Maintenance and vendors
Would have followed the ticket through to a confirmed repair, with the spending cap of the mandate and the vendor assigned.
No heat in a rented apartment, a Tuesday in January at 10 p.m.
How a tenant's call becomes a dispatched emergency or a maintenance ticket, without you deciding it in your pyjamas.
7 days, 20 answered calls, no card
The portfolio, the situation, the configuration
An owner-manager with three buildings, twenty-two units in all, in Laval. He holds a full-time job elsewhere. His personal number has been printed on every lease for eight years: it is the only contact point his tenants know.
The configuration is the Real estate base, on its own. It answers, identifies building, unit and caller type, separates a building emergency from an ordinary maintenance ticket, and applies the manager's written rule. No add-on is switched on in this scene.
The call comes in on a Tuesday in January, at five past ten in the evening. It is minus eighteen outside. A tenant on the second floor has had no heat since dinner — the case the manager's emergency rule names outright.
What you are looking at
A written exchange, built from the qualification questions, the caller types and the hard limits of the property management preset. It is not the transcript of a call that happened, and no recording is attached to this page.
Tuesday, 10:05 p.m., January. Manager's line forwarded after three rings.
ReceptionistGestion Rivard, good evening. Let me take your name and a number to reach you, then the building address and your unit.
TenantSophie Tremblay, 450 555-0166. At 118 rue Cartier, unit 4. There has been no heat for four hours.
ReceptionistThank you. Is the outage only in your apartment, or are your neighbours affected too? And do you smell gas, or hear an alarm anywhere in the building?
TenantNo smell, no alarm. My neighbour downstairs says it is cold at her place as well. I have an eight-month-old baby here.
ReceptionistNoted, and this counts as an emergency: two apartments without heat in this weather, and the rule is to dispatch right away. I am alerting on-call maintenance and the manager. Can someone let the technician into the building tonight?
TenantYes, I am home. How long before he gets here? And am I entitled to a rent reduction?
ReceptionistI cannot promise you an arrival time: the technician will call you on his way. And I cannot answer on rent — the manager handles that, and he will call you tomorrow. Tonight, heat is what matters.
An alert lands on the on-call technician's phone with the address, the unit, no heat with two apartments affected and access available tonight, plus the time. The manager receives the same summary without having picked up, and the rent question is queued for tomorrow, in writing, in the tenant's own words.
What is collected, and what happens to it
Sorting in property management starts with three fields. Without them, a call can be neither dispatched nor filed.
- Building address and unit, asked for before any description of the problem
- Who is calling: tenant, co-owner, board member, owner-client, vendor, or someone looking for an apartment
- Whether the situation is happening right now — running water, outage, heating, elevator
- Whether people are at risk: gas, smoke, carbon monoxide alarm, someone trapped
- Whether access is possible tonight, and who can open the door
- The best time for a callback, when it is not an emergency
A tenant's information does not travel to a third party, and no rent balance is stated in a message. Payment matters go to administration, not into a text.
What is switched on in this scene
The Real estate base, on its own. The three add-ons below would have changed what followed; they are not active here.
What the scene does not show
The limits come from the preset.
- She gives no opinion on the lease, a rent increase, repossession of a unit, or a housing tribunal claim
- She promises neither an arrival time nor a repair deadline: she says the request has been passed on, and the technician calls on his way
- She gives no technical instruction — cutting power, touching gas, entering a mechanical room
- She asks no discriminatory question of someone looking for an apartment: only the criteria the manager wrote down are used
- Faced with a gas smell, smoke, a carbon monoxide alarm or someone trapped, she directs the caller to 911 before anything else
Where to next
See the page for your role, or another demo.
No heat in a rented apartment, a Tuesday in January at 10 p.m.