Chapter 4157 - 4145: He’ll Rip You Off

Chapter 4157: Chapter 4145: He’ll Rip You Off

He looked over the new task; it wasn’t exactly difficult.

To be honest, he didn’t even need to do anything himself—there would be people calling to rent places on their own.

So there was no need to rush. What he needed to do now was find someone to help.

After parking the car, Lin Yi went to the property management office first.

The building might be his now, but this job wasn’t something he could handle alone.

Things like cleaning, sanitation, water and electricity...

Work in these areas still had to be handled by the property company; he just needed to pay extra fees.

He spent the whole morning ironing out these matters with the property company.

Since Pan Shengda had personally called to give instructions, the property manager, Cao Xiaohui, was very accommodating; he didn’t even plan to take money and wanted to help for free.

In the end Lin Yi still paid; all this was a matter of favors, not something he could just take for nothing.

After talking with property, he went back to the office. The next job was collecting rent.

He sent out another round of payment reminders, then checked the other messages, and at the same time sent a notice of change, informing the residents here that their Landlord had changed—no longer the property company, but a private owner.

After sending the reminders, he checked the information on the system again.

Problems that cropped up day to day would be reported through the platform.

Lin Yi opened it and scanned through; they were all about property repairs.

He forwarded all these kinds of issues to the property side. Besides that, there was one notice about moving out; the tenant’s name was Xu Ying, and they’d set a meeting at two in the afternoon for the move-out inspection.

He checked the time; there was still an hour.

Lin Yi first posted a hiring ad online, then went downstairs to get something to eat.

He didn’t go far, just down to the second floor.

There were plenty of small takeout shops here; you could just wander around and pick whatever you wanted. He finally stopped at a place that sold chicken cutlet rice.

"Boss, I’ll have one teriyaki chicken cutlet rice."

"Got it."

Judging from how Lin Yi ordered, the owner could tell he was a regular here; other people wouldn’t buy meals this way.

While waiting for his food, Lin Yi sat off to the side playing on his phone to kill time.

Just then, a woman in a strappy dress appeared at the door.

"One egg-fried rice."

Lin Yi glanced up; the woman had a graceful figure and a casual look, she hadn’t even really done her makeup, her hair was a bit frizzy, and there was fatigue in her eyes.

"Okay, just a moment."

The woman sat down next to Lin Yi, propping her head on one hand, spacing out.

"Have you heard? The apartment changed owners. I heard someone bought it out."

From the owner’s attitude, she was probably a regular here, which meant there was a good chance she was also a tenant upstairs.

"I saw the notice. It shouldn’t really affect us, as long as they don’t raise the rent."

"I don’t think they’d go that far. If they raise the rent again, even more people will move out," the owner said.

"That’s what I think too."

"Gotta admit, there’s a lot of rich people out there. Buying a whole building like this has to be at least several hundred million. I haven’t even seen that much money in my dreams."

"We’re just small fry. We’re not even on the same level as those big shots. Thinking about that stuff is just adding pointless worries."

"True."

After a bit of casual chatting, both of their meals were ready. They took their food and headed to the elevator.

They took the elevator up to the eighth floor. Lin Yi walked straight out, and the woman who’d bought the egg-fried rice followed as well.

Lin Yi didn’t think much of it and went to 809.

Just as he was about to open the door, he unexpectedly noticed that the woman had stopped as well.

The two of them looked at each other, and Lin Yi was a little surprised. "You’re here too?"

"I got a message saying the new boss is working here. I came to see him, so you..." The woman paused. "You’re here to see him too?"

"I’m the boss here."

The woman stared at Lin Yi in shock. "Y-you’re the one who bought this building?"

Lin Yi nodded and opened the door at the same time.

"If you’ve got something to talk about, come in first."

Lin Yi went in first; the woman followed right behind.

"What did you need from me?"

Looking at Lin Yi, the woman smoothed her hair, looking ill at ease.

"I wanted to ask, is it possible to pay the rent one month at a time for now?"

Normally the rule for renting is paying by the quarter; paying monthly isn’t really a thing, unless there’s a special situation and both sides agree.

"Which unit are you in?"

"1203."

Lin Yi opened his laptop to check, and from the information he saw her name: Jiang Wenhu.

"You already owe half a month, and now you only want to pay one month—that’s not really okay."

"I know. The job I had before, the boss shut down the business, so I have to find a new job. I’m a bit tight on cash, so I just..."

"Alright, we’ll do one month for now."

Lin Yi didn’t make things hard for her; after all, he wasn’t exactly desperate for this bit of rent.

"Thank you, thank you..."

"It’s fine, just make sure you pay on time."

"I will."

The woman left, and Lin Yi sat at the dining table to eat.

Suddenly he felt a little of the hardship of ordinary life. Back when he was still working at Chaoyang Group, he’d kind of been in the same situation.

People need to cut each other some slack.

After he finished eating, Lin Yi went to 2001.

On the 20th floor, the door to 2001 was open.

Everything in the room had been packed up; inside sat a young man and woman.

The girl was wearing denim shorts and a fitted T-shirt, leaning against the sofa playing on her phone.

She was very good-looking, with two long legs and two big "thunders" that drew the eye.

But the expression on her face was a bit impatient, like she wasn’t in a great mood.

The guy was walking around the room, looking things over, and would glance at the girl from time to time, acting all solicitous and concerned.

The girl’s name was Xu Ying. She’d previously worked at a company nearby; recently she’d switched jobs, and this apartment was pretty far from the new workplace, so she was planning to move somewhere else.

The guy’s name was Feng Lei, a college classmate of Xu Ying, from a fairly well-off family.

He’d been chasing Xu Ying ever since they were in school, but Xu Ying wasn’t really interested. Even so, he still hadn’t given up.

Today Xu Ying was moving, and he took the initiative to come help.

"The floorboards here are lifting at the edges. Did that happen while you were living here, or was it like this before you moved in?" Feng Lei asked.

Xu Ying, who was playing on her phone, glanced at the floor, thought for a moment, and said, "I don’t really remember."

"You only lived here three months; you probably wouldn’t have left marks like that. It’s very likely the previous tenant did it."

"If they did, they did. Why worry so much about it?"

"Because the Landlord might use it to screw you out of money!" Feng Lei said excitedly.

"Mm, screw me out of money?"

"Landlords nowadays are worse each one than the last. There was that news online recently about a landlord doing ’flashlight inspection’—when the tenant moved out, they used a searchlight to check everything and ended up fining them over ten thousand."

"No way..."

Xu Ying was starting to panic a little. She was just a wage earner; if they really deducted over ten thousand from her, how was she supposed to live?