My Awful Experience Working in Rental Management in Montana

You might find this hard to believe, but I haven't always been a jet-setting, globe-trotting ladies man that spends his days at the country club. I come from humble beginnings.

I came to Billings in the spring of 1988 to work here at Cat Country. Unfortunately, the pay wasn't huge, so I had to find additional ways to get by until I started making more money from radio. I was spinning records at T-Birds nightclub, DJing dances on weekends, and I drove a school bus for the Catholic schools for a while.

One day, I found out about a way to get free rent. See, in those days there was no program to pay people's rent, heat or electricity, and I wouldn't have taken it anyway. It's just the way I am.

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I knew the owners of the B & B Apartments and they were looking for someone to manage the place and in exchange get an apartment for free. I just had to collect rent, show apartments to potential new tenants and keep the parking lot picked up. Simple enough, right?

Come to find out, there were a couple of other things I had to do. Those duties included: 1) kicking people out who were sleeping by the boiler, 2) waiting in hallways all night in an attempt to collect overdue rent from renters who knew my hours and wouldn't answer their doors when I knocked, 3) and my favorite, trying not to get murdered by people high on drugs.

My rental management career would only last four months and it also helped me not care so much about paying rent.