Tenants: Why You Should (Almost) Never Call Your Property Manager

Well… almost never.

When something goes wrong in your rental—dripping faucet, weird noise from the AC, strange charge on your ledger—your first instinct is probably to grab the phone and call the office. That feels fast, direct, and personal. In property management, it’s usually the slowest, riskiest, and most frustrating way to get things handled.

Here’s the unglamorous truth from the other side of the desk:

We are juggling a ridiculous number of balls at any given moment—owners, vendors, emergencies, showings, applicants, walk-ins, and yes, a constant stream of phone calls. Even the most organized manager or assistant is still human. When the phone rings, we’re often:

• Standing in an empty unit with a contractor
• On hold with the water department
• Helping two people at the front desk
• Trying to finish payroll before the bank closes

We want to help you—we really do—but a verbal request made in the middle of that chaos is the most likely thing to get dropped, misremembered, or never entered into the system at all.

Real-life example I’ve seen a hundred times:

Tenant calls about a running toilet. The person who answers the phone scribbles “123 Main St – toilet running” on a sticky note while three other lines are blinking. They promise “someone will be out soon.” That sticky note gets buried under rent checks, or the person who took the call leaves for the day, or the maintenance coordinator never sees it. Two weeks later the tenant calls back furious because their water bill is sky-high and “nobody ever came.” Now we’re all frustrated, and nobody can prove who said what to whom.

There is a much better way—and it protects both of us.

Always Put It in Writing (Yes, Always)

Every single request—maintenance, questions about charges, notice to vacate, request to add a pet, complaint about a neighbor, anything—should be submitted in writing. Email is golden. The tenant portal is even better. Text messages are usually okay (as long as they go to the official office number or your assigned manager).

Why this works so well:

• It lands in our system when we actually have time to read and process it properly
• It creates a timestamped paper trail (critical if there’s ever a dispute or a question of who-knew-what-when)
• We can forward it directly to the right person (maintenance coordinator, accounting, owner) without anything getting lost in translation
• You get to explain the issue clearly and completely instead of trying to shout over kids/dogs/traffic while we’re distracted

Get Results Fast

1. Use your portal to submit maintenance or send a message.

2. Follow up with an email if to your manager if it's "urgent", but not an emergency (True emergencies should be a call to the main office).

3. Be patient and if you don't receive a follow up email or call in a reasonable amount of time, call the office. 



The Very Few Times It’s Okay to Call

• True emergencies: fire, major flood, no heat in winter, security issue, smell of gas
• You’ve submitted something in writing and it’s been ignored for way too long (and even then, follow up the call with an email summarizing the conversation)

Everything else? Email. Portal. Text. Writing.

Bonus Tips from a Former “Phone Answerer”

1. Use the tenant portal—it’s literally designed for this.
2. Include your full address in every single email (we manage hundreds of properties—help us help you faster).
3. Attach photos. A picture of the leak or the broken blinds is worth a thousand words.
4. Still call if you want—we’ll answer!—but immediately follow up with an email that says “Per our phone call just now…” That single step saves everyone headaches later.

Do this one simple thing—put it in writing—and you’ll get faster responses, fewer mistakes, and rock-solid documentation if anything ever goes sideways.

We’re on the same team here. Help us help you the right way, and we’ll both be a lot happier.

(And yes… if it’s actually on fire, please call.)