Gonna try to keep this vague enough in order to not cause problems in our personal life, partner doesn’t know I’m posting this but I’m just so stressed about his mental state as of late I need to vent.
Me and my partner moved states recently. Before we moved my partner worked as rental maintenance. He’s a handy guy, it was a good enough gig for him. When we moved he immediately got hired at another rental company for maintenance. Unfortunately he didn’t realize that this is basically a slum lord company and the shit he has had to do since working there in just these last two months has given him reoccurring nightmares and serious mental health damage.
I would like to point out that this company does not offer health insurance either, which is especially messed up when you hear what I’m about to say next
Anyways, here’s a few examples of what he has been tasked to do, or has experienced on the job.
He was tasked to clean up a self inflicted gunshot wound to the head, in a hoarder apartment, surrounded by 3 feet of beer cans and pet/human poop on the walls and floor with not even a walkway carved out. Including scraping biohazard waste off the walls from the gunshot. (He threw up 30+ times cleaning this, and he has not had a single nightmare free night since)
He was fixing a woman’s fridge and she called a friend and accused him of being in her apartment to rape her, knowing full well he was the maintenance man and her was not at all acting in any way to suggest that he was a sexual predator. Also not to body shame but worth noting this woman was several hundred pounds and smelt/looked absolutely horrible, so my partner was just taken aback by the out loud accusation 5 feet away from him that he was going to sexually assault her. He was nothing but professional up until she casually said that on the phone right next to him.
He was held at gunpoint by a tenant for being in the apartment to fix something despite the tenant knowing he was going to be there.
Where we are from there are intense blizzards. It snowed 40 inches in 24 hours, they made him come to work anyways. The roads closed down and he was basically trapped and couldn’t come home without breaking the law and bypassing the closed down highways. His manager ASSURED him this would not happen and that he had to drive in to work regardless. Well, it happened and was incredibly stressful for all of us hoping he would make it home okay and not get stranded and freeze to death. Especially as a one income family and our first ever blizzard here, I really struggled with anxiety over that event.
I honestly could go on, this doesn’t even include basic stories about hoarders and disgusting hygiene and pet neglect and rude tenants. I just wish we could find something better.
Jobs shouldn’t cost your mental health. He’s trying to support our family but at the cost of becoming an angrier more troubled person.
If anyone knows anything we could do, I’d love to hear it. And even if you don’t have any suggestions, I’m just glad to vent because I feel so overwhelmed by the amount of shit my partner is having to go through on a daily basis. 6/10 work orders he does are DISGUSTING and usually related to excess amounts of poop in toilets and people not flushing for weeks/months. No joke.