One of the really great parts of my job is traveling around the country meeting with multifamily operators (executives & technicians alike) and having discussions about their successes & challenges with maintenance operations. Needless to say, I'm not traveling any longer, but the week before the NBA suspended play and the NCAA conference tournaments were shut down, I was on one of these trips in New Jersey & Eastern Pennsylvania.
At that time, there were already several confirmed COVID-19 cases in NYC.
During a meeting in NJ (about 20 minutes outside the city) with an operations exec at an owner-operator for several thousand units in the region, it was mentioned that a maintenance employee had called into the corporate office earlier that day to ask the question:
"What if we're scared to come to work because of how close we might be to residents under quarantine for coronavirus?"
This is a question that you may have fielded several times by now. That day, it was ground zero; completely new territory for everyone. This was exactly the point where the weight & risk of a potential COVID-19 outbreak and impact to the health & safety of property teams, specifically maintenance team members, started to press on me.
Maintenance Teams Are First Responders
We all know how important our maintenance teams are to property operations. We also know that, often times, they are first responders at the properties they serve. More than a few times we've seen resident feedback go through our system, specifically thanking a maintenance person by name when the resident, or a loved-one, needed assistance with something that had nothing to do with "maintenance".
The greatest example of this happened last year, when a resident relayed a message through our system to the management office letting them know a family member had passed away, but thanking the "maintenance man" for administering CPR a few days earlier while waiting for EMS to arrive, and, ultimately, for giving them more time to say goodbye.
Our team, myself include, were blown-away and completely humbled by the magnitude of this act. The reality is that this selfless act, and countless others, have been and will continue to be carried out by apartment maintenance professionals every single day across the country.
More Time at Home = More Things to Fix
Based on how COVID-19 continues to impact the population and guidance by many state and local governments to shelter-in-place, apartment residents will be spending significantly more time at home over the next several weeks, maybe longer. In fact, even if the general shutdown of the economy only lasts 3-4 weeks, there may not be a time in our history where so many people are at home all at the same time for such a prolonged period.
For apartment owners and operators, this means more wear-n-tear, more things breaking; ultimately more service requests.
Based on what we are hearing from clients and other industry leaders, many operators are only handling emergency requests at this point to minimize possible exposure & health risk to their maintenance teams. As more residents enter quarantine protocols (mandatory or voluntary), many operators have, or will, contract with outside vendors who have appropriate certifications & personal protective equipment (PPE) to respond to emergency requests in flagged units.
This said, non-emergency service requests don't just go away. They will be backlogged and will have to be addressed as we come out of triage mode. The impact to maintenance departments from COVID-19 outbreak prevention and response will be long lasting.
A Word of Appreciation
During this time of volatility, maintenance must go on, assets must be maintained, residents responded to with care and understanding. Let's not take for granted the risks the men and woman who come and fix stuff when it breaks in our apartment homes take. If you employ, work with, or know any of these individuals, provide them with a word of encouragement and please thank them for what they do....especially now.
And if you are on the receiving side of their services and their response-time seems a little longer than normal, please extend them some additional grace and understanding. Actually, that sounds like good advice for all of us!
Be safe. Be smart. And please take care of each other.
