Dealing with tenants and work/life balance

[Joseph_1]

I have tenants who often choose to contact me via my mobile during unsociable hours for non-urgent queries. I have tried gently reminding them not to contact me during these hours unless it’s urgent. I have also tried using an out of office auto-reply. I have tried ignoring the message until the next working day but that just seems to make it worse as they eventually get a response.

I’m finding that this is really affecting my work/life balance (if I have any life at all). I wouldn’t want to completely switch my phone off in case there was a real emergency.

Do any of you have a polite way of dealing with this? I would prefer it if they emailed for non-urgent queries but somehow no one wants to do this.

[Mark10]

I had this. I spoke with them and added onto the end of an unrelated conversation. I also tell them at check in.

“Non urgent queries via email. Only mobile for very urgent IE leak. “

There’s are apps that will ignore messages from specified groups during certain hours. Some will allow a call to come through if they ring multiple times in succession, so they can still tell you that the tap is dripping at 11 pm.