My building has a new owner, as of early September, and one of the first things they did was take down the residential portal on the official website. The portal we’d had so far helped us submit maintenance requests and do other things I never used it for. It was also how I paid my rent. With the exception of electricity, our building handles everything. They don’t pay for it, but I give them money for internet, water, sewer, et cetera, and they pass it on. I assumed that three weeks is enough time to put together a portal.

A quick detail you’ll need to know: new management doesn’t send mass emails out; they leave notes on your door. Basically, since they took over, I occasionally leave my apartment, see the envelope, automatically assume I’m being evicted, then read the letter sigh in relief.

As the end of the month approaches, it’s not clear how I’m going to pay rent, or even how much I will owe, as sewer and water fluctuate every month. I get an eviction notice Monday that says we can pay with a check, whatever that is. I haven’t written a check in five years. After tossing my studio, I find my checkbook in a box in another box under another box.

When I go into the management office, they tell they don’t take personal checks. I need to get a cashier’s check or a money order. I want to get this over with, and there’s a Walmart in my basement, so I stand in line at the customer service department and wait.

And wait.

I’m fifth in line when I get there with two agents at the desks, and it takes twenty minutes to get to the front. Once there, it takes another twenty minutes of entering my information, paying, the transaction not being approved, running it again, restarting from the beginning, still not approved, running it again, running it again, for the rep to tell me that there will be no money orders that day, and I should probably monitor my bank this week in case the transaction went through.

There’s a branch of my bank across the street from work, so I can just pick up a cashier’s check on Wednesday. Only one day late. However, when I opened my door yesterday morning, I find another eviction notice, this one saying they got their own portal, and there was a link to it. In a paper memo. There is also a QR code, so I found the site, but I’m not paying my rent over the phone. When I get home from work, I use DMs to get the page up on my laptop, and that’s when the party starts.

On the page, when it finally finishes loading, is a link: “Set up payment method.” I click on that, and about two minutes later, it gives me an error notice. I try again, and it takes three minutes for the page to load. It takes three minutes for every page to load, and this is what I have to click through to pay my rent, a day late through no fault of my own: Set up payment method->Click here to set up payment method->Credit or direct deposit->Verify->Use this payment method?->Pay bill->Pay balance or custom amount->Select payment method->Confirm->Pay. At three minutes a click, I estimate that I spent roughly four months paying rent today.

One of the best parts about being an adult in 2024 is how easy it is to pay bills. I don’t have to write a check anymore, I don’t have to make sure I have enough stamps, I don’t have to fill out that paper insert, I don’t have to lick an envelope. Nowadays, I don’t even have to remember my password. I paid my last landlord with Venmo, so I would routinely take care of rent while I was running errands. Not this month.

I have never had a harder time trying to give someone thousands of dollars.