The property manager and possibly owner of the place we currently rent. The property manager is an ok guy, but very hands off and doesn't bother you, which is great...until something needs fixed. When something needs fixed, he's very cheap and always wants to haggle the price with whatever contractor he's dealing with, in addition to preferring to use texting for communications. This house seems to have gotten stuck with the dud AC system that wasn't QC'd off the factory floor, because it has been nothing but trouble lately (just under 3yrs old, same as the house). Just had a leak in the condenser repaired last week of June, and now the AC system has taken to just randomly shutting down (as in no power to any part of the system) and the system fan deciding to not work. Had the company that just fixed the leak come out to have a look, but unfortunately this is a problem that is occurring randomly. It will go one or two cooling cycles and then do it, but I don't think it has gotten past 2 cycles. Of course when the repair guy gets here, the system decides to work perfectly. No leaks, no electric issues, and the fan is working, so he can't diagnose any issues beyond me relaying what's been happening. The only conclusion he and his boss can reach is the damn thermostat being bad, so he's going to recommend to the property manager to replace the thermostat. Well, I can see this going over wonderfully, with how cheap the guy is, as the tech tells me installation charges usually run about $200-400 depending on the kind of thermostat (I know he's going to balk at the install cost on a sub-$100 thermostat, although after looking at the installation instructions on a few can't say I blame him).
The kicker in all this? The owner (who lives in Canada and had this as an investment/vacation property) is trying to sell the place. I suspect the way the property manager has been handling all this that the owner has no clue exactly what's going on, just that there's been some AC issues that have been "taken care of." Nope. The system just shut itself down, again, and no amount of resetting the breakers and the thermostat does a damn thing to get the system back on quicker. If the owner does know what's going on and is leaving it to the property manager to take care of still...I want to punch both of them. Good luck selling a place with an almost non-functioning AC system in Florida!
EDIT: Yeah, we're trying to get out of this place ASAP, but rents have been going up in our area pretty fast the past 2+ years we've been in this place, outpacing our current income levels. If I get a full time spot in my department it isn't an issue, but moving is not currently in the cards unless a buyer magically appears. House has been on the market a few months and I've shown the place 3 times total.
