Moving Day

Eric and I planned on moving back to Orem on August 25th. And it wouldn't be a day too soon. We are tired of our men's student housing!!!

Last Wednesday, I received an email from our complexes management reminding us that we hadn't signed up for a cleaning check. I HATE cleaning checks! The email says to call and schedule an appointment for Thursday, which is the day after we are supposed to move out this week.

So I call and say that I need to set up a cleaning check, and they say okay what time tomorrow?

Me: Tomorrow? Why would I do a cleaning check a week before we check out?

Mngmnt Girl: It's not a week before you check out, you check out tomorrow.

Me: What?! I specifically called you two weeks ago to double check what day we move out and whoever I talked to said August 25th.

Mngmnt Girl: Oh, I'm sorry. That was probably me. I'm pretty new here.

Me: Okay... so if you said that, you understand that we are not ready to move out yet?

Mngmnt Girl: Hold on let me ask... ... ... ok I just talked to the manager and she said we dropped off a checkout list at your door the other day and the date was on that, so you're still responsible.

Me: Really? I didn't even look at it yet, because why would I look at it two weeks before I have to start cleaning?!

Mngmnt Girl: So you haven't even started cleaning yet?

Hahaha I won't bother finishing out the conversation, it's not worth it, but I was frustrated. I called Eric and explained casually that we had to move out the next day, not a week later. He took over from there.

For those of you unfamilar with BYU Housing, let me explain. These people probably overworked and underpaid, but they also treat you like a criminal, a delinquent, like you are out to get them no matter what the issue is. And the student never wins. EVER. So this wasn't just for us, this was for every BYU student that has ever lived in and overpaid for BYU Housing.

Eric called and rehashed the situation with mngmnt girl. The manager wouldn't get on the phone with him, becuase she "wasn't there" ... but she said there was nothing they could do. So Eric asked the girl to have the manager call him when she got back. Then he talked to his Dad, which got him really riled up. He was sure that we would stay or get evicted and stay for 30 days, that they couldn't scare us into moving. He was on his way to the property management building when the manager called him.

(Abridged version of the conversation)

Eric: Let's just get this figured out...

Manager: There's nothing to figure out. You guys have to be out tomorrow.

Eric: Listen, there's two ways we can handle this. You can have either one frustrated person to deal with right now and we can figure it out since it's your guys' mistake, or you can have a group of angry people on Friday that think they are moving in to our apartment and we still live there.

Manager: I'm not dealing with this!

and she hangs up the phone. Hangs up on Eric, can you believe it?! Little did she know, he was already driving to her office so he was about 30 seconds away from confronting her in person. He walked in, and she was on the phone telling someone about the convo she just had, and she was laughing at us.

Manager: he was so mad and he demanded that we let them stay until Saturday, hahahah he called me a (b word), blah blah blah.

Eric: No, I didn't.

Manager: (as if she has seen a ghost)... let me call you back.

Are you Eric?

Eric: Darn straight, I am. I don't understand why you are lying.

Because she was; Eric never swore at her, and never demanded that we could stay until Saturday (which was validated by the other girl we spoke on the phone with). Eric handled it so well, he just said, ok let's figure out how to fix this. She kept apologizing. Finally, he got half our rent for August back so that we could make up for the early pro rate in our new place. Plus we were ready to get outta there anyway.

I cannot describe to you the pleasure that comes from justice! If Eric hadn't walked on on that woman lying about her conversation with Eric, we wouldn't have had the leverage to negotiate. And most students don't know how to fight it, or have the time. So they lose their deposits, they get bullied into moving out early, or paying a full months rent when your only there half the month. But not this time, not today.

Victory is Ours.