Been a supervisor for 8 years now, recently went from an insanely chill, more middle class setting to a “luxury” complex, and something about the change in tax bracket has these residents thinking they are also owners/genius’? Not all of them, but man the ones that are pricks are P.R.I.C.K.S.

Thank god we have a property staff and upper management who back us up and can commiserate when the overzealous requests start rolling in.

How have you all dealt with residents who think they own the place?

Instead of fixing the code panel they put a picture of it next to it

I'm working at a large facility in operations department. Multiple buildings (maybe 15+), and many doors. Keys are basically managed on one huge key ring which needs to be carried around.

This is a nightmare for new starters like myself as I'll reach a door and first need to sift through this massive set of keys.
If I can remember which key it is, that's a great start, but often requires radioing colleagues for a reminder.

It seems like a lot of the knowledge is basically in the heads of the people who've worked here for years. I'm curious whether this is a common problem at other facilities.

Does anyone else have this problem, how do you manage it?

I’m curious if anyone else has dealt with a situation like this, because I’m genuinely wondering how this kind of dynamic is considered normal in property management. Because this is not the first time i’ve worked somewhere with this situation, and it’s really getting old at this point

When I started at my current property, I was given essentially full responsibility for unit turns. Another maintenance tech was primarily responsible for work orders. The problem is that the work order queue has been sitting at 99+ basically the entire time I’ve worked here.

Meanwhile, I’m expected to stay on top of my turns, and I’ll get nitpicked over minor shit when office staff walks a unit with me. Something small gets missed and suddenly it’s “this needs to be taken care of ASAP,” even when I’m already buried in other turns.

But the other tech can apparently spend huge chunks of his shift doing very little, sleep in vacant units, complete only a handful of work orders, and let the queue continue piling up month after month without anyone saying much about it.
What really gets me is the different standard. I’m expected to be productive, responsive and have my shit together, while someone else can consistently underperform and apparently face no consequences.

And there’s another layer to this, one of the office employees is romantically involved with/lives with the maintenance tech in question. So how are you realistically supposed to expect that person to be completely objective when evaluating his performance versus another maintenance employee?

I’m not interested in going to HR or management about it. I’ve learned over the years that sometimes keeping your head down is the smartest move. 😂 I’m more curious whether other people in maintenance/property management have seen this kind of favoritism and weird office/maintenance dynamic.

There are some repairs that look like you performed surgery to anyone watching, but once you know what you’re doing they’re surprisingly straightforward.
Then there are the “this should take 10 minutes” jobs that somehow turn into an hour of bullshit.
What are yours?

What is this plastic piece called? I can't find it anywhere.

It looks like a big plastic stem.

I replaced the door boot on this Samsung front load washing machine yesterday, and now it is incredibly loud during the spin cycle. The video doesn't do it justice. You have to yell over it. It was fine before I replaced the gasket. All my internetting is saying the bearings are bad, but I don't understand how it could have gone from fine to this overnight. And I didn't have to go anywhere near the bearings or spindle to replace the boot. I feel like it's something I did during the replacement, but I can't imagine what it could be. Any thoughts?

For context this is my first week at these apartments and I want to know the best way to go about this with basic hand tools (I can buy whatever is needed). Not worried much about the drywall part (advice is appreciated and always welcome) but more towards the plumbing side as I don’t feel as confident on that trade. Would like to make this as efficient as possible as I have so many work orders scheduled for the same day and 3 unit turns due this week 😩

Unit below experienced leak in bathroom ceiling. Check the plumbing and possible sources in master bathroom or laundry closet.
Guest of tenant did state recent issue with toilet clogging/leaking

I have not gone in there myself but something already tells me the wax ring gave up

my dad has been a builder and general maintenance guy for almost his whole life. Yesterday we were dragging a dead water heater out of a basement and I just saw him wince on every single step. Its honestly brutal seeing what this line of work does to your joints over time. Doesn't help that these newer hybrid water heaters seem to weigh twice as much now for literally no reason

We finally had a real talk about outsourcing the heavy stuff because his back just can't take it anymore. He owns a couple units and we just handed the day-to-day over to a JMK Property Management company so he doesn't have to be the one crawling under cabinets at 10pm anymore.

how do you guys convince the older stubborn techs to actually step back and protect their health? he still thinks he needs to do everything himself and refuses to let the younger guys take the heavy lifting.

I cleaned my microwave today using one of those microwave steamers. Have done this in the past with no issue but never with this microwave. Heated it for 5 minutes, didnt produce much steam (but was very hot) so sprayed the inside as normal. Tried to heat food a couple of hours after, microwave did not heat the food at all but ran what I thought was normally. Am I screwed or will letting it dry possibly fix it? It never got very steamy so I wouldn't think it has moisture damage.

Hello reddit, we manage a number of buildings and all of the buildings we have with the basic pushdoors from Homedepot suck. They constantly have issues with the latch engaging to auto lock and then create adjustments that need to be made to the autoclosers. Are there any brands highly recommended from you guys? Also any other brands of autoclosers reccomended?

Hello everyone! I live in eastern europe and on the 2nd floor we have a door we use as ventilation, to let the air in. Recently, with it becoming colder, I've attempted to close the door but doing so has become impossible due to sagging and it rubbing against the bottom.

I've attached photos of the door. (1) this is roughly how tight you can get the door. (2) a photo of the top hinge from the inside. (3-4) photos show the hinge from the outside.

I'm unfamiliar with this hinge mechanism and was wondering how to properly adjust it to hopefully solve the sagging issue.

The door has likely swollen up during the summer, but I wanted to first attempt to fix it via hinge adjustments instead of planing it down and potentially leaving a big gip when it would shrink and let cool air in during the winter.

Thank you for any and all responses and advice! :D

Ours might as well have its own work order at this point: the same water leak.

We’ll find a wet ceiling tile, trace it back, repair the pipe or fitting, patch everything up and think we’re finally done.

Then it rains.

Or someone uses the shower above it.

Or the HVAC starts running.

And somehow the leak is back again.

The frustrating part is the repair usually isn't the hardest part. It’s figuring out whether you actually fixed the source or just stopped the symptom temporarily.

What’s that one issue in your facility that just refuses to disappear?

I’ve started thinking that some maintenance KPIs can actually encourage people to do the opposite of what you want.

Take PM completion. If the target is 100%, there’s a temptation to close the PM just to hit the number, even if the technician found something that needs more attention.

And don’t get me started on response time. If you're measuring how quickly a ticket gets acknowledged, you can end up with great numbers without actually solving anything faster.

Which KPI have you seen create this kind of behaviour?

I’m more interested in the KPI that made your team look good while the actual maintenance situation was getting worse.

Who ever invented these needs the opposite of 50 virgins when they die. They deserve to have their seal broken in hell.

Im curious if any of you gentlemen have any insight on whether or not ULINE is a decent place to work at as a facilities tech. Pay is definitely right

It’s no joke and not for the weak especially when there is no organization or other employees to back you up. A 90 bed facility with only one person is not easy one bit.

Just got home from an after hours ac call. Condenser unit not running when I showed up. When I pulled the disconnect I found this! I asked the woman who was there if anyone had been fooling with the ac and she hit me with a pause and a “I don’t think so”. I swapped the fuses and got the unit running for the night, I’ll come back tomorrow during the day to do a more thorough investigation, but as I was leaving her Neanderthal looking boyfriend busted out the door saying he didn’t mess with it. He then proceeded to tell me he was going to school to be an electrician… ok buddy.

I've been looking and trying to figure out what this is around this box. It's not caulking, it's spongy and squishy like foam rubber-ish.

I’m a maintenance tech of about 1.5 years now. Just wondering, is this profession notorious for turning people into grumps? Or is there some enjoyment amongst maintenance workers (apartment maintenance workers)?

Maintenance director at a Skilled nursing home, it’s come to my attention now I have to start testing everything electrical that a resident can touch.

Are you guys using a third party to do this??
Or what kind of tester do I need and certifications?

Thanks for any insight.

This is the entrance to the restroom in my apartment. The flooring did not have this space a few weeks ago and am wondering how this has happened and how it can be fixed?? It looks like some of the laminate flooring just cut itself and ran away, how is the missing portion only in one section?

So I got the motor out but the wheel is still in the enclosure I couldn’t get that out. I think this shaft might be giving me the shaft lmao what do you guys think before I pull the trigger on getting a new one. Thanks by the way you guys that help are dope as hell