If you manage apartment buildings, you can probably guess what I’m about to write about.
If not, here goes:
- DWP is criminally under-staffed / incompetent
- DWP makes huge numbers of mistakes
- Getting someone on the phone to correct the mistakes and/or request normal service changes takes 30-90 minutes, each time
For an individual trying to do something simple, like turn on the electricity in a new apartment, this is a pretty awful situation, but at least it’s only a once-every-few-years kind of thing.
For an owner who self-manages a few small buildings, the DWP-imposed delays probably take up a few hours a month.
For big property management companies that manage hundreds or thousands of units, the delays imposed by DWP result in employees spending tens or hundreds of hours per month. Pick an hourly wage and do the multiplication and you’ll see that DWP’s disorganization is imposing thousands upon thousands of dollars in costs on property management companies.
Econ 101: Businesses will attempt to pass increased costs on to customers if possible, either by increasing prices or cutting other costs. Management companies will eventually pass on the increased costs to owners. And owners will eventually pass on the increased costs to tenants, in the form of rent increases.
All because a city-owned agency can’t get its act together to answer the phone.