The Come to Jesus Meeting

My neighbors and I just had one of the most awkward meetings ever.

Apparently the mass tenant exodus, police drama, and middle-of-the-night fire alarms culminated in the building manager being fired.

The iLume Park management company then called a “member meeting” of all of the residents to announce the changes and clear the air.

It was a shit show.

The meeting was led by the management company president / general counsel (who coincidentally reminds me a lot of Donna Shalala). She gave a short speech about how things are going to change and a brief overview of her plans.

She also pointed out that the most recent 3 a.m. fire alarm was due to some drunkards who set off the hour-long alarm by hopping a fence and intentionally tampering with the fire equipment.

Then came tirade time.

A few of my neighbors decided to publically shame the poor management company president by going off on her.

• One was pissed that there was no investigation into his $1,000 bike being stolen.
• Another was annoyed by dog urine in the stairwell.
• Another hates that some residents have 3 huge dogs despite our leases only allowing for 2.
• Then the guy who owns the 3 huge-ass dogs said that his babies were well-behaved…

…and so on.

The residents who repeatedly cut off the management president just appeared rude and crazy.

The strangest tenant gave an incoherent speech about how he was highly concerned about the building getting armed security guards in a few weeks.
“With the open-carry laws going into effect, how will we know that we aren’t going to get shot by some untrained 23-year-old when we come home drunk at night?”
The staff members politely explained that all of the security officers are highly trained and mostly ex-military. But my neighbor kept pressing the issue.

It seems like the guy knows that he is aggressive and out-of-control, and hates the idea that an armed security guard may shut him down.

My group was openly laughing at him at one point.

Also, the management company president told us that we need to form a resident association – which I’ve only heard of in the context of condominiums, not apartments. We’ll see if the most vocal complainers in the building will actually step-up to make the building better, or whether they really just enjoy the thrill of generalized bitching.

It was fascinating watching the management company president defuse my angry neighbors.

She deployed a variety of tactics – empathy, moving closer to the person and speaking to them directly, and even using her dog as a distraction. Crisis management 101!

There were however a few times where she had to hold her hand out and shut people down.

It was like watching a high school principal crack down on a classroom of out-of-control students.

This building has some issues, but it is nothing near the drama that I experienced back in Minneapolis. I think some people just aren’t cut-out for apartment living and will be miserable in any “multi-family” building.

Unfortunately, my poor building staff members have to deal with the hysterics until these people figure it out.

On a positive note, there were free burgers at the meeting.

Woop.