Teach before they leave

This is our home, Allen Ridge Apartments. It is BYU-I approved housing for single men. We manage this complex. Glenn and I have been managing this complex for about a year and a half. By the time we leave this home, it will be two years since we moved in. We love this home. It is the perfect location. It is very home like and not a typical apartment layout. We love it, except for one little detail. . . the boys.

 I find it interesting that the boys we have the most trouble with is the ones who have never served missions. Glenn and I follow through with all our job responsibilities set by the owner and the university. We follow the contract that the boys signed to leave here through and through. However, this boys seem to not get the picture. They are not at home any more. This is not their property. I am not their mother. There are rules and deadlines. If you break them, their are consequences. Some how these boys have never learned that.

We have a very contentious weekend with a couple tenants here. Luckily the owner was here and took care of a great deal of the drama. I won't get into all the details. But, a couple things to teach your kids before they leave home.

1) If you want something fixed in your apartment, you need to either take care of it yourself if it is just a little something that needs some tightening or you need to notify the managers in writing. Some reason they expect us to do it when nobody has even told us it needed to be done.
2) Rent is rent and it has a deadline.
Rent was due no later than Monday this week. I have emailed this one tenant every day this week saying we need his rent. Now, sometimes if a tenant is not able to pay rent by the due date, they can contact us before and make arrangements for a new deadline. However, this tenant has not responded to any of our reminders. I finally sent a text to him today. This was his excuse:
 "You've told all my roommates to get it to you when they can."
First of all, your roommates have all talked to me prior and made new arrangements, you have not.
He then sent this text: "You act like I'm home when you guys are awake. I'm taking 14 credits and working 40 hours a week to make ends meet. I'm sorry I can't turn in rent if I'm not home."

Some how this boy things I will have sympothy for his busy schedule when my husband is gone all day long, and my job (mom and manager) is 24/7. Has he never heard of a envelope and dropping it in our mail box.

There are many other things these boys need to learn and grow up. . . this was just a couple of them.

But one last thing to teach your kids before they leave home, and it is by far the most important--RESPECT! Some of these boys have no respect. I have experienced it countless times. I have never been disrespected so many times in my life until I managed this complex.
Teach your child to be kind in all that they say and do.
Teach your child that they are no better, they are not more busy, they are not more entitled then somebody else.
Teach your child that him without sin can cast the first stone.
Teach your child to love and react to situations as the savior would.
Teach your child they will not get respect if they are not respectful.

I sure wish somebody taught some of these boys before they left home to live on their own.

In the meantime, we are still a happy go lucky family doing our best to raise children as the Savior would! We are by no means perfect, but we are grateful for parents who taught us to be kind and respectful to all those around us. You don't know how somebody's day is going. You don't know what troubles they are having inside. You don't know the half of it. . . so treat them as you want to be treated.