"The Pipes are Broken"

It happens. Any one who has ever lived in an apartment complex for a period of time expects that eventually something will need to be fixed. A door will come off its hinges. A faucet will leak. The air conditioning will not work as well as it should. These and so many other bumps occur. Yes, these malfunctions are annoying. Nor do they ever happen at a "good time." Despite that, people understand this part of life and, generally, roll with it. So long as the folks whose job it is to address these issues actually do their job, then the inconvenience of occasional mechanical breakdowns are tolerable. 

But what happens when the repair people do not do their job? In this case, I am not referring to the actual fixing-up that is needed. Rather, I speak of what I call the communication aspect. Let me illustrate: A tenant has a leaky faucet. They call the proper person and he or she tells them they will be by in the next two hours. But a few minutes after that call, another tenants bangs on the superintendent's door saying their apartment is flooding because water is coming down through the ceiling from the apartment above them. Because of the urgency of this problem, the superintendent directs their attention to addressing it. Doing that, however, takes the rest of the day. Meanwhile, the tenant with the leaky faucet is waiting to have their problem fixed - all the while not knowing the superintendent is trying to address a bigger problem. 

In such a scenario, there are no "bad guys." But if you multiple that initial tenant by five or ten people, then what was a small, easily explained circumstance has now mushroomed into a major cause for the concern. The reason is a lack of communication. People are not told what is going on and the result is mounting frustration. The lack of communication has become a bigger problem than the needed repairs. Sometimes, this cannot be helped. Often times, however, it can. The trick for all of us is to be more sensitive to keeping people informed. As a general rule, they usually do much better.