who thinks that using their foot to push a bunch of shit into the corner of the living room is a suitable excuse for cleaning up.
Such was the case today.
It's the last of the month. I have people moving in tomorrow. I already spent about 4 hours today cleaning up after people who had already 'cleaned' their apartment before they left. They don't realise that there's a floor under their fridge, that there's dust on the mantle, that if you're a bastard, and smoke like a fucking chimney in your apartment, every fucking surface will be coated in a yellow scum.
They take off, thinking, "Yeah, that deposit can just be mailed to my new address, this one's in the bag." Nope. I got news for you. If I don't say your place is spotless, you don't get your deposit back. If you don't spend several hours making sure your apartment is in the exact same condition it was when you got it, which, for many of my tenants, is brand fucking new, because we had our building renovated, then don't expect that cheque in the mail.
So late this evening, I had a guy from downstairs hire someone to come do his cleaning for him. "Great," I thought, "this will make my job easy." Wrong. After this clown was done 'cleaning', I realised that the walls were damaged, the floors were dirty, none of the drawers had been wiped out, and there was an unknown, sticky film on most everything. I'm having a couple move into that apartment tomorrow morning at ten o'clock at the latest. What the fuck am I supposed to tell them? "Oh, sorry about your fucked up walls. Sorry about all the dirt and shit in your new home. Welcome to the building." Fuck.
So now I have to wake up at, like, seven o'clock tomorrow so I can try to get at least some semblance of cleanliness into this apartment. But there's only so much I'll be able to do; the walls need replacing (and they're feature walls, too, not just some cheap plaster shit). Some blinds are totally wrecked, I'll need to get those replaced.It's exactly the last thing I want to have to do. Not because it's a bitch to clean. I don't mind the cleaning part, I'll blast some music and sweat buckets, but I'm a fucking champ and I'll get it done. No, what bothers me is that people have a duty, as tenants, to respect both the property, and their caretaker. Don't leave the job in the hands of some incompetent asshole who will sell you up shit creek.
Poor people moving into that place are going to have a lot of shit to deal with right off the bat, and that's just plain unfair.
