Sitting on your backside and collecting rent is not a job – but now new technology is permitting landlords to do even less work.

The New York Times reports that growing numbers of property moguls are using AI chatbots to manage their properties. Like their human counterparts, these robot landlords can answer questions, handle complaints – and also harass you to pay your rent.

According to the NYT, some of these chatbots are provided by organisations like EliseAI, a tech company based in New York which serves the owners of around 2.5 million apartments in the US. The bots are so believable that according to EliseAI CEO Minna Song, some people “come to the leasing office and ask for Elise by name.”

While your average landlord might be jumping for joy at the prospect of having to do literally nothing, unsurprisingly, many tenants aren’t too thrilled about having to beg a robot to fix their broken shower. One software programmer told the NYT that dealing with AI landlords had made apartment-hunting even more draining and stressful. “I’d rather deal with a person,” he said, adding that “if it’s all automated, it feels like they don’t care enough to have a real person talk to me.”

Anyone who has dealt with a maddening customer service bot can likely sympathise with any tenant forced to deal with an AI landlord. After all, trying to explain to an AI chatbot that you need to get a refund on a £30 clothes order is one thing – trying to explain that you urgently need your boiler repaired or that you really, really cannot afford a rent increase is another.