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Our landlord is selling our apartment. Fine. He’s been a great landlord. We’re willing to help him sell the place. Keep it clean, let Realtors in, be nice, etc., etc. We had two stipulations:

1. We have to be there when they show it.
2. We need 24 hours notice.

This was reasonable to the landlord, who had had the experience of trying to sell a home he was living in. It’s just courtesy.

Three times now I’ve gotten voicemails from Jenny Pruitt Realtor agents, that go something like this:

1:00pm: “Hi my name is Pushy Realtor, and I’m going to show your apartment at 5:30pm today. Thanks!”

Because I work in a basement, I don’t get my voicemail off my cellphone until I leave work at 5pm. That’s my problem not theirs. But 4 hours notice is not 24 hours, and they never ask me if I going to be there. They are going to show the place whether I’m there or not. So I have to call them back and explain to them what it says in the listing.

And they always get pissed. The lady today practically hung up on me. She was so put out that I wanted her to follow the rules. She was put out that I didn’t want to let a bunch of strangers into my house when I wasn’t there.

What’s funny is that I am at home now, and have plenty of time to show the house. I’d be perfectly willing to, if they had called yesterday. But I’m not going to bend on the rules, because they’ve already abused them.

Last week, I think the place was shown without even a phone message. If you’ve been to our house, you know that we keep the bathroom doors closed because the cats have a plant fetish and they will eat our houseplants down to a nub. Potato ate an entire aloe plant once. Nothing left but a gooey dirty nubbin in the pot. Anyway, I came home and the bathroom doors were wide open and Ezelle was happily munching away on Leslie’s new African Violets. I bet they are delicious, with those soft furry mushy leaves. Leslie didn’t leave the doors open. Leslie likes her houseplants chew-free. Someone else was in the house. Without even the courtesy of a voicemail.

We talked about that incident with the landlord, and he was very sympathetic and understanding and said he would talk to the listing Realtor. I guess it did some good, because now they are calling at least 4 hours before, but at least they are calling.

I’ve shown the apartment to one Realtor so far. Jazz Boudreaux was his name. Not surprisingly based on his name, he had lived in New Orleans–he recognized the Adams Street PoBoys menu on our fridge. He called 24 hours before, set up an appointment, was very respectful of my time, and thanked me for taking the time to show the place. I don’t want to come off that I think all Realtors are self-centered jerks. Just the ones from Jenny Pruitt and Associates. Take a lesson from Jazz Boudreaux and be nice, and I’ll be nice.