Richmond Public Utilities: Customer Disservice

The problem with moving from one state to another is that the blog material comes in at a rate inversely proportional to the time you have to do any writing.

The Wanderers

There should have been a post about the whole experience of finding a house in Richmond two weekends ago. It was good and bad. The bad was, if I'd had a dollar for every time someone with a property to rent said, "Well we still need to . . . we're planning to . . . we've been meaning to . . . etc," I think it would have paid for the trip. We saw some seven or eight houses, all but one needing major cleaning or work before we could move in, and we weren't slumming folks. There's simply a trend to post rentals on Craigslist before they're really ready for showing. Of course, of our top three, numbers two and three had rented already.

Like Family

Lucky for us though, our number one choice, even before our arrival, was not rented, and it was very nearly pristine. In fact, all of the looking we did after seeing it was only so that we had a backup plan. But the best part of our first choice, soon to be the address we call home in Richmond, was the owners. We had time to look for a backup during the weekend because we weren't able to meet with them until Monday morning. They were coming from a wedding in New York. They were in the United States for the wedding, and to rent their former home in Richmond. They live in Greece. They are Greek. They are wonderful. We spent most of the morning with them a week ago, and by the time we parted after lunch, it was like parting from old friends, family even.

We are delighted to be moving into this home, and I believe they are relieved that we will be. I now own and rent two of my former residences. The first I ever owned I've kept as a rental for over twenty years. I have stories to tell. The home I lived in before moving to Charleston, I still own with my ex-wife. Last year was not the best time to sell a home, to leave the service, to change careers, etc. I know how comfortable I am that, that home is rented to someone whose own home in Ft Collins is also rented to someone whose own home in . . . you get the picture. When houses begin to sell again, there will be a cascading effect, but until then, many of us who've had to move for work are back in the renting market after owning homes for decades.

Finding a good renter for a beautiful home is not necessarily easy. Finding a rental home that feels like a home you would like to own is not necessarily easy. I feel very lucky on both counts. We'll care for our new home as if we owned it because one day we very well may. We would have cared for it that way anyway, but you understand what I mean.

Setting Up House

Having moved some thirteen or so times during my military career, I'm fairly adept at getting things up and running by the day we arrive. The move to Richmond has been no different, with one exception. I've got the TV, the internet, the electricity all set up to start the day before we arrive. The water . . . not so fast. It's on, and it should stay on, I think, but trying to have it put in our name with Richmond Public Utilities was the worst bureaucratic nightmare I've seen in a while.

The homeowners are wonderful, responsible people. The home is immaculate. But living in Greece, the forwarding of their mail stopped some time ago. As a result, I expect they've not received water bills. No one has lived in the home for some time. The bill can't be for much. But because there is a bill due, Richmond needs to verify my lease before they can set up service in my name. Mind you, they don't tell you, as the new customer, that there's a bill due, they simply ask for your lease and leave it at that.

Phone Tree Hell

RPU: We'll need your landlord's phone number so we can call them to verify your lease.
ME: They live in Greece. I don't have a phone number.
RPU: They live in Greece?
ME: That's correct. They live in Greece.
RPU: How do you contact them?
ME: E-mail. Would you like their address?
RPU: Then I'm going to need a copy of your lease.
ME: Can I e-mail you a pdf?
RPU: We don't have e-mail to the outside. Can you fax it?
ME: Sure.

I don't mention that it's a good deal of trouble. I scan it. It's on legal paper and my scanner is letter, so I overlap paragraphs for good measure. Then I send it through PamFax. Of course, I have to buy PamFax credits to do that. Eventually, it goes through. At least, PamFax says it did. When I call to confirm receipt, RPU claims not to have seen hide nor hair of it.

Mind you, even getting through to RPU is a two minute technological nightmare.

RPU automated phone system:

• "Welcome to hell. Please press one for English or . . . "
• "Press one for Department of Public Utilities . . ."
• "Thank you for calling the City of Richmond. For a gas emergency press one. For a sewer emergency press two. For all other inquiries press three . . . "
• "Press one to enter your acct number, Press zero if you don't know your number . . . "
• "We could not verify the account info that you don't know. Other queries menu. Press one if you have six fingers on your left hand. Press two if you believe in flying saucers. Press three to connect or disconnect service . . . "
• "All representatives are assisting other customers. Your call will be answered after a wait in inverse proportion to the amount of time you have to kill. Thank you for your patience."

Mind you, this is every time you call. So when I get do get through to see if the fax got through . . .

Catch 22

RPU: We don't accept faxed leases.
ME: Excuse me? Then why was I just asked to fax it?
RPU: Can I have your landlord's phone number? [This is a new person.]
ME: As a matter of fact, yes. [I had remembered, in the meantime, that we actually did have it.] 011 . . .
RPU: Did you say 011?
ME: Yes.
RPU: What's that?
ME: That the first part of the phone number, the international dialing code. They live in Greece.
RPU: Just a minute. . . . . . [Insert theme from Jeopardy.]
RPU: Okay. Did you say you faxed your lease?
ME: Yes.
RPU: Do you know who you faxed it to?
ME: I sent it to the attention of . . . .
RPU: Let me go look for it. [Theme from Jeopardy again.]
RPU: It's not here.
ME: I have a transmission confirmation that says it is. Why do you even need it to put service in my name?
RPU: Because there's a balance on the account, and when there's a balance on the account, we have to have a copy of the lease to open a new account.
ME: Can I simply pay the balance? [How much could it be? No one has lived there in some time.]
RPU: Yes you could pay it.
ME: Okay, how much is it.
RPU: I can't tell you. It's not your account.
[ . . . time passes. . . . . 99, 100.]
ME: If you don't tell me how much it is, how can I pay it.
RPU: Well, see, it's not your account.
ME: But you said I could pay it off.
RPU: Well you can pay it off if you want to.
ME: Well then how much is it?
RPU: I can't tell you how much it is. It's not your account. You'll have to call your landlord and ask them.
ME: If they knew how much it was, they'd have paid it already.
RPU: Well, I'm sorry. I can't tell you how much it is. It's not your account.
ME: . . . . . Is there a supervisor there I can speak to?
RPU: Sure. Just a minute.
[Theme from Jeopardy.]
RPU: She's with someone right now. Can you hold?
ME: Sure. The minutes are only $.35 each after 2100, and we've only used, what 1950 so far, so yeah, I can hold. What's the supervisor's name?
RPU: Pardon me?
ME: Name. Her name. To whom am I waiting to speak?
RPU: Ms . . . . .
ME: Thank you.
[Theme from Jeopardy one last time.]

Mind you, I've been on the phone since about 6:30 p.m. They close at 7:00 p.m. I wait patiently for about ten minutes. At 7:00 p.m., the phone goes dead.

This is why government buildings need barriers for protection.

UPDATE: I call back today. I get someone new. I learn that I do, in fact, now have a customer number. (And probably a red flag that says: "Danger. Radical anarchist. Has tried repeatedly to introduce logic into system. Treat as armed with rationality and therefore dangerous.")

ME: May I simply start with a supervisor today.
RPU: Is there some issue I can help you with?
ME: I doubt it. Is there a supervisor there please?
RPU: Just a minute.
[Time passes again.]
RPU: This is . . .

I explain the history. She looks for the missing fax. She asks if I can fax it again. I say yes, but ask if there is an e-mail I can send the file to. She gives me her e-mail. So much for "We don't have outside e-mail." I send the file, but because it is a 3MB pdf, it takes a long time. Eventually, she hangs up, again.

I am deep in trying to fax it again when the phone rings. It's the very first person I spoke with. The fax has been there all along. No one is quite sure where, but it was there. She'll review it with a supervisor and call me back.

And this is where we left it. Do you suppose I'll have water when I get to Virginia, or will they have finally come out and turned it off? God only knows.

And Virginia is the state that thinks it invented democracy and only leases it to the rest of us.

Give me North Carolina any day. Or just shoot me.

The Bad: Jen, the "inaccessible" Realtor

I had every intention of naming names, complete with links, but Fate is kinder than yours truly, so Jen will be spared that for now.

I've already mentioned that I thought, briefly, on Saturday night last, that my search for a place to live in Charleston was finished. Of all the places I'd seen during the day, only one had merited the comment, in my semi-legible scrawl on the bottom of the MLS printout, "Could live here." That place, we had seen early in the day, about sixth or so on the list of places we'd visited.

From the beginning, we'd had no luck getting through to the listing agent, Jen. There was a lock box on the property, but a call to the listing agent is a common courtesy. No answer, but no big deal--courtesy was still satisfied. Until, that is, the combo for the lock box turned out not to work. More calls to Jen went unreturned. I walked around to the back of the townhome while Sue continued to try to reach Jen. Then, peering in the back window, I saw Sue walking through toward me. "The front door was unlocked," she said, as she let me in the back door. "Still nothing from Jen."

It was a great place though. (You can find photos of the neighborhood here, and you'll have no trouble seeing why my daughter thought it was way cool, the kind of place where it wouldn't be possible to forget you lived at the beach. "That other place [in Byrnes Downes] is more like living in Fayetteville," she quipped. 'Nuff said.) Three stories. (Floor plan here.) Living, dining, kitchen, half bath on the ground. Small, fully fenced, gated patio with small grass area in back for Sydni. Parking behind the building. Two bedrooms and two baths on the second floor, with a way cool balcony off the master. Easy to picture myself out there in the afternoon, reading in prep for the next day's classes, gin & tonic on the arm of an Adirondack chair. Then one more bedroom on a third floor. (It would be one more guest room. I didn't plan to cart my desk up all those stairs. More likely would be having the study as part of the main living area on the ground floor.)

The place still smelled new. Some people hate that smell. I always loved it. When I moved out of my first home in 1985, it still had that smell even after three years of me living in it. I especially loved the new smell considering that at least four of the places we'd seen earlier in the day had been inhabited by smokers. Blehhhhhh!

Anyway, I left the place after that initial viewing (my daughter was having a well-deserved morning of sleeping in), knowing that if I didn't find something closer in and less expensive, this, at least, would do. I could look forward to coming home to this every day. Balcony. Gin & tonic. Sunsets overlooking a lake. Yeah.

But it was the second farthest out from town of everything we looked at during the entire day. You could figure that a gallon or more of gas used each day, round trip, would add about $100 monthly to the cost of living there, already at the upper end of what I was willing to pay. So the search went on . . . all day.

Several times during the day, because we wanted to confirm that Sydni would be acceptable as a tenant, Sue continued to try to call Jen. Never any return calls. Later in the day, I called myself, both her mobile and her office number. Left messages. When, as the sun was setting, I drove back out with Jacquelyn to show her the neighborhood and she gave it a huge thumbs up, I tried yet again. Finally, I let Sue know I'd decided. This was it.

At that point, she began an even more intense effort to reach the listing agent, Jen. Phone, no response. E-mail, no response. In the end, she e-mailed the agency Broker. That worked. Minutes later, she got a call back from Jen. "I'm sorry. I've had guests in town and I haven't been very accessible today," is what Sue related to me was Jen's excuse. Excuse me? If that were my property, I'd be a little disappointed to learn that my Realtor was "inaccessible," ever, for an entire day without someone being really ill. Forward calls to another agent. To a central office. Somewhere!

Now I realize that everyone deserves to have a life. Even Inspector's General deserve a life. But guess what: some jobs require that you be accessible, or make arrangements for someone else to be so. Being an IG is one of those jobs. I should think that being a Realtor would be one as well. Apparently not though. At least, not for Jen.

It gets better though. If you've read the earlier post, you know that when she did call, it was to say that she'd offered a lease to someone the day before. Well, thank you so much! Had she been "accessible," she could have saved my Realtor a trip out there with me that morning. She could have saved us the 30 minutes spent walking through, imagining myself in it. She could have saved me and my daughter the trip back out there at the day's end. She could have saved me the false relaxation of thinking the search was over. She could have saved everyone a lot of trouble and time. She could have, in short, done her job. But no, her job, as she conceives it, apparently allows for inaccessibility when it suits her.

Like I said, I'd have no problem naming names here, but I've temporarily misplaced the MLS printout with her full name or the name of the listing agency. Maybe another day. Maybe an update. Maybe she should consider other work, as a favor to us all. Please.