LL's are humourless (?)

[TheLiberalLeft]

Certain professions have a reputation that they attract people with certain personalities. It's a generalisation, of course, but for instance, who wants to be seated next to an accountant at a dinner party, really?

Lawyers are pompous.
Salesmen are smarmy.
Accountants are boring.
IT people are geeks.
Primary Teachers are condescending.

Landlords are humourless.

Is it that humourless people by definition are attracted to the business, or do otherwise normal-humoured people become humourless by being dragged down through years of dealing with tenants?

I'd be interested in some posters' views.

[Glizzle]

Im a pornstar and im awesome

[TheLiberalLeft]

Pornstars can't use punctuation.

[TheLiberalLeft]

(but we can forgive them that).

I appreciate the attempt at humour, Glizzle, but you can't mask the LLyness.

My own theory is that as LL's we have to have a certain knowledge of both law and accounting, and as most use computers, a basic understanding of things IT too. So I think we pick up the worst traits of lawyers, accountants & IT people. And as we often deal with errant tenants, the latent sanctimonious teacher in us makes an appearance now and again as well.

So that's boring, pompous, condescending geeks lacking humour.

[skid]

But are we smarmy?

[TheLiberalLeft]

Some most certainly are, skid. Those who manage their own properties, for example, have to enlist the inner-salesman at times, particularly those renting the top-end stock.

I didn't include that, as I didn't want PM's who post here thinking that I think they're grouped with the smarmy-salesmen brigade, as they mostly aren't that way inclined (imo).

Can you imagine being seated next to a LL at a party given the above? No wonder the media and population hate us - we're just so awful. Well, some more than others, right?

[Ghouly]

We have to put up with some of the most frustrating people imaginable, and constantly struggle to extract money from them; maybe that's why we're humourless. We're exhausted.

Not that I can talk, I've only got the one property to manage right now, albeit on a room by room basis with 4 individual leases.

[TheLiberalLeft]

Well that alone is enough to make anyone humourless, Ghouly. I prefer to look on the bright side myself, but how long that can last is anyone's guess, what with being regularly shouted down for having a chuckle at those few remaining LL's I know who "keep the faith" so to speak.

Sometimes I feel on a one-man mission to brighten the temperament, lighten the load, lift the negative stereotype that some insist on portraying at all costs. You'll thank me when the media write a positive article.

[Ghouly]

Haha, I feel you should change your username to CupHalfFull, it will brighten my day every time you post. Your excellent grammar and punctuation always makes me smile and restores some faith in humanity.

Maybe we should set to writing said article ourselves, impartially of course.

We could title it:
"Landlord helps tenant move furniture into rental; tenant says landlord is a GC."

[Keys]

the media write a positive article.

Unless the article sells papers your thoughts will never get published.

[eri]

i'm about as funny as a mortgage
when wearing my LL hat

but when other people pay

i'm all play

[klauster]

The answer to that question is likely to fail because it is quite difficult to put LLs in boxes.
Who really know what a LL really is?
Do you point at a business, an owner of a block of flats or somebody who let his family home by scaling down to retire?

All these people have in common a shortage of cash, but they care for something, keep councils financially going, pay for their tenants for water and housing and show a great deal of humor when it comes to wait for rent payments for example until the repair bill for an BMW has been paid, or each bedroom has a flat screen TV etc, right?

They prove in many ways great humor and the stories they can tell at the dinner table are endless – Why wouldn’t you enjoy their company?

[TheLiberalLeft]

I have to disagree with you there, eri. You're way less funny than a mortgage.

klauster - if I interpret your post correctly, and please forgive me if I have not, an BMW isn't quite the desirable motorcar it once was. That aside, have you ever tried telling your stories at the table? Not to wife & kids. I mean, a dinner party surrounded by work colleagues, assoiciates and friends-of-friends?

That look you get... you know the one.... it's when they pull a slight smirk. It's barely noticeable, but if it could be converted to words it means "oh my heart bleeds for you you rich multi-property owning prick". No offence. I'm sure you're not a prick. But trust me on this - the last thing friends of friends want to sit through is the regaling of stories of tenants past and how you chased them to the ends of earth through the courts to get that $35.52 they owed you, because "it's the principle of the thing".

[Wayne]

"Landlord trips up while helping tenant move their stuff into the new house"??

[TheLiberalLeft]

Wayne, I fear the reader of that headline's first assumption is that by "tripping up" the LL failed to take photos of every square inch, and are now demanding the tenant pays for the damage that they insist was made during the move-in. The tenant, by contrast, didn't want nor need the LL's help and is countering by saying they only helped so that they could rifle through the tenant's wife's knicker drawer when they weren't looking, because that's how LL's roll, obviously.