I’ve just noticed an official-looking black padlock which has mysteriously appeared on the tap at the front of my house to which is affixed a garden hose.
What does it mean?
Have I been dobbed in by my neighbours for excessive water usage after switching it on twice in the last six weeks?
It isn’t actually stopping me from using said hose either, which to my mind deepens the riddle…
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What they all seem to forget when they’re going around treating renters like dirt is that today’s renters are tomorrow’s buyers.
I’m currently in the market to buy, and there’s a few real estate agents I won’t be doing business with because of the way they treated me when I was renting.
I’ve had exactly the same situation in the past Caf. Such short sighted bastards. In reality though, if you find a house you love, you do what you can to buy it. We ended up buying our place from the exact mongrel mob who treated us like s**t when we were renting years ago.
That said, when the time comes to sell, which is the time for their big commissions – it’ll be a different story.
Ahh I love the Real Estate agent bashing on RA. F*** [ED – next time I’ll just delete your whole post instead of cleaning it up] wont some ofyou guys grow up!
The Supra-C (black boxes) are genereally not combination boxes, but use a circular proprietary key system, and are virtually indestructable. The Owner of the house would have given permission to the agency to place one of the lockboxes, with keys onto the property.
And why make things difficult for the agent by restricting access? … the freer access, the faster it will sell and be out of your hair.
Amen +3. I won’t be buying from Bertram Ellis or LJH Tuggers due to their poor efforts as property managers.
Woody Mann-Caruso said :
I’m currently in the market to buy, and there’s a few real estate agents I won’t be doing business with because of the way they treated me when I was renting.
Add my Amen to that. And add Maloneys to the list of “don’t go near”. In my personal opinion.
I have spoken before on RA about the merketing concept of Marginal Net Worth, and it continues to amaze me how few real estate agents fail to recognise their rent roll as a “future buyer” prospect list.
Actually, the owners *are* the clients. They’re paying the agent to manage their property. Part of that includes filling it with tenants and making sure the tenants are happy. The owner pays the R/E to do that – the renter does not.
I laugh at any agent that tries to rate ‘mess’ on their inspection report. They are there to report on the condition and maintenance of the *property*. If they have a problem with a dirty plate on the kitchen bench they can piss off.
Amen. I’ve rented several properties, but only even from two agents. The first – John Roden Chisholm (or canhomes or whatever they call themselves now) treated me like dirt. To be fair, it was one particular property manager. She was a joke – to the extent where the other property managers apologised to me for her behaviour (yet commented they could do nothing about it).
Current agent Lanyon Real Estate look after things pretty well and strike a nice balance between owner and renter needs.
What they all seem to forget when they’re going around treating renters like dirt is that today’s renters are tomorrow’s buyers.
I’m currently in the market to buy, and there’s a few real estate agents I won’t be doing business with because of the way they treated me when I was renting.
So we turned off the water, unscrewed the tap, took the lockbox off, screwed the tap back on and turned the water on again.
This is exactly the approach I was considering. Although by the time you did this it might have been easier to just break in…
Really, the worry I have is that anyone who works for the company has access (possibly anyone who recently worked for the company, how often do the combos get changed)?
You can hardly expect a real estate agent to act in the best interest of their clients!
Well, in a market where there are plenty of tenants available to fill houses, the real estate agents think of the owners as the clients and the renters as a necessary inconvenience. Last property inspection at my place (I am renting), the estate agent rated the kitchen as below standard. It had one breakfast worth of dirty dishes!
Yeah, but what thief is going to go to all that trouble for the few benefits of easy access into a fully furnished house?
tate_alec said :
Impenetrable huh?
Regarding these lock boxes, a mate if mine bought a house a couple of years ago and after living there for about a month the lock box still hadn’t been take off the tap.
So we turned off the water, unscrewed the tap, took the lockbox off, screwed the tap back on and turned the water on again.
Sitting on his driveway I managed to retrieve the undamaged key in less than half an hour with a drill, cold chisel and a hammer.
I think it was a black one.
I agree to have a open house when renting once…never ever again they can all get stuffed!
trevar I totally agree…the trouble is you don’t want to spit on them as they are already slimebags it would just add to their slime store.
Having installed a number of key-safes on taps, steel railings and the like, I can confidently state that the push-button type that locksmiths sell are easy to break into if you’re a young miscreant, but that the most secure ones are the blue ones from Shur-lok. Just about indestructible, and available in Fyshwick. Not sure about black ones, but the Shur-lok’s are just about bomb-proof and are under $65 compared to the locksmith versions for $129.
those key boxes are indestructible
Sounds like those people who claimed their very expensive bike locks were unpickable, until somebody showed us all how with a ballpoint pen. Or the git in IT who claimed my laptop cable combination was unbreakable, until I put the name of the cable into Google and found a way to crack the combination in under a minute. I suspect a ten-year old locksporter could crack a key box in no time.
Gungahlin Al said :
There will be no open days at my house – appointment only, when it’s convenient for me. I was just bemused by the padlock’s appearance. I’ll not be leaving any keys in it for anyone.
You can hardly expect a real estate agent to act in the best interest of their clients! There is no creature on earth more selfish, disreputable, immoral, or sub-human than a real estate agent. I would spit on them, but I wouldn’t want to get that close.
Oh, and it may be indestructible, but it is a poor substitute for a key sign-in/sign-out system that will demonstrate who has the key and at what time.
cleverclogs said :
I believe all of that – but not asking permission before putting a key to your (rented) property on a publicly accessible part of your property is ludicrous.
Agree 100%.
Speaking as someone who works with these little mysteriously appearing devils, I can assure you all that short of using some kind of large sledgehammer or explosives, those key boxes are indestructible and, if any desperate burglar did actually manage to get the thing off your tap/gas meter, they would destroy the key inside by the time they actually managed to get the thing open.
Also, agents are absolutely required to arrange permission before using said lockboxes to gain access to your home. It’s simply a safe and logical place to store the keys so that anyone from that company can access them provided you’ve given the ok.