Episode Report Card Miss Alli: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT "You must pay the rent!" "I can't pay the rent!"
By Miss Alli | Season 1 | Episode 7 | Aired on 02.18.2004
A timestamp claims that it's 1:23 PM at 3rd Street, and Protégé is showing the apartment to a woman in a raspberry sweater. They then show it to some other people, including some guys who look at the apartment with revulsion as if it has ex-convicts living in the walls. I think it looks nice -- I don't know what that guy's problem is. Troy says that they're just looking to rent it at this point, and they'll be taking the first person who makes them a decent offer.
VersaCorp, 2:08 PM. They put out a welcome mat, and Katrina says that the rest of them need to get out so that Bill can show the apartment. They've apparently decided that having everyone in there would be overwhelming. For some reason, Ereka is standing outside on the street with flyers, waiting to accost people who are coming to the open house they're having. Talk about not adding value. Cripes. Up in the apartment a few minutes later, an argument flares up. Bill is frustrated because there's no one coming to the open house, while Ereka counters that there's just no one coming by, so there's nothing she can do. Bill says that they shouldn't all be sitting inside the apartment -- they should be out trying to bring people in. "We just came in for five minutes, Bill," Ereka says dismissively. Because, you know, no hurry. She irritates him, and he says to her, "I'm not hard of hearing, Ereka. Please be quiet." They bicker some more, and he interviews that he's pretty nervous, because they've only got about three hours to get somebody in, get credit approved, and get the lease signed. "By three o'clock," he says, "I'm going to be in Operation Panic Mode."
After the commercials, Bill is explaining to a potential tenant (who, incidentally, is more than looking at him and thinking, "Boyfriend Biiiiiiiiill") that he wants to work it out with her so she can rent the place. Katrina happily explains that it's 4:15 now, and they've almost got it sorted. The tenant asks if they can do $1600 for the rent, and Boyfriend Bill moans with the injustice of it all. He gets her to $1650 -- which you will recall is what they settled on back in the apartment. Boyfriend Bill interviews that it's a ten-percent markup over the $1500 assessed value they started with, so he's pleased. The team high-fives. Bill interviews that he does have some lingering concern that the other team might have done better, but he's not sure.
It's 4:51 at Protégé, and the team knows that they need to stop showing the place and rent it. A woman comes by and says she's interested. This woman, by the way, wrote something that was discovered and posted in the media thread, in which she explained all this backstory about how she was going to rent the place before, and the landlord then reneged to give it to the show, and she only accepted the deal with Protégé because the landlord promised her on the sly that he'd drop the rent afterwards, so...take it for what you will. She sounded like an absolutely insufferable snot, among other things, so I'm not inclined to give a rip what she has to say. Anyway, Protégé talks about what a relief it was to get the apartment rented. And now, Heidi: "Everything I do, every action I take, I always think, 'What would my family think?'" And it's just not necessary to overstate like that, I don't think. No one actually operates that way, nor should they. And I kinda don't believe it about her, either. Enough said. Troy thinks it's cool that she stayed on task despite her personal troubles. Me, too.