As you know, although I no longer own the Inn, I am still in the hospitality business as the general manager of a condotel property. A condotel is a condominium complex built to be operated as a hotel. The condos are owned by individuals that are then members of an association and the association manages the hotel operation. There is a general manager that answers to a board of directors. Owners have use of their units more than a timeshare would be but can not reside on the property. Our particular property was permitted as a transient occupancy hotel. The logistics of such a property can get somewhat complicated both from a bookkeeping aspect as well as the who is responsible for what aspect. Most of the time, the property runs smooth but the past three weeks...well, lets just say when it rains, it pours. Or rather the carnival has been in town.
We have had an intermittent power failure problem in one condo. Our maintenance person, who is very knowledgeable yet not a licensed electrician, a licensed electrical contractor and even the power company have tried to resolve the issue for three weeks now. We can't seem to make it fail but as soon as we put a guest in the unit, there is a partial power failure. We have replaced several components of the unit's electrical system from the main breaker to a bad GFI and finally concluded that the initial replacement breaker was not making good contact with the questionable busbar (what the breaker plugs in to). We also had to replace a water heater in the unit during this period. Fortunately, the guests in residence during the water heater failure were regulars who were very patient.
99.5 percent of the time, we have amazing guests who are thrilled with the condo, the location, our cleanliness and services and our staff but that .5 percent that we had in the past 3 weeks could test the patience of the Pope. Guest A wanted us to come and refresh her unit within a 30 minute window of when she turned her "Do Not Disturb" to "Please Make Up This Room". This isn't necessarily efficient from a logistical standpoint but we were also expected to know the exact moment that she turned it. Guest B complained that there were a couple of items not perfect (housekeeping wise) on the day of their arrival and yet didn't bring it to anybody's attention until the last day of their stay. Guest C, D & E complained that the noise of the compressor that maintains the pressure in the fire suppression system bothered them. The compressor has been running intermittently for 3 years (and longer) with limited noise complaints and now we have three complaints in one week. Guest F complained that a bed was too squeaky. Although it is one of the newest beds and we had never had any other complaints, it was squeaky and was one more thing that needed to be addressed.
We have addressed a multitude of cosmetic and functional problems in the past three years but leaks, both water from plumbing or drains and air from the fire suppression system, are the most difficult to diagnose. On a dry pipe fire suppression system like ours, air pressure holds back the water unless a sprinkler head fails allowing water to flow to the "hot" spot. As is the nature of mechanical systems with pipes and valves, there is the probability of minute loss of pressure hence the need for a compressor on the system to rebuild the pressure periodically. My understanding is that the compressor in a well sealed system should only run about 15-20 minutes once a week. This one runs more than that in spite of the fact that we have had a number of components replaced during the last 3 years. Some where, out there is still a significant loss of air...or maybe several seemingly insignificant ones. The process of elimination continues.
A water leak is even worse to diagnose than electrical issues or air loss. Water follows the path of least resistance so tracing the drip back to the source is not always easy and water always leaves a mess. The icing on the cake during this period was water pouring from a previously repaired spot in the carport. Turns out that a drain from the HVAC systems (not easily visible to anyone including our maintenance person, the HVAC company and not on the blueprints that we have on hand) was stopped up. Looking at the amount of water flowing from the leak, you would think that someone was overflowing the tub but no, just the HVAC drain. Go figure. Several methods of unclogging later we now have a free flowing drain. So now we know. Moving on to preemptively unclog the others.
All of these hassles happening while we are still moderately busy, I am fighting a cold personally and my wallet with both business and personal debit cards is stolen while purchasing bedding for a unit owner. We are all now ready for a little less rain...or at least for the carnival to leave town.
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