a nudist across from the office, a lease dispute with a former tenant’s manager, and more

by Alison Green on December 2, 2024

I’m on vacation. Here are some past letters that I’m making new again, rather than leaving them to wilt in the archives. And then later today, updates season begins!

1. My former tenant’s “manager” is requesting money for her time spent on a lease dispute

I have been in conflict with a former tenant (Sara) for a few weeks, for various reasons that I am not going to list here but are part of the usual conflicts tenants and landlords can have at the end of a tenancy (cleanliness, state of the garden, etc.). The usual legal process is taking place in order for me to be able to deduct costs I incurred, from her deposit. We are going through a simplified process because the claim is low (less than $1000) and no solicitors are involved.

Sara works for a well-known global company and I have just received an email from someone claiming to be her manager, asking me to pay the equivalent of one week of Sara’s salary for the time she had to take off work to deal with the conflict. The email address seems to be legitimate, using the company’s domain name and I can find the name of the person on LinkedIn as working there but they don’t seem to hold a senior position. The email is not clear as to whom the compensation should be paid and does not detail how the compensation was computed (one week seems a very long time to send a few emails — the process has taken me one hour so far).

Now, I have no problem answering to this person that I do not know who they are and that they need to follow a legal process if they want to claim anything from me. However, I know that such a big global company would never start a litigation like this (no solicitor involved, even in-house, unclear claim) so I suspect Sara to have organized it. And so here is my question: shall I contact the company to inform them of this claim made in their name?

My first idea was to wait to see if I receive a second email, as at the end of the day Sara is very young and I don’t want her to lose her job over this. Now I am not too sure. As a manager, I would want to know this. Apart from this email, I have never been in touch with Sara’s employer, I just saw salary statements before she moved in.

Wow, yeah, I suspect you’re right that this isn’t a genuine request from Sara’s company but instead came from a coworker at her request, for all the reasons you stated. And if I were Sara’s employer, I’d sure as hell want to know that she was doing this. (Although it’s possible that it’s actually Sara’s manager going rogue — it’s possible she has a manager without a particularly senior-sounding title and that person is out of their gourd, rather than it being something Sara herself organized. Who knows.)

In any case, you could certainly alert her employer if you want to, and there’s nothing wrong with doing that. But it’s likely to make things more contentious with Sara and it doesn’t really get you any closer to any of the outcomes you want (which presumably are just to handle the end of her lease with as little hassle as possible). Ultimately I’d get clarity on what you want here (just to settle the lease situation as quickly and easily as possible? to take a stand on principle that this email is messed up and there should be consequences?) and proceed accordingly.

– 2018

Read an update to this letter here.

2. My office window looks right into the apartment of an enthusiastic nudist

My colleagues and I decided to reach out to you with a problem that’s recently developed. Our office is on the seventh floor of a downtown building. Two streets away is a recently completed apartment complex with a penthouse level with two apartments with floor to ceiling windows. One apartment keeps the shades down. The other always has them fully up. The resident routinely walks around during office hours naked or in a bra and underwear. Today she walked out on her balcony undressed.

The apartment is exactly in our line of sight (particularly in my office), and it’s impossible not to notice. This may seem funny or titillating to some, but we find this very distracting and unwelcome. What is the best course of action? Email the management company? Stop by the lobby and say something to the front desk person? Maybe she doesn’t realize just how visible she is.

Well … it’s really up to her what she does in her own apartment. In some jurisdictions the balcony piece of this would violate public decency laws, although it sounds like that may have been a one-time occurrence. If this is mainly about her being in underwear or naked in her own home, that’s not really something you can or should interfere with. It’s more just a reality of city living; people are crammed together and you’re going to see things.

But I certainly understand why it’s distracting when you’re at work! I’d instead look into measures you can take on your own side, like curtains (gauzy ones would let you still have sunlight but would probably make her less noticeable) or changing the angle of your desk.

At the very most, if you can figure out how to get a note directly to her, you could leave a note saying that she may not realize she’s so visible to people across the way — but you don’t really have standing to insist she put on more clothes in her own home.

– 2019

3. I got sent to a conference where I didn’t belong

I was recently sent to an important conference on behalf of my organization, as some higher-ups were unavailable. When I arrived, it became immediately apparent that the conference was more of an intimate meeting of some very important players in my industry. I had been planning on spending a couple of days listening to talks and taking notes. Instead I found myself in discussions where I really had nothing to contribute.

The whole thing was embarrassing. It was obvious to everyone there that I shouldn’t have been sent. I decided to brush the entire experience off and try and learn as much as I could. However, in the next meeting they discussed future conferences and one of the members made a comment, prefaced with “no offense,” that for future meetings it should be made clear what level of employee was required to attend, and if that level employee was not available, “they shouldn’t just send anyone.”

It was very embarrassing and upsetting to be singled out. I wasn’t under any illusions about how out of place I was, but I do know that my attendance was confirmed ahead of time with the conference leaders.

How do I give feedback to my manager about this conference? I want to make it clear that in future it wouldn’t be appropriate to send an employee of my level (my manager is new and wouldn’t have known, this only became clear upon arrival) as I wouldn’t want anyone to experience this, but I also don’t want to appear ungrateful as it was supposed to be a wonderful opportunity. I also don’t know whether to mention this comment that rattled me. Thoughts?

“It turned out the conference was really for high-level players — people there were typically CEOs and second-in-commands (or whatever — describe the roles of the people there). I figured I’d try to learn as much as I could while I was there, but during a planning meeting they made it pretty clear that they didn’t want anyone to send someone at my level again. Obviously neither of us knew this before I went, but I wanted to fill you in for next year.”

I think you can just keep it factual like that and there’s no need to get into the fact that you felt embarrassed and rattled, unless your manager seems to really want to dissect what happened. If she does, you can be straightforward about the the whole thing. But otherwise, I’d keep it just to the parts that are relevant for next time.

By the way, since the conference leaders knew you were attending, it’s possible that the person who made the remark about “not sending just anyone” was an outlier and other people didn’t feel that way. But it also sounds like you basically agreed with that assessment, and it was just the snotty phrasing that bothered you. I’d try to separate your emotions from it as much as possible and see it as just an inartful expression of what you already knew. It makes total sense that it was embarrassing to have that said right in front of you, though! (But I promise you that in a few years, “the time I got sent to a conference where I was completely out of place” will be an amusing story you can tell other people.)

– 2019

4. Applicant made weird demands for interview timeline

In a recent period of hiring I came across plenty of slightly strange (and some more than slightly strange) things that applicants felt the need to include in their resumes or cover letters. None confused me more than the below, which to me reads more like a logic puzzle than a statement of availability. For context, this was at the very bottom of a four-page resume under the heading “Availability for Interview”:

“I would be available for an interview only within a period of let’s say four days and preferably sooner, from the time of receiving the formal shortlisting email notice. This also means that I would not be available for the interview in case the email notice is sent to me earlier than four days prior to the interview date. The time periods include also weekends.”

I just have so many questions! It seems like the applicant wants as short a time as possible to elapse between being shortlisted and being interviewed, but I’m at a loss as to why. And why is four days the magic number? Am I missing something?

Even if it were more of a straightforward statement, I would find such a thing rather presumptuous on a resume. Maybe in a cover letter if your availability will be unusually limited in the weeks following applying for a job, but in a resume like it’s a blanket requirement of yours regardless of the timing of the application? It just seems off, or maybe that is overly rigid of me?

Noooo, this is quite weird. You are not being overly rigid.

I also like that he himself is very rigid but then says “let’s say four days,” as if he’s just thinking up the number on the spot.

He is weirdly demanding and out of touch with the norms of humans, and you should reject him (but only within a period of let’s say four days and preferably sooner).

– 2018

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{ 56 comments }

{ 56 comments… read them below or add one }

  1. Not A Manager*

    It’s kind of a sad update to letter #1. In the landlord’s shoes in the original letter, I might have told Sara I was puzzled by the letter from her manager, and that I’d need to speak to Legal or HR in order to really be able to respond to it. And then ask her if she wanted me to contact them immediately, or wait to see if her manager followed up.

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    1. Account*

      It sounds like a sad situation but the LW handled it just as I would have. Ignored the first letter, but then once the next letter arrived threatening legal action, let my own lawyer handle it.

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      1. duinath*

        Same. At that point she was threatening OP to get money out of them, and action was necessary.

        (Imagine being her boss. Oof.)

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      2. James*

        I don’t quite see how this is sad. Young or not, Sara seems pretty awful on top of clueless. I hope she lost her job due to this and learned not to blackmail people in the future (sounds like her parents are wealthy enough to bail her out if she needs real help).

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        2. Bilateralrope*

          Sara might not be the only person who lost her job over this. If another employee sent those threats, they are also in trouble.

          The use of solicitor in the update makes me think that the LW is outside the US. Stronger employment protections might make it easier to fire the other employee, because the emails are proof if their unacceptable behaviour, while proof that Sara asked for them is harder to obtain.

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        1. Lilo*

          This is also an incredibly common aspect of scams. If someone is abusing their employment situation like this, who else would they do this too?

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    2. MK*

      If Sarah did lose her job over this, no, it isn’t sad. This isn’t a young person making a mistake, it’s someone who tried to use the fact that she worked for a global company to intimidate another person she had a dispute with into caving.

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      2. Lawyer (not a litigator thank God)*

        it’s someone who tried to use the fact that she worked for a global company to intimidate another person she had a dispute with into caving.

        Litigators make grandiose, ballooned-up threats like this all the time in pre-litigation correspondence.

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        1. Lilo*

          Yes, but the crucial difference being they have authority to represent the company in said dispute. And someone who makes extreme threats like having someone arrested over something like this would be subject to complaints against their license. We had an example this year of an attorney who was disbarred for making similar threats against his ex wife.

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        2. MK*

          I am not sure what you mean and why it’s even relevant. If Sarah thought she was in the right, she could have hired a litigation and take OP to court, ghat us her right. But she tried to pretend her employer, a global company with likely unlimited resources, was going after OP. This was pure intimidation.

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    3. Leenie*

      Sarah apparently put someone up to threatening the LW with the prospect of sending bailiffs after her, in an effort to extort money, on top of whatever she did to get evicted in the first place. And she has parents who bailed her out financially. With what little we’ve been told of Sarah’s judgment, who even knows if the LW’s actions had anything to do with Sarah losing her job. But if they did, that would be a direct consequence of Sarah’s own actions. Sarah seems to have been making a string of bad choices that hurt other people, as well as herself. Maybe a consequence motivated her to make a needed change.

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      1. Leenie*

        Sorry – on a second read, I don’t think Sarah was evicted. But I wouldn’t change anything else in my comment. If the company hearing from the LW’s lawyer was one of the things that led to Sarah losing her job, I think that’s appropriate and nothing that the LW should feel bad about.

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      2. AcademiaNut*

        Ignoring the first email gave Sarah a chance to realize that this was a really bad idea and back down. Instead, she doubled down and escalated to threats. At that point, it was lawyer time and hopefully Sarah learned a useful if painful lesson.

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    4. Bilateralrope*

      If you’re thinking about talking to a companies legal department, that means talking to the company lawyers. Would you do that without your lawyer ?

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    5. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      It would have been a mistake to get down into the weeds and try to handle such a dishonest – and loopy – person herself.
      The OP was also sensible to let her lawyers talk to the employer’s lawyers rather than attempting this herself e.g. being taken seriously, avoiding the risk of defamation.

      Sara had the chance to back off when the OP ignored the first letter, but instead she escalated with a new invention of bailiffs. If she had ignored the 2nd letter, who knows what the next escalation would have been.

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  2. Daria grace*

    #1 is fascinating. Such a bizarre thing to do, especially while she still had other outstanding issues with the landlord. I’m wondering if she had gained access to another employees email address illegitimately or set up a domain that looks like the company’s one but isn’t because no-one with even the slightest bit of sense would cooperate with her using a very unusual method to extort money from a landlord.

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    1. MK*

      My guess is she thought she could get OP to drop her claim by intimidating her with her employer’s stature, not actually get money. She figured OP would be afraid they might become mixed up in litigation with a huge company with big lawyers, and return the deposit immediately to avoid that. After all, it’s common advice that sometimes only a letter from a lawyer can be enough to get people to stop being difficult; she may have thought a letter from Microsoft would have the same effect.

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    2. Bilateralrope*

      That’s for the company to figure out. Was Sara the only employee involved or did she convince some other employee to help ?

      Reply ↓
  3. Happy meal with extra happy*

    I’m not sure if I really get the scandalous nature of #2. I once had an office that faced apartments with floor to ceiling windows, and I only found it vaguely amusing when, one evening, in two apartments next to each other (with a mirrored floor plan), both kitchens were occupied by a man only in his boxers. It was almost like a play or something, the carbon copy nature of it.

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    1. Daria grace*

      I don’t think you have to find it scandalous for naked people to be something you’d prefer to not see while working nor to wonder if the naked person would want to know if they’re visible

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      1. Happy meal with extra happy*

        I guess I wouldn’t consider it related to work? Like, it can just be something that happens in a city, and it’s relatively to not look, unless the building is like five feet from your window. Maybe if they were doing more scandalous activities, I’d be more concerned, but otherwise? I dunno, just not something I would care enough about.

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        2. KateM*

          According to OP, it is “two streets away” – not that I know how far it would be. If it was in my town, I’d wonder if there were some binoculars in use. :P

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          1. D'Arcy*

            Two streets away would generally mean two city blocks, and a penthouse unit would be on the top floor of the other building. This would be a distance of 400-800 feet, so there’s definitely some magnification in play.

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            1. Cmdrshprd*

              Not necessarily it could be only one city block.

              OPs office is on the Northside of the building (the building could take up the entire block or half) so you have one street that they are directly on, then another building/ block in-between, then another street, then the residential building and the penthouse is on the Southside of the building. So really there is only one block and two streets of width in between.

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          2. Cmdrshprd*

            In a majority of urban downtown areas, two streets away is usually close enough that you could see what software/movie/tv show someone is using without resorting to binoculars, aka using the naked eye (pun 1000% intended).

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            1. Allonge*

              What kind of super eyesight do people have? I live in a high(ish) rise, with just one (narrow) road between us and the next building. The closest flat in the next building has a huge tv screen on the opposite wall, so I see it full on – I can tell if it’s football or news playing, but only based on the colour. Two blocks away, it’s just pretty lights.

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          3. Daria grace*

            My city has a lot of rectangular blocks, with the short sides being about 100 metres. This is not a situation I’ve experienced but it seems like at 200 metres you could probably not see the details but potentially sort of see what’s going on.

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            1. KateM*

              “I can sort of see that someone 200 metres away is walking around her home naked” seems to me about on par with “should I complain to HR about the person who seems to wear strings under scrubs”.

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    2. Ellis Bell*

      I didn’t get any sense of anyone feeling scandalised. It was a combination of the set up being so that the person who was “like a play” (really good way of putting it) was more noticeable/distracting from OP’s office, but OP didn’t want to lose their daylight. If it had been anything but nudity, like a billboard or light, or something else distracting, people would have understood it immediately.

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    3. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      I wouldn’t consider it scandalous in the “privacy” of their own home, but it would likely be embarrassing, even as a fellow nudist – we’re mostly NOT exhibitionists ans I always make sure I don’t flash anyone
      My various offices always had blinds, because of the sun – and on reflection maybe to shut out unwelcome sights

      Reply ↓
    4. Helvetica*

      I had at one workplace direct view into someone’s living room where a man loved to do push-ups on the windowsill, bare-chested. The distance between our buildings was not great, so he definitely knew he was visible but I guess he didn’t care and ultimately I could ignore it.
      Frankly, I have walked around my place in my underwear and not really cared if anyone could catch glimpses…I am at home, after all.

      Reply ↓
  5. Naked Sign Wars*

    Re #2: this is EXACTLY the time for large posterboard letters (one per window) to spell out a message across all the windows on your floor that face the “uninhibited tenant”.

    It’s highly likely it hasn’t really occurred to her. It’s also quite possible she doesn’t care. But how can you pass a chance like this up? WE CAN SEE YOU NAKED is fine, but YOU’VE NEGLECTED LEG DAY is so much better. lol

    Get a drone and take pics of your building (not of her, pervs!) so you can post the pics of the sign to AAM afterwards, of course.

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    1. Happy meal with extra happy*

      Yeah, your company would love that…

      I get this is intended as a humorous, non-serious comment, but why would it even be funny?

      Reply ↓
      1. Cmdrshprd*

        I think the sign should read something like “YOU SHOULD TRY X COFFEE BRAND/FLAVOR.” OR “X COFFEE IS MICH BETTER TASTING.”

        IMO outlandish/preposterous ideas are generally funny. I think it’s a play on the show “friends” where they have almost this exact situation and end up taking the nudist apartment when he dies.

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    2. Drag0nfly*

      It might not have occurred to her. There are a surprising number of people who don’t realize that windows are see-through. I still laugh at one of those episodes of Property Brothers where Jonathan has the property buyers stand outside in front of the house while he dances shirtless in a living room to prove to them that they need to hang curtains or blinds in the window. For some reason they thought people outside the house couldn’t see inside. I don’t understand such people, but they exist, and the nudist might be one of them.

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        1. Nebula*

          Yeah, if she’s in the penthouse, maybe she doesn’t realise people can see her, figuring she’s that high up, but she went out on her balcony like that. I suspect she doesn’t care, and fair enough, it’s her own home. I don’t generally walk around my flat naked – I live in Scotland for one thing, and it’s rarely warm enough for that – but if I am naked during the day when the curtains are open, I don’t particularly make an effort to hide it. I don’t see why I should have to cover up in my own home for the sake of people looking in my windows. If I lived on the ground floor, maybe that would change the calculus, but if you’re higher up, it’s whatever.

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      3. LBD*

        I had conversation along similar lines with a neighbour, who point blank told me that no, I couldn’t actually see into her bathroom window from my living room. I briefly thought of asking her how she liked ‘X’ brand shampoo, but shrugged and dropped the subject. I also chose not to tell her about her partner drinking milk straight out of the carton and then returning it to the fridge. Happily, shrubs and trees along the fence have grown up more over the years!

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    3. I live in hope*

      I’m assuming this is a misguided attempt at humor. I think you should consider taking some improv classes – you definitely need some opportunities to workshop your efforts before you splat like this. You are coming off as creepy and weird rather than entertaining, and I can only think that was not your intent so hopefully you want to do better next time.

      Reply ↓
    1. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      It does illustrate how at a conference for TPTB someone of much lower rank is totally out of place and gains nothing except embarassment.

      Reply ↓
  7. Myrin*

    I somehow missed #4 when it first came out but OP is quite right that this reads more like a logic puzzle than anything else.

    It’s also interesting to me that this candidate would be okay with being contacted the day before an interview but not a week before which I would think is the more common situation; I can see someone saying “I’m the sole caregiver for my parents so would need at least a week in advance to have time to arrange something” but this person is basically saying “What? And interview in a week’s time? I won’t be available on principle!” which is quite peculiar.

    Reply ↓
    1. Irish Teacher.*

      The only thing I can think is that it’s one of those “this secret trick they don’t want you to know” typed thing and that the idea is to make the employer feel they have only one chance to get this person. “I am available for 4 days only and you have to snap me up in that window or you will lose the chance.”

      Yeah, it still makes no sense as even then (and it would be a stupid idea anyway), you would think they’d do “I am available for interview only for the next two weeks only” or something like that rather than “four days after you contact me,” but the best I can think is that it’s some attempt to work on the premise that “people will see you as having more value if you make it look like it is difficult to attain you and that they have to work for you rather than the other way around.”

      The “let’s say” also makes me think this as that sounds like they are making the effort to make it difficult and trying to think up hoops for the employer to jump through.

      Reply ↓
  8. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

    #1 Sara is an extreme example of how being skeevy / “a cunning plan” can turn a fixable, comparatively minor problem into a major career disaster – losing her job, burning that reference and likely struggling to find another.
    Astonishing immaturity to not realise the potential for disaster. I wonder if she had always been indulged for foolish actions and never faced consequences.

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    1. Lawyer (not a litigator thank God)*

      While it may be a reasonable inference that Sarah was involved with the letters, we don’t know that for a fact. All we know is that Sarah was (as of 2020) no longer working for the original company; we don’t know the reason for that.

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      1. Lilo*

        Res ipsa loquitur? (I’m mostly kidding but while it’s possible a colleague decided to do this entirely on their own, it’s not terribly likely, and they would have had to somehow obtain the landlord’s contact info).

        While, sure, not sufficient for a legal case, for purposes of posting on a forum it’s a pretty reasonable inference to make.

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  9. Cath*

    #4 simply wants a prompt interview instead of being left hanging for weeks. It’s no more unusual than the rules businesses have for their job applications and interview expectations. Certainly not weirdly demanding or out of touch, unless that same judgment is to be applied to businesses that likewise expect people to be ready to interview shortly after receiving notice.

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    1. not like a regular teacher*

      It’s out of touch because it misses the power dynamic. The reality is that the employer decides when/if an interview will take place, not lw4.

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    2. Meanwhile in RL*

      They may certainly want that, but framing it this way in an application does indeed make them look ridiculous, out of touch and overly demanding. That is simply the reality of how this will come across to the majority of hiring managers. You may wish to argue that it should not be that way, but you would be doing the person in question and others a grave disservice to pretend that this sort of statement does not come across extremely poorly and harm their candidacy.

      You can dislike reality all you want, but that doesn’t change a thing.

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    3. Irish Teacher.*

      Well, I think employers who call people for interview at really short notice are somewhat out of touch, though I suspect a lot of the ones that call people with less than 48 hours notice either already know who they want to hire and are only doing the interviews to say fill a requirement or are interviewing so many people that they are hoping some won’t be able to attend and don’t really care because they aren’t yet invested in any of the candidates.

      But job interviews aren’t on equal terms. In an ideal world, they would be. It would be a case of “I want a job, they want somebody to fill a position; we each need something from each other and are trying to see if our needs match,” but in reality, people need jobs to live and while a company may need somebody to fill a position, they often have dozens or hundreds of applicants and generally have a bit more leeway than somebody who is unemployed and running out of their savings or somebody in a toxic work environment and desperate to get out.

      And also, there’s the fact that this just seems like creating hoops for no good reason. If the letter said, “I will only be available for interview for the next two weeks,” I’d still say it was a bad idea because most employers aren’t going to change their interview plans unless maybe the candidate is outstanding; they are going to think, “OK, not available for interview. We’ll go with somebody else,” but I could see a point. “I will be available for interview at any time in the future so long as you only e-mail me 4 days or less beforehand, but if you e-mail me any longer before that, I won’t be available” just sounds like trying to set rules for the sake of it. And yeah, I suspect if a company said, “you must confirm your attendance at interview no more than 4 days before. If you confirm any earlier than this, your interview will be cancelled,” people would think it bizarre and possibly withdraw their applications too, because it just seems like a red flag for control.

      Reply ↓

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