Lattice Properties

Maintenance requests are triaged into three levels: EMERGENCY (water intrusion, gas smell, no heat below 50F, electrical sparking, lockout with safety concern), URGENT (appliance failure, HVAC malfunction above 50F, plumbing leak contained to a fixture, pest infestation), and ROUTINE (cosmetic damage, minor repairs, appliance wear items, non-critical replacements). Only EMERGENCY triggers after-hours dispatch.

Why: The triage agent classified a "dripping faucet" as EMERGENCY because the tenant used the word "leak" and "water is coming out." The agent lacked the ability to distinguish between a dripping faucet (routine, $35 washer) and a burst pipe (emergency, $2,000+ damage). It pattern-matched on "leak" and "water" and escalated.

Failure mode: Tenant reports a dripping kitchen faucet at 11 PM Saturday. Triage agent flags EMERGENCY. After-hours plumber dispatched at 2 AM. Plumber replaces a $0.50 washer, bills $450 (emergency rate: $175 dispatch + $275/hr minimum). A $35 repair becomes a $450 repair because of misclassification. Over 9 weeks, 4 similar false emergencies cost a total of $1,680 in unnecessary after-hours dispatch fees.

Scope: All maintenance triage. Three-level classification with explicit keyword disambiguation.

After the dripping faucet incident, the triage agent now asks 3 follow-up questions before classifying any water-related report: (1) Is water actively flowing or pooling? (2) Can you see where the water is coming from? (3) Is the water near any electrical outlet or panel? The answers determine triage level.

Why: Tenant language is imprecise. "Leak" means everything from a dripping faucet to a flooded basement. "Water damage" can mean a stain on the ceiling from last month or an active roof failure. Without follow-up questions, the agent has to assume the worst, which means constant over-triage.

Failure mode: Without follow-up questions, the agent must triage based on initial report language alone. "Water coming from the ceiling" could be an active roof leak (EMERGENCY) or condensation from an improperly insulated pipe (ROUTINE). Defaulting to EMERGENCY for every water-related report would cost approximately $800/month in unnecessary dispatch fees based on historical volume.

Scope: All water-related maintenance reports. Follow-up questions mandatory before classification.

The vendor coordination agent can dispatch work orders for pre-approved vendors on pre-approved tasks up to $200. Any work order above $200 requires Corinne's explicit approval via Slack confirmation. The agent sends the request, Corinne replies "approved" or "hold," and the agent proceeds accordingly.

Why: In week 4, the vendor agent dispatched a carpet cleaning service for a move-out turnover at $380 without approval. The unit only needed spot cleaning ($120). Corinne had planned to have Ray handle it in-house for $0 labor cost. The $380 was unnecessary.

Failure mode: Agent dispatches a vendor for $380 when in-house labor would have cost nothing. Multiply by 40 turnovers per year (34% turnover on 120 units). If even 20% of dispatches could be handled in-house, that is 8 unnecessary vendor dispatches at an average of $300 each: $2,400/year wasted.

Scope: All vendor dispatches above $200. Slack approval required.

Tenant communications never promise repair timelines, cost coverage, or lease concessions. The comms agent acknowledges the request, provides a ticket number, and states that the property manager will follow up. It does not say "we'll fix it by Friday" or "this will be covered by the landlord."

Why: The comms agent told a tenant "your dishwasher repair has been scheduled for Thursday." Ray had a scheduling conflict and could not get there until the following Monday. Tenant took Thursday off work to be home for the repair. No one showed up. Tenant filed a complaint with the Virginia Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation. Complaint was dismissed, but it cost Mark 3 hours of paperwork and created a documented complaint on file.

Failure mode: Agent promises a Thursday repair. Repair happens Monday. Tenant loses a vacation day waiting for a repair tech who never comes. Tenant's trust in management destroyed. Tenant leaves at lease end. Turnover cost for that unit: $3,200 (cleaning, paint, 3 weeks vacancy at $1,350/month = $1,012 lost rent + $2,188 turn costs).

Scope: All tenant-facing communications. Acknowledgment only, no commitments.

The triage agent classifies and routes. The comms agent communicates with tenants. The lease agent tracks renewals. The vendor agent coordinates repairs. No agent crosses into another's domain.

Why: In week 5, the comms agent started including triage-level language in its responses to tenants: "Your request has been classified as ROUTINE." Tenant interpreted ROUTINE as "not important" and complained that management did not take their broken garbage disposal seriously. The internal classification label was never meant for tenant-facing use.

Failure mode: Internal classification labels leak into tenant communications. Tenant sees "ROUTINE" on their maintenance request and feels dismissed. What is an operational efficiency tool becomes a customer service liability. Three tenants in one month referenced the "ROUTINE" label in complaints.

Scope: All four agents. Internal classifications never appear in tenant-facing output.

The lease renewal agent surfaces data: lease end dates, current rent vs market rate, tenant payment history, maintenance request frequency, and lease violation history. It does not recommend renewal terms, rent increases, or non-renewal decisions.

Why: The renewal agent suggested a 6% rent increase for a tenant in Unit 4B based on market comparables. Corinne knew that tenant was dealing with a recent job loss and had been a reliable payer for 4 years. She offered a 2% increase with a 14-month term instead. The tenant renewed. A 6% increase would have driven her out. Turnover cost avoided: $3,200.

Failure mode: Agent recommends a market-rate increase without context about the tenant's situation. Property manager follows the recommendation without applying human judgment. Good tenant leaves. Unit sits vacant for 23 days (Richmond average). Lost rent plus turn costs exceed the annual revenue gained from the rent increase.

Scope: All lease renewal tracking. Data only, no recommendations.

The vendor coordination agent maintains a pre-approved vendor list with rate caps for each service type. It dispatches from this list only. New vendors require Corinne's approval before being added to the list.

Why: In week 7, a pre-approved electrician was unavailable. The vendor agent searched for an alternative and dispatched a contractor Ray had previously flagged as unreliable (slow, overcharges, does not clean up). The contractor billed $680 for a $300 job. Because the agent had no "blacklist," it treated any licensed contractor as acceptable.

Failure mode: Agent dispatches an unlisted vendor. Vendor overcharges by $380. Work quality is poor. Tenant complains about the quality. Corinne has to send a second vendor to redo the work. Total cost: $680 (first vendor) + $300 (second vendor) = $980 for a $300 job.

Scope: All vendor dispatches. Pre-approved list with blacklist support.

All four agents write status updates to their state files by 6 AM. Corinne reviews a compiled summary at 7 AM before her 8 AM start. The summary prioritizes: EMERGENCY items first, then lease expirations within 60 days, then outstanding vendor work orders, then routine maintenance backlog.

Why: Corinne's time is the scarcest resource. She manages 120 units, 3 vendors, and 40+ tenant interactions per week. Without prioritized compilation, she was spending 30 minutes reading four agent outputs and still missing time-sensitive items. The compiled summary takes 10 minutes and ensures she acts on the most important items first.

Failure mode: Without prioritized compilation, Corinne starts her day responding to the most recent tenant message instead of the most critical one. A lease expiring in 7 days gets less attention than a routine maintenance request that came in at 6:45 AM. Lease auto-converts to month-to-month. Tenant leaves 30 days later. Vacancy cost: $1,350 plus turnover.

Scope: Morning operations. All four agents feed into one prioritized summary.

When the triage agent classifies a request as EMERGENCY, it simultaneously notifies the vendor agent (for dispatch) and the comms agent (for tenant acknowledgment). Both agents receive the same classification and the same ticket number. Corinne is notified via Slack with a one-line summary.

Why: Before parallel notification, the comms agent would acknowledge the tenant before the vendor agent dispatched. Tenant received "we're aware of the issue" but no one had actually been dispatched yet. During an actual burst pipe incident, the tenant waited 40 minutes after acknowledgment before a plumber was contacted. Water damage worsened from $800 to $2,100 during the delay.

Failure mode: Sequential notification: comms acknowledges, then vendor dispatches. 40-minute gap between "we're on it" and actually being on it. Water damage compounds at approximately $50/minute in an active flood situation. Every minute of delay increases repair cost and tenant displacement risk.

Scope: All EMERGENCY triage events. Parallel notification mandatory.

The lease renewal agent begins surfacing renewal data 90 days before lease expiration. At 60 days, it escalates to DECISION NEEDED. At 45 days, if no decision has been made, it alerts Mark directly via Slack. Virginia law requires 30-day notice for non-renewal, so the 45-day alert is the last safe decision point.

Why: Two leases expired without renewal offers in Q1 because Corinne was handling a burst pipe crisis across two buildings. Both tenants converted to month-to-month. One left 45 days later. The 90/60/45 ladder ensures lease renewals get attention even when Corinne is buried in crisis management.

Failure mode: Lease expires without a renewal conversation. Tenant converts to month-to-month with no obligation to stay. Tenant leaves with 30-day notice during peak vacancy season (December-January in Richmond). Unit sits vacant for 35 days. Lost rent: $1,575. Turn costs: $2,100. Total: $3,675 that a timely renewal conversation would have prevented.

Scope: All lease renewals. 90/60/45 escalation ladder.

Maintenance requests received between 10 PM and 6 AM are held for triage until 6 AM unless the tenant explicitly states emergency language (flooding, gas smell, fire, no heat, sparking). Non-emergency overnight requests are acknowledged immediately ("received, will be reviewed at 8 AM") but not triaged or dispatched until morning.

Why: 68% of after-hours requests in our first 6 weeks were ROUTINE. Triaging them overnight triggered unnecessary overnight vendor dispatch planning. The hold-until-6-AM rule reduced after-hours vendor contacts by 71% without any increase in property damage from delayed responses.

Failure mode: Without the overnight hold, every after-hours request triggers full triage. 68% are routine but still generate 2 AM Slack notifications to Corinne. Corinne sleeps poorly. Decision quality degrades during the day. She misses a rent payment pattern that would have flagged a tenant at risk of default.

Scope: All maintenance requests received 10 PM-6 AM. Emergency language triggers immediate triage.

Tenant communications use a warm but professional tone. No exclamation points. No emojis. No slang. No first-name-only greetings. Every message includes a ticket reference number and Corinne's direct phone number for urgent follow-up.

Why: Tenants pay $1,350/month. They expect professional management, not casual text messages. Early comms agent output included "Hey Marcus! Got your request -- we're on it!" Marcus was a 62-year-old retired teacher who found the tone disrespectful. He called Mark directly to complain. Mark agreed.

Failure mode: Casual tone alienates older or more formal tenants. A 62-year-old tenant paying $16,200/year in rent does not want to receive a text that reads like it came from a college intern. Tone mismatch erodes trust. Tenant does not renew. Lost lifetime value over 4 years: $64,800.

Scope: All tenant-facing communications. Professional tone enforced.

The vendor agent tracks response times for all dispatched work orders. Vendors who exceed their committed response time by more than 4 hours on 3 or more occasions are flagged for review. The flag goes to Corinne, not the vendor. Vendor relationship management is human-only.

Why: Our preferred HVAC vendor was consistently 6-8 hours late on non-emergency calls. The agent flagged the pattern after 5 late responses. Corinne renegotiated the response time SLA and secured a $50 discount per late response. Without the tracking, the pattern would have gone unnoticed because each individual delay seemed reasonable.

Failure mode: Without vendor performance tracking, patterns hide in individual incidents. Each late response seems like a one-off. Over a year, the same vendor is late 15 times. Tenants associate slow repairs with poor management. Satisfaction drops. Renewal rates drop. Mark never knows the root cause is one vendor.

Scope: All vendor work orders. Response time tracking and pattern detection.

The $450 dripping faucet dispatch was the single incident that made Mark question the entire AI investment. Total AI implementation cost at that point: $1,200. The single misclassification represented 37.5% of the total investment. In a 120-unit operation with thin margins, one bad dispatch erodes confidence faster than 50 correct triages build it.

Why: Property management operates on 8-12% margins. Mark's net operating income on $1.94M gross is approximately $194K. A $450 unnecessary expense is 0.23% of annual NOI. Four false emergencies ($1,680) is 0.87%. At scale, misclassification is a material cost.

Failure mode: Confidence in the triage agent drops after one visible mistake. Corinne starts manually reviewing every triage decision, eliminating the time savings that justified the agent. The agent becomes overhead rather than productivity gain. Mark considers shutting down the entire AI system.

Scope: Trust economics in small property management. One visible failure outweighs dozens of invisible successes.

The comms agent's promise of a Thursday repair (C004) caused a cascading trust failure: tenant lost a vacation day, filed a regulatory complaint, and left at lease end. The total cost of one broken promise: $3,200 in turnover plus 3 hours of Mark's time on paperwork plus permanent regulatory file entry. The repair itself was $85.

Why: In property management, trust is the product. Tenants do not stay because the building is perfect. They stay because they trust management to be honest and responsive. One broken promise breaks more trust than 10 completed repairs build.

Failure mode: Comms agent makes a commitment it cannot keep. Tenant structures their life around the commitment (takes off work, rearranges schedule). Commitment broken. Trust destroyed. Tenant leaves. Turnover is the most expensive event in property management.

Scope: All tenant communications. Acknowledgment only, never commitments.

Lease negotiations, rent increase conversations, and non-renewal notices are always delivered by Corinne in person or by phone. The AI prepares data packets (market comps, payment history, maintenance costs for the unit) but Corinne delivers the message.

Why: A rent increase conversation requires reading the tenant's reaction, understanding their financial situation, and sometimes making a judgment call that preserves a good tenant at slightly below-market rent. The 2% increase for Unit 4B (C006) saved a $3,200 turnover. That judgment cannot be automated.

Failure mode: AI delivers a rent increase notification by email. Tenant sees "your rent is increasing 6%" with no human context. Feels like a corporation, not a landlord who knows them. Tenant does not negotiate. Tenant leaves. Corinne finds out when she sees the 30-day notice.

Scope: All lease-related conversations. Human delivery mandatory.

Tenant disputes, habitability complaints, and any communication that references legal action or "my rights" are immediately routed to Corinne with no AI response. The comms agent sends only: "Thank you for contacting us. Your property manager Corinne will be in touch within 24 hours." No acknowledgment of the substance of the complaint.

Why: Virginia landlord-tenant law is specific and adversarial. A poorly worded AI response to a habitability complaint could constitute an admission. A tenant wrote "the mold in my bathroom is a health hazard and I know my rights." The comms agent drafted a response that included "we understand your concern about the mold." Corinne intercepted it. The word "mold" in a management communication could trigger remediation obligations under Virginia code regardless of whether actual mold was confirmed.

Failure mode: AI acknowledges "mold" in a response. Tenant screenshots the message. Files a habitability complaint citing management's acknowledgment. Virginia code triggers mandatory remediation timeline once landlord has "notice." AI response becomes evidence of notice. Remediation cost: $4,000-$12,000 depending on scope. All because the AI used the tenant's own word back to them.

Scope: All tenant communications involving disputes, complaints, or legal language. Immediate human routing.