If someone could help me out with this, it would be much appreciated.

About one month ago, on a bright and calm, rather pleasant evening, I decided to stay at home watching movies on account of the fact that my roommates were all out of town, a strange and unsettling occurrence rattled my nerves and eventually prompted the purchase of a night light.

Now, this was not the type of situation where you are just kind of sitting around minding your own business when a ghost just shows up and starts haunting the hell out of you for some kind of mysterious transgression on the dead; rather, this was more of an eerie, gnaw at your subconscious and freak you out until your roommates think you are insane kind of situation.

This is exactly what happened that night:

I was watching a non scary movie in the front living room of our apartment. During a commercial, I walked towards the bathroom at the back of our apartment along the long hallway that runs alongside the living room, room of many functions and kitchen. Just as I reached the top of the stairwell, I distinctly heard a voice say “Matt!" The voice was curt and maternal, not forceful, but not without intent. One could compare it to the voice a teacher would use to both get your attention and begin a line of questioning.

My Apartment

I first assumed it was just a matter of coincidence and that the commercial happened to include my name or a similar sounding word. However, the voice was much louder and very different from a voice that you'd hear on TV, certainly not the typical voice that you'd hear on a commercial trying to sell something. Not only that, but for a solid ten seconds, no sound emanated from the television. After ten seconds of creepy silence, the TV zapped back on and I could clearly hear the contrived happy dialog present in most commercials.

I am not a supernaturally oriented person. My first thought was not “whoa that was weird," but “whoa that was weird, but I still need to go to the bathroom," and after checking to make sure that there was no one in the house, I continued on with my mundane activities. If it were not for what happened next, I probably would blamed that lousy Comcast and never given the voice much though and our power bill wouldn't be so high.

However, about a half hour later, I was in the front living room on the couch, a little on edge (that voice stubbornly stuck in my head) when a book on the mantle not 3 feet from where I sat fell on the floor. The book had been laying face down on the mantle and there is no way it would have fallen on its own. Also, on the mantle were many other items in much more precarious positions, but for some reason this book was knocked to the ground. The second arrow in the floor plan above shows the relative position of the fireplace, right next to the TV.

My defense consisted of turning on every single light in the apartment and grabbing a six pack from the fridge (as ghosts, bears and giving speeches are much less scary after a few casuals). Since the phenomena occurred on either side of the fireplace, I suspected it to be the residence of the unholy beast and I sat on the couch, opened a beer, turned off the TV and waited for any sign of an escalation in haunting tactics.

Since then, silence. No otherworldly encounters of any kind, no mysterious happenings, nothing. It's either the calm before the storm, I am beginning to lose my grasp on reality or we are paying way too much for rent.

Has anyone ever encountered any kind of haunting in their apartment? Has anyone every moved out of their place because of strange occurrences?

Dan Daugherty of rentBits.com has started RentalScams.com, which provides information on different types of rental scams. According to the site, first a scammer copies a rental ad from any rental site and pastes it up on a free online classified site, such as Craigslist, and simply changes the contact information.

RentalScams offers some clues to help renters identify such scams. Typically, the rent is way below market value. It can be hard resisting a $500 dollar a month 1 bedroom apartment in downtown Manhattan, but this too good to be true price is usually the first indicator of a possible scam.

If you cannot resist at least checking a deal like this out, and you do contact the supposed property owner, Dan cautions renters to watch out for a few that are endemic to scammer response emails:

• The contact will be out of the country
• The response email will contain misspellings and awkward phrasing
• A request for the security deposit in exchange for keys is usually made
• The contact will be unable to show you the rental property

Dave Dugdale, of PickRent.com, has put together a 9 question rental scam detection tool that is very useful for renters; the questions provide some great ways to help renters identify a scam, such as matching a Google street view of the address with a provided photo and using an exact keyword phrase search in Google to see if the same rental listing exists elsewhere on the internet. After a renter answers all 9 questions, the quiz provides a percent chance that the rental is a scam.

PickRent is compiling a known scammer database, comprised of email addresses, so you can even enter the email of the contact of which you are suspicious to see if they are a known scammer. They also provide a video called How to Unmask Rental Scammers, which gives a comprehensive rundown on how the scam works and how both renters and legitimate property owners and property managers are affected.

Upon looking around the internet for a bit, we found one rental scam in Ormond Beach, FL where a woman was able to obtain keys to a rental property by posing as an interested renter, after which she simply made copies of the keys, posted an ad in the local paper, pretended to be the owner and then collected security deposits.

These types of rental scams are out there and can cost thousands of dollars, so it is great that there are now resources to detect rental scams.

Over the next few months, MyNewPlace founder and CEO John Helm will host workshops in select cities across the US focusing on cost-effective resident acquisition.

The workshops, titled “Smart Marketing on a Smaller Budget" discuss how to fill vacancies and cut advertising costs by comparing paid advertising sources. Leading owners/managers will share the best practices that they have used to cut up to 25 percent of their advertising costs while continuing to drive more results and fill their vacancies.

The workshops are based on Mr. Helm's whitepaper, “Cost-Effective Resident Acquisition," which will be available for download shortly.

Workshops already held in San Francisco, Denver and Seattle have been well received by those in attendance; we plan on providing clips from those presentations  later this week.

To register or for more information on the “Smart Marketing on a Smaller Budget" workshop visit the MyNewPlace Manager Workshop registration page.

Workshops are currently scheduled through mid-May:

• March 17th – Houston
• March 18th – Dallas
• March 24th – Phoenix
• April 6th – Washington, D.C.
• April 7th – Orlando
• April 15th – Atlanta
• April 21st – San Diego
• April 22nd – Los Angeles
• May 13th – Minneapolis
• May 14th – Indianapolis

If you have already seen the presentation, let us know what you thought in the comments below. Or, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask us at Twitter.com/mynewplace.

For the past year we have been tracking the development of the controversial issue of smoking in apartments. The point of contention hinges on whether the renter has a right to smoke within their apartment versus the rights of neighbors to clean air in their apartment.

Each time we come across a story regarding smoking in apartments, the actors in the conflict change. The last time we checked in, the argument was resolved between tenants, though in a court of law; a couple living in an apartment in Dublin, California requested and was granted a temporary restraining order against a smoking tenant.

Our prediction is that many of these disputes will be settled by the apartment owner, as was the case recently in Santa Cruz. The owner of the San Lorenzo Park Apartments recently informed its tenants that no smoking would be allowed within the building.

This presented some of the elderly residents with quite a dilemma: either find somewhere else to live or quit a lifelong habit. Though they may raise cane amongst their fellow residents, there will not be much that they can do, as smokers are neither protected by Fair Housing laws nor are likely to be considered to have a right to smoke under precedents set by rights to privacy.

With the percentage of smokers decreasing and even those who do smoke not wanting their apartments smelling like an ashtray, apartment owners are increasingly seeing incentives for instituting smoke free policies.

NAA To Help Apartments Go Green

Today we received an email from the folks at the National Apartment Association about their new Green Website; the NAA hopes to provide resources that will help apartment owners and managers, developers, remodelers and residents make their communities greener.

The new section seems not only to be a reaction to the popular uptake of green trends, but also in anticipation of impending government regulation of energy and pollution.

NAA to apartment owners, “start thinking about what changes you are going to make to your properties, because the legislature is very close to passing laws that cap emissions and this administration will not hesitate enforcing any regulation. Use our free resources to get a better idea of what that means for you."

The site right now is still in a pretty nascent stage, but it looks like once more information is published, that this site could really help apartment professional stay ahead of the curve when it comes to going green.

Last year, we tried to give everyone the heads up about last year's economic stimulus being a perfect way to overcome the deterrent of large upfront costs on environmental remodels that would save money in the long run. We are guessing that this year's stimulus, with its especial emphasis on green building and energy conservation will most likely produce similar opportunities.

(photo courtesty of Mia Mabanta)

If you have more than one roommate, than this is not that big of an episode and by paying heed to some of the considerations we spoke of yesterday, getting your current roommate on their merry way and finding some unsuspecting urbanite to help you cover rent shouldn't be all that difficult.

Difficulties begin to accumulate, however, when one of your roommates leaving flips into one roommate staying. Will it be easier to move out or to stay?

Let's examine the Pros and Cons of the situation with you at the helm of the apartment.
Pros:

• You will be in charge of finding new roommates. This could be more stressful than moving, or it could be an opportunity to remake the apartment in your own image.
• You will have your pick of the rooms. Perhaps you lived in the small peasant's quarters, but have your eye on the room with such opulent amenities as a window and closet.
• As the tenant of tenure, you may be able to take some freedoms with the redistribution of rent prices.

Cons:

• You will be in charge of finding new roommates. This could be more stressful than moving, or it could be an opportunity to remake the apartment in your own image.
• You will be in charge of furnishing the apartment.
• Most likely you will give you outgoing roommates the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the security deposit.

What would you do? Personally, I am planning on ascending the apartmental throne, which includes moving from the small room, (guess which one here) into the palatial master bedroom, where I will be able to comfortably place my mattress AND set up a tent as a guest room.

Now if only I can find some roommates who have a couch, a television and some kitchenware.

The difference is pretty substantial, especially in older, drafty apartments where it often seems that it is warmer outside than inside. It can be rather disheartening to live in an apartment that retains less heat than the sidewalk and the tree right outside your window.

So, step number 2 in the do-it-yourself plan to keep your apartment warm is taking care of the more insidious draft sources, such as doorways as well as any exterior walls and the outlets on them.

First, make sure that your doorways are not letting in gusts of cold air by purchasing specialized “draft dodgers" or simply employing the use of some household items to block cold air. If you have a rug near your entrance, you can simply lift one end up and cover the gap between the floor and the bottom of the door, or use an old towel.

Second, check to see if your outlets are letting in cold air; this leak is often overlooked, but is easily remedied with some custom electric outlet sealers. All of your outlets, although they are quite useful when they provide electricity, are also just holes in the wall.

To seal up that leak, turn off the electricity from your circuit breaker, unscrew the outlet cover, fit the foam pad arount the dual sockets and screw your covers back on.

Pictured above is the actual sealer, not the outlet cover. As should be obvious, installation is pretty self-explanatory. The only caveats are making sure that you have cut off electricity before you start poking around an electrical socket with a screwdriver and checking to see that the foam pads are flame retardant.

These chores are not even that tedious. It requires one trip to the hardware store, about $25 dollars at the absolute maximum and maybe an hour of your spare time on the weekend. And, you'll be able to feel the effect almost immediately. In our apartment, we were able to feel the difference from simply placing a blanket over the front window.

Tomorrow, we'll go over the final step of keeping your apartment warm in the winter without spending a fortune on oil or electricity. We are just getting warmed up. Zing.

As you may recall, a few weeks ago we announced the rules of our contest and offered a practice round for the purpose of example. A quick review: match the person with their apartment and leave your answers in the comments. We will be keeping a running tally of the winners.

Last week, Mr. Will was victorious in the practice round and though he will not yet be awarded any points, we applaud his quick wit, reasoning abilities and hand-eye coordination

In order to be eligible for the cash and prizes, send us a picture of yourself as well as a picture of any room in your apartment for rent.

We'll be putting new installments every few weeks, so be sure to check back and send your pictures to me at mdichiara@mynewplace.com!

Round 1:

1)		a)
2)		b)
3)		c)
4)		d)
5)		e)
6)		f)
7)		g)

Now, who's ready to have some FUN?

To enter the competition, send us two pictures. One of yourself and one of your apartment. Each week, we will have a contest to see who can best match which person lives in which apartment.

Send your photos to mdichiara@mynewplace.com and the games shall begin.

Here is a practice round to prepare you for next week:

(leave your answers in the comments)

1)		a)
2)		b)
3)		c)
4)		d)
5)		e)
6)		f)
7)		g)

Don't forget to send us your photos and come back next week to play!

What is surprising, however, is the statistically significant jump in listing views between having 15 photos and 16 photos. Views, interest and leads jumped 20 percent when the number of photos reached 16.

Also quite notable is the fact that a mere .02 percent of people clicked on homes with no photos; including just one photo increased the likelihood that a homebuyer would click to view details by 20 percent.

Granted, the study was done for homes for sale, but we feel the information does indeed apply to apartments for rent. We have found that renters are much more likely to proceed to detailed listing page and send an inquiry to a rental property if there are pictures displayed.

Renters, without question, definitely want to be able to get a feeling for an apartment rental before visiting. Part of the reason renters use the internet is so that they can cut down the time they need to spend searching for apartments.

Get on renters' short list by providing detailed photos of your apartment rentals!