Aftermath, and the return of the mystery caller
Going back to the building I met each tenant one-by-one and broke the news to them. They were shocked. "After all of that work, dealing with the city?" There were many tears, and a bunch of them hugged me so tightly I had to tell them I couldn't breathe! What awesome people they were! After I told them she was replacing me, one of the guys who had lived in her building, warned them that she was a female Hitler who'd steal anything of value. A number of tenants gave notice to move out, and did so that very day.
Later on that evening my office phone rang. It was the same man who'd called me on my first day as the manager to warn me about her. I had to admit he was right, but he wasn't boastful at all. He didn't know me personally, but he knew of me and my honorable reputation.
He said: "You're a good man, and you don't deserve this." I asked if he wanted to reveal his identity, but he had a relationship with the owner and his family and didn't want to risk it. He seemed to know everything that went on with the company, so we surmised that he was either a vendor, employee, AA group member, or even a family member. We had a long conversation that night and I thanked him for the warning. To this day, I've never found out who he is...
The next day, I walked the insurance guy through my immaculate building, and he praised me for all the work I'd done turning the place around. The new manager came in with her friends and began screaming and threatening the residents to the point where a dangerous situation developed, where I had to get in-between her and them.
The owner told me she was on probation for six months, and if she couldn't maintain my standards, he'd fire her and give me my building back. I knew she couldn't and she didn't, with the thefts starting on her very first day as the manager. She'd enter a unit when the guy was out or in the bathroom, take things of value, leave the door open or give the key to a minion who'd steal at her direction.
With the owner saying he had only thirty days to live, I asked who was going to enforce this six-month probation she was under after he passed? He said the family would do it, and five months later, he was still alive. By then I'd warned him that she was robbing tenants and renting out units while reporting them as empty. He finally came to check things out after a fire almost burned the building down. She was out of state in her native NY getting more drugs to sell back here, so I had to evacuate the building and put the fire out myself.
The offer – 12 noon
This caused the fire chief to visit the owner and tell him he made a huge mistake replacing me with her. So the owner finally visited the building and performed an audit, while polling the residents about who was the better manager. I won with 97% of the vote, and after finding out she was indeed stealing from him, he offered me my building back, and said he would have a showdown, and fire her. He was heading back to the hospital as his cancer had spread from his crotch, all the way up to his lungs and had entered his brain...
I had a bad feeling and a forewarning that he wasn't going to make it, saying: "If you're going to fire her, please do it now, I feel if you walk into that hospital, you won't walk out." However, he was a fiery red-haired Irishman, and relished the thought of confronting her in front of me, his son and employees, and had this grand showdown set for Friday June 13th.
In the hospital for two days, he called me. He sounded good and assured me that he was only having a routine checkup. I again asked him to fire her now, or at least tell his family he was planning to, as only he and I knew what his plans were. But he wanted to surprise her with a shock termination on that day of ill omen.
He'd meet me at the building the next day at high noon. After hanging up, I said a prayer for him that evening as the building was in misery due to her reign of terror. The place that I'd turned over to her clean and spotless, now looked like a garbage dump with trash everywhere.
My best tenant was a Latino guy, and she hated him because he was gay. He came to me in tears that day saying he was moving out due to constant threats and harassment from her. But I asked him to pay his rent one more time, without telling anybody about the plans the owner had for her scheduled to take place the very next day.
At 10:30 AM on Friday the 13th, I sat in the community room watching the clock. No one knew what I was waiting for. All I needed to hear was the sound of his black pickup entering the gravel parking lot out back. 11:00, 11:30, 11:45. Remaining calm, I took a deep breath and thought of the positive changes that would happen once I was restored as the manager again.
Gone would be the constant fear on the part of the good tenants. The thefts would stop, the screaming and threats to decent elderly men would finally end. The "loss" of rent where she claimed she never got their payments, forcing them to pay rent (in cash) a second or even third time, would come to a screeching halt. Peace would return to my building, and the sense of joy and camadre we all had would infuse the place like before. At 12 Noon, this waking nightmare would be over...
11:50 – 11:55 AM. I knew if he was going to make it, he'd likely arrive during that 5-minute span, as he was always very punctual. I so wanted to be wrong about that feeling of doom I had just a few days earlier before the owner went into the hospital. My intuition had saved me so many times in the past. That inner compass had gently nudged me to alter decisions which turned out to be right many more times than they were wrong. But if I ever wanted to be proven wrong, now would be the time. I just needed him to walk through that back door...
11:55 AM. I hear the familiar sound of a rumbling pickup entering the parking lot out back. The timing is perfect, "remain calm" I tell myself, knowing that some of the tenants have trucks as well. The rear kitchen door opens and I lean slightly over expecting to see the tall figure with the shock of red hair and the booming voice call out to me. But no, it was one of the residents who also had a pickup truck taking his lunch break.
12 Noon. Came and went. By quarter after, I thought something might be wrong. By 12:30 PM, I knew something had happened, as he would have called me if he was running late. I waited till 1, then left for the day hoping everything was OK. Later, I'd find out from his son what had happened to him.
Crossing over
The owner was in the hospital. Always a boisterous man, he'd been warned by his doctors to stay calm, as getting excited could cause sudden problems. Unable to do so, he picked up the phone and called his son ordering him to come "get me out of this fucking hospital!" He knew that with every minute he was sitting there, she was stealing from him, and he wanted to put a stop to it.
It was around 10:30 AM when he had this conversation, and as the son told me, the sudden screaming on the part of the owner caused an aneurysm in his brain. A blood vessel burst, then he fell silent and never spoke again. He died while I was sitting there in the community room waiting to change the lives of the residents, on Friday the 13th.
They told me that if it hadn't happened there in the hospital, It would have likely happened in the office when he confronted her about the thefts and terminated her.
The sad thing is that beside his untimely death, he never told anyone in his family that he planned to fire her and rehire me after he found out she was stealing. Meeting with the young son just out of his teens, I told him that, but he didn't believe me. Thus, she remained the manager for several more years, kicking out anyone who said anything positive about my time running the building.
Looting from the living
Each year, I'd meet with the office to give an update on how she was still stealing from the company, only to be rebuffed. Things changed in the third year after the owners passing. Turned out she'd terrorized so many tenants that the buildings were half-empty, no one wanted to live under her, and even state and county parole stopped sending people to the buildings she ran.
This finally triggered an investigation by the family, where they discovered she'd been renting out units, taking payments in cash (against our policy) and pocketing it. Thousands of dollars went missing each week, and they were only going to fire her, until I demanded that the son press charges against her as a warning to others, and as a from of justice for me and the other managers who'd been unjustly fired based on her false rumors.
They looked at her numbers for just one month and found $3000 of diverted rent. Multiply that by the three years...
Everyone expected me to be named manager of my building again, but she had been so worried about me being restored, that she'd filled the sons head with fake stories of me being some kind of ex-con, that he decided to run the buildings himself.
Later on that year, I went to Germany, and the son was replaced by the family as they found that he too was embezzling rent money to feed his own addiction. While he was in jail, another kid was appointed manager who setup a resident to break into my unit while I was living overseas (and paying for my unit here).
He lied to all of the residents and told them that I had died, and had everything I owned sold from tables in front of the building. They were being inspected again while I was away, and had failed two city inspections in a row, with the last one occurring just a few days prior to my return. Street gangs had infesting the building threatening violence, while demanding weekly protection money from the residents, and the kid manager was fired a few months after my return.
Right before the next visit from the city, I offered my services as the manager once again, as I was the only one who'd passed my inspection the first time around. They declined, saying they were selling the property, and offered it to me at full price. No dummy, I realized they were dumping a lemon onto me where I'd have to not only buy it from them, but would also be on the hook for the renovations necessary to placate the city. It was placed on the market, but due to its reputation, no one wanted to buy it.
After failing their third consecutive inspection, the city ordered everyone out and closed the structure, forcing all into another building while needed repairs were made. This would never have happened under me, and the new druggie kid manager was let go soon after.
Several properties were raided by the state and the feds as the local police were afraid to visit them in small numbers. Human trafficking and child prostitution was found along with several different gangs fighting each other for control of them.
The son was in jail on a parole violation and I offered my services to clean things up. But the office said they were selling the buildings as the city was threatening to shut them down. So I never went back, and had to watch as the ATF, FBI etc. staged a convoy at my campus to raid some of the buildings, with helicopters swarming overhead. It was crazy.
The return
Now you'd think this is the part of the story where I tell you that the family did the right thing, restored me as the manager, and we all lived happily ever after.
But read on...
The female former manager was facing jail, but through her pastor, begged the family to forgive her and let her pay restitution. After all, she was a poor christian woman who went to church every Sunday and praised God. She'd had some quick counseling, and was now totally cured of her decades-lomg drug addiction.
After many tearful phone calls pleading with the sweet widow and son asking: "Would they give her another chance to prove she'd changed?" With her crooked pastor assuring them she was in fact, a brand-new woman, They did so.
She was ordered to pay something like $2,700 back, even though she'd taken more than 10 times that, and all charges were dropped. unbelievably, she was rehired as the manager of two of the buildings once again...
Not me, or any of the other good managers. her...
The son is out of jail now, and thinks its hilarious that she screams at the tenants. He's young, and likes to watch her humiliate and degrade them, which is why he rehired her.
And last I heard, she was still the manager and continuing to steal from the company as usual. Because she was close to the owner, she has the ear of the mother and son, and easily manipulates them.
None of the innocent managers (including me), have been restored to their jobs. The only thing we can do is hope that the family one day comes to their senses. The properties lie mostly empty, as no one wants to live under her. She's destroyed everything the owner built, and is a perfect example of how a remorseless psychopath can run out your best people and ruin your business.
No matter what field you're in, it's important to remain vigilant in the face of these very charming impostors. They will cut a swath of destruction through everything you own. Remember; they have no remorse, no feelings of guilt or shame. They lack the complex emotions of a normal human being. Hire them at your own risk.
Have you run into a person like this in a professional or personal relationship? Please share in a comment below.
If you liked this article, please upvote and reblog, thanks!
Please check out my recent posts:
Image credit: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7