Condo Life February 2006
Monday, February
27, 2006
With the annual meeting just a week away, today I received the official packet. It includes an announcement of the meeting, a copy of last years budget, a copy of the proposed budget, a proxy form (for the many unit owners who won't attend), and a copy of last year's minutes. I think most condo board members do not look forward to this meeting. There are several reasons for this. No one likes doing the administrative work necessary to prepare for the meeting. The meeting usually lasts long than expected. The lack of attendance reminds us how little people appreciate our efforts.
About 10 years ago, before I lived in this building, there was a very contentious meeting. Apparently, a toilet exploded (due to work being performed outside), which caused major flooding and major damage to several units. The trustees collected from the insurance company and divided the money among those who suffered damage. Well, one person felt that the trust should have done that until those who suffered the damage proved they could not get money from their homeowner's insurance company. I don't know all the details, but the issue became a firestorm, with people threatening to bring in lawyers and contact the attorney general. Someone accused the board members of stealing. A board member quit. What a mess!
A friend of mine lives in a fairly large complex where the unit owners grew so made at the board members, they threw four out of five of them out at the last election. That means people had to be so dissatisfied that they were willing to get involved and run for office themselves. Maybe that's a way to get more unit owners involved in the your building!
Friday, February 24, 2006
A new law says our building must use tight sealing garbage cans, so the 20 or so cans that have served us so well over the last 15 years will have to go. Gone will be the torn and lidless containers. Gone will be the containers with holes. And, our unit owners will soon be proud owners of $400 in new trash barrels. Actually, it's not a bad law. Even in this fairly urban environment, we have skunks, raccoons, and mice, and last year a possum slept every afternoon on my fourth floor fire escape. The most dramatic animal sighting though, by far, was the time a large gray bird, a falcon perhaps, landed on a branch just a few yards from the window next to my desk. There the falcon dined on pigeon. It was quite disgusting to watch, but I videoed it anyway, and one day will get it on line.
There are other animals as well. My cat has caught two mice over the years. My spouse caught a bat. A squirrel found its way into the dining room wall of a neighbor's apartment. On my fourth floor fire escape, squirrels and sparrows constantly vie for bird food. My cat loves to watch the birds. Of course, he'd rather be out there with them, but the truth is he's awfully fat and on the rare occasions he gets out on the fire escape, you can tell it's hard for him to walk on the grates.
Bats were our biggest problem last year, when we had nine of them make their way into the common space, driven out of the crawl space by the August heat and humidity. The bat expert told us that the mesh our our chimney caps was too wide, for bats can fly through spaces that are the size of a quarter. We're going to have the same problem next August unless we replace the mesh.
I know of three dogs, two cats, and two birds that live in the building. Add to that 3 kids and 22 adults, and we're practically a wild kingdom. In general, the humans are far more annoying than the animals, but that's only because they can be the worst kinds of pests. They burn food, make noise, complain, don't clean up after themselves (at least in the laundry room), and cause at least as much minor damage as any other animal. That said, the humans are also handy. For the most part, if you ask them for a favor, they'll do their best, unlike my cat.
Tuesday, February 12, 2006
So what came up at our condo meeting? We talked about our annual meeting, and decided to have another meeting before then at which we would talk more about our annual meeting. Someone wanted to know why our building manager doesn't answer his phone or door sometimes. Perhaps it's because he doesn't want to deal with the same complaining tenant day in and day out. (I didn't say that.) We discussed the problem of someone turning off the building's furnace. It's easy enough to do -- there's an on/off switch. We decided to put a warning in the minutes that no one should touch the furnace. We talked about the one resident who complained about the cold in the building. In that apartment, a previous owner replaced the radiators with smaller ones, so we decided their problem has nothing to do with the building's heating system. A bitter argument ended with one board member saying to another, "I wish you would leave the board; you make our meetings miserable." The reply: "I'll never leave!" Scary stuff.
Although we post our minutes and announce our meetings, almost no one ever comes to our monthly board meetings. The fact is when someone shows up, I don't think we like it much. It makes us act less dysfunctional, more polite, and more professional, something we're not always good at doing. Usually when someone else shows up, it's because they are new to the building. I can think of almost no instance where someone came to a board meeting because they had something to say. If they want something they call a board member. If they're angry about something, they post an anonymous note on the bulletin board. We have enough trouble getting unit owners to show up at the annual meeting. Typically, only about half will show up and the others will submit proxy forms that allow someone else to vote in their behalf.
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Tomorrow morning we have our monthly condo meeting. Five of us, representing a real cross-section in terms of ages, races, sexes, and even sexual preferences will get together and discuss complaints that the building is too hot and complaints that its too cold; what to do about a leak that will cost $10,000 to fix properly; when to install carbon monoxide detectors that Massachusetts requires in units with fireplaces; and so on.
The main topic of discussion will almost certainly be our annual meeting, which takes place in a couple weeks. We have to have proxy forms ready, last years minutes, an agenda, and a budget. The budget we know will raise condo fees by 10 percent, mostly to cover the increased cost of oil, but also to cover some lingering maintenance issues. We don't expect too much of an objection to the increased fees, especially since we haven't raised them for a few years.
But, tomorrow's meeting of the condo board will probably have at least one dysfunctional moment. It usually happens when one member demands an extremely bureaucratic process for getting something done. For instance, one trustee opposes paying servicepeople unless they provide detailed itemized invoices while other trustees think we should make it easy for the servicepeople so that they want to give us good service at a good prices. It's a tricky issue. When we get too bureaucratic, it turns servicepeople off, and I know of at least one serviceperson who is no longer interested in doing work for our building. On the other hand, if we're too lax, it's not fair to other unit owners and may cause some misunderstandings with the servicepeople.
Being a condo trustee in a self-managed building is not always easy, is seldom fun, and is generally too time-consuming. But, it does teach you an awful lot, and I would think it would be a very good step for anyone who plans to someday own a house. You learn an enormous amount about the practical aspects of maintaining a premises.
Monday, February 13, 2006
A quick internet search turned up some interesting results for the phrase "worried about my neighbor":
Speaking of worries, yesterday's Noreaster left us with about 16" of snow. Our new building manager shared this tip with me: If you have ice, put a mixture of sand and salt on it. The sand will make the ice less slippery while the salt does its magic.
Thursday, February 9, 2006
Already we've spent close to half our maintenance budget for 2006, in part because of bills from late last year that arrived this year, but also because our furnace was on the bum. Now, we hear the pipes rattling and a couple people on the first floor complained about their floors shaking. Turns out the pump on our hot water tank is on the way out. Our plumber will repair it this morning. It will cost a few hundred dollars.
Having lived here for 10 years, I'm a great believer in maintaining a reserve fund. Sure, there are years when our reserve does nothing but grow. But, there are other years when we have a lot of problems. For instance, this year, already we know of a plumbing project that could cost our 16-unit building close to $10,000 (an important drain pipe needs to be replaced and to do so, the plumber says he'll need to rip up someone's bathroom floor). But, the best thing about a reserve is not for the must-do repairs, it's for the like-to-do ones. Some buildings put off aesthetic improvements because no one wants an assessment to replace the dingy gray rug with a bright green one and no one on the condo committee feels like trying to coordinate collecting assessments so that a gardener can come in and spruce up the property.
When you have a reserve, you can just go ahead and do things. Of course, you try to get a unanimous vote from the condo board members and announce the new project in the minutes before going ahead. This way, you build consensus and give people an opportunity to object. But, in my building we've never had an objection -- not when we redecorated the hallways, repainted the back stairs, got our fire alarms 's hooked up to the fire department, and so on. How big should a reserve fund be? We hope to answer that question in next week's FAQ. But, offhand, I think $2,000 or $3,000 per unit is reasonable.
Monday, February 6, 2006
For the last two weeks, I've been looking at a plastic garbage bag that managed to get caught in a tree four stories high right outside my window. It's withstood rain, snow, and windy weather, and from the looks of it, it might very well still be there next year. That bag, made me think of one of the least celebrated achievements by a political leader in my lifetime. Granted, I was only a child when she was in power, but I remember as a little kid, it wasn't that terrible to throw a candy wrapper on the ground. A lot of people littered, even adults. But, then in the mid-1960s came President Johnson's wife, Lady Bird Johnson, who played a major role in the campaign to Keep America Beautiful.
While the streets may be pretty clean, our laundry room sometimes is not. In fact a few months ago, an anonymous resident posted really nasty notes demanding that people clean up after themselves. The notes said that people should not wash pet blankets, should take their clothes out of the washer or dryer on a timely basis, should wipe up spills, put dryer lint in the garbage, throw away empty containers, and otherwise make the room nice for the next person who comes along. The nasty notes did some good. Sometimes a complaint from a fellow resident has more impact than a request by the condo committee in the minutes.
Thursday, February 2, 2006
Firetrucks. Someone rang my buzzer about a week ago and it turned out to be a fireperson. In fact, there were about five of them. Turns out black smoke was spewing from the building's chimney and a neighbor called to report it. Turns out our furnace wasn't working properly and someone had put it on bypass (meaning it runs nonstop). Well, that's not the end of the story.
As a result of that, a nasty note had to go out to everyone telling them never to touch the furnace controls. Further, we've decided to put a lock on the thermostat. Worse, we had to call our service company to inspect the furnace. They, of course, found all sorts of problems -- a broken pump, a bent pipe, a damaged filter. $2500 worth of problems.
The moral: Make sure people don't play with the furnace.
Heating oil prices have hit us hard, pushing us thousands of dollars over budget for last year. Fortunately, we have pretty healthy reserves, so we didn't have impose an assessment. But it does look like we will have to raise condo fees by around 10 percent. It's crazy the way oil prices have skyrocketed. We have an oil man in the White House, we knocked out Saddam Hussein, you would have thought that would have helped our oil situation. But, I think our oil man president is more loyal to his oil company buddies than to the rest of us. (I own 100 shares of stock that languished at $24 for years. Since Bush became president, it's climbed to almost $80.) There ought to be a serious investigation of the skyrocketing oil prices. I think almost everyone agrees it's at least a little suspicious.
Monday, January 30, 2006
I'm a condo trustee. Why? I don't really know. The committee acts like a dysfunctional family, where people get along until the outbursts and insults. No one drives me crazier than Marie (name changed, of course), who brings complaints to every condo meeting. "Our oil expense is over budget." Yes, but we didn't expect oil prices to skyrocket like they did. "The building's too cold." But you leave a window open and a fan on much of the time. "I don't think you are doing a very good job as trustee." Well, I think you're the problem. Etc.
The building I live in is a 16 unit brick building in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We have a live-in manager who gets a free apartment in exchange for taking care of the building. He also holds a regular job. In the 10 years I've been a trustee we've dealt with everything from deleading to repointing. As a self-managed condo, I figure we save at least $5,000 a year versus using a management company, but then again we probably blow a couple thousand because we make mistakes.
A few years ago, I got mad at two elderly trustees (80+) who without discussion bought a ping-pong table for $200. I said no one would use it. A month later I went down to the common room for our meeting, and there were the two trustees playing ping pong. I don't think it's been used since, except as a refreshment table at our annual meetings. And to see those two play Ping-Pong was not worth $200.
Since you probably came here as a result of a search engine, you may be one of those people have issues with their homeowner or condo associations. Some associations sound just awful, imposing arbitrary rules directed at individual residents, refusing to post minutes, or making costly investments in things no one wants. While I'm sure there are some corrupt associations, by and large I think most are honest.
I have enough examples from my own experience as a trustee to see how mistakes happen. For instance, some months ago, I argued convincingly that we should put our small outdoor shed against the building, rather than in the corner of our very small yard. After it was done (at a cost of about $75), the person who lived above the shed asked if it would be okay if he bought bars for his window, since it would be easy for someone to climb the shed and then through his window. Instead, we moved the shed to a corner of the yard -- at a cost of about $75.
This blog will explore condo life and will draw from my own experience, as well as the experience of others I know who live in condo associations. Soon, we'll be set up so that you can add your comments, but in the meantime, if you have anything to share, send us an email at info@condopedia.com.
With the annual meeting just a week away, today I received the official packet. It includes an announcement of the meeting, a copy of last years budget, a copy of the proposed budget, a proxy form (for the many unit owners who won't attend), and a copy of last year's minutes. I think most condo board members do not look forward to this meeting. There are several reasons for this. No one likes doing the administrative work necessary to prepare for the meeting. The meeting usually lasts long than expected. The lack of attendance reminds us how little people appreciate our efforts.
About 10 years ago, before I lived in this building, there was a very contentious meeting. Apparently, a toilet exploded (due to work being performed outside), which caused major flooding and major damage to several units. The trustees collected from the insurance company and divided the money among those who suffered damage. Well, one person felt that the trust should have done that until those who suffered the damage proved they could not get money from their homeowner's insurance company. I don't know all the details, but the issue became a firestorm, with people threatening to bring in lawyers and contact the attorney general. Someone accused the board members of stealing. A board member quit. What a mess!
A friend of mine lives in a fairly large complex where the unit owners grew so made at the board members, they threw four out of five of them out at the last election. That means people had to be so dissatisfied that they were willing to get involved and run for office themselves. Maybe that's a way to get more unit owners involved in the your building!
Friday, February 24, 2006
A new law says our building must use tight sealing garbage cans, so the 20 or so cans that have served us so well over the last 15 years will have to go. Gone will be the torn and lidless containers. Gone will be the containers with holes. And, our unit owners will soon be proud owners of $400 in new trash barrels. Actually, it's not a bad law. Even in this fairly urban environment, we have skunks, raccoons, and mice, and last year a possum slept every afternoon on my fourth floor fire escape. The most dramatic animal sighting though, by far, was the time a large gray bird, a falcon perhaps, landed on a branch just a few yards from the window next to my desk. There the falcon dined on pigeon. It was quite disgusting to watch, but I videoed it anyway, and one day will get it on line.
There are other animals as well. My cat has caught two mice over the years. My spouse caught a bat. A squirrel found its way into the dining room wall of a neighbor's apartment. On my fourth floor fire escape, squirrels and sparrows constantly vie for bird food. My cat loves to watch the birds. Of course, he'd rather be out there with them, but the truth is he's awfully fat and on the rare occasions he gets out on the fire escape, you can tell it's hard for him to walk on the grates.
Bats were our biggest problem last year, when we had nine of them make their way into the common space, driven out of the crawl space by the August heat and humidity. The bat expert told us that the mesh our our chimney caps was too wide, for bats can fly through spaces that are the size of a quarter. We're going to have the same problem next August unless we replace the mesh.
I know of three dogs, two cats, and two birds that live in the building. Add to that 3 kids and 22 adults, and we're practically a wild kingdom. In general, the humans are far more annoying than the animals, but that's only because they can be the worst kinds of pests. They burn food, make noise, complain, don't clean up after themselves (at least in the laundry room), and cause at least as much minor damage as any other animal. That said, the humans are also handy. For the most part, if you ask them for a favor, they'll do their best, unlike my cat.
Tuesday, February 12, 2006
So what came up at our condo meeting? We talked about our annual meeting, and decided to have another meeting before then at which we would talk more about our annual meeting. Someone wanted to know why our building manager doesn't answer his phone or door sometimes. Perhaps it's because he doesn't want to deal with the same complaining tenant day in and day out. (I didn't say that.) We discussed the problem of someone turning off the building's furnace. It's easy enough to do -- there's an on/off switch. We decided to put a warning in the minutes that no one should touch the furnace. We talked about the one resident who complained about the cold in the building. In that apartment, a previous owner replaced the radiators with smaller ones, so we decided their problem has nothing to do with the building's heating system. A bitter argument ended with one board member saying to another, "I wish you would leave the board; you make our meetings miserable." The reply: "I'll never leave!" Scary stuff.
Although we post our minutes and announce our meetings, almost no one ever comes to our monthly board meetings. The fact is when someone shows up, I don't think we like it much. It makes us act less dysfunctional, more polite, and more professional, something we're not always good at doing. Usually when someone else shows up, it's because they are new to the building. I can think of almost no instance where someone came to a board meeting because they had something to say. If they want something they call a board member. If they're angry about something, they post an anonymous note on the bulletin board. We have enough trouble getting unit owners to show up at the annual meeting. Typically, only about half will show up and the others will submit proxy forms that allow someone else to vote in their behalf.
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Tomorrow morning we have our monthly condo meeting. Five of us, representing a real cross-section in terms of ages, races, sexes, and even sexual preferences will get together and discuss complaints that the building is too hot and complaints that its too cold; what to do about a leak that will cost $10,000 to fix properly; when to install carbon monoxide detectors that Massachusetts requires in units with fireplaces; and so on.
The main topic of discussion will almost certainly be our annual meeting, which takes place in a couple weeks. We have to have proxy forms ready, last years minutes, an agenda, and a budget. The budget we know will raise condo fees by 10 percent, mostly to cover the increased cost of oil, but also to cover some lingering maintenance issues. We don't expect too much of an objection to the increased fees, especially since we haven't raised them for a few years.
But, tomorrow's meeting of the condo board will probably have at least one dysfunctional moment. It usually happens when one member demands an extremely bureaucratic process for getting something done. For instance, one trustee opposes paying servicepeople unless they provide detailed itemized invoices while other trustees think we should make it easy for the servicepeople so that they want to give us good service at a good prices. It's a tricky issue. When we get too bureaucratic, it turns servicepeople off, and I know of at least one serviceperson who is no longer interested in doing work for our building. On the other hand, if we're too lax, it's not fair to other unit owners and may cause some misunderstandings with the servicepeople.
Being a condo trustee in a self-managed building is not always easy, is seldom fun, and is generally too time-consuming. But, it does teach you an awful lot, and I would think it would be a very good step for anyone who plans to someday own a house. You learn an enormous amount about the practical aspects of maintaining a premises.
Monday, February 13, 2006
A quick internet search turned up some interesting results for the phrase "worried about my neighbor":
- worried about my neighbor WHO plays his music too loud at 1:00am
- worried about my neighbor. i had rarely seen anyone that crazy.
- worried about my neighbor… he’s a barker…
- worried about my neighbor trapping my cat
- worried about my neighbor saying i have Middle eastern looking folk by my house
- worried about my neighbor walking up and down the street with a baseball bat
- worried about my neighbor and her recently released brother
- worried about my neighbor and her kids who eat fast-food regularly.
- worried about my neighbor who was sick on weds with throwing up and today
- worried about my neighbor suing me because my tree is ugly
Speaking of worries, yesterday's Noreaster left us with about 16" of snow. Our new building manager shared this tip with me: If you have ice, put a mixture of sand and salt on it. The sand will make the ice less slippery while the salt does its magic.
Thursday, February 9, 2006
Already we've spent close to half our maintenance budget for 2006, in part because of bills from late last year that arrived this year, but also because our furnace was on the bum. Now, we hear the pipes rattling and a couple people on the first floor complained about their floors shaking. Turns out the pump on our hot water tank is on the way out. Our plumber will repair it this morning. It will cost a few hundred dollars.
Having lived here for 10 years, I'm a great believer in maintaining a reserve fund. Sure, there are years when our reserve does nothing but grow. But, there are other years when we have a lot of problems. For instance, this year, already we know of a plumbing project that could cost our 16-unit building close to $10,000 (an important drain pipe needs to be replaced and to do so, the plumber says he'll need to rip up someone's bathroom floor). But, the best thing about a reserve is not for the must-do repairs, it's for the like-to-do ones. Some buildings put off aesthetic improvements because no one wants an assessment to replace the dingy gray rug with a bright green one and no one on the condo committee feels like trying to coordinate collecting assessments so that a gardener can come in and spruce up the property.
When you have a reserve, you can just go ahead and do things. Of course, you try to get a unanimous vote from the condo board members and announce the new project in the minutes before going ahead. This way, you build consensus and give people an opportunity to object. But, in my building we've never had an objection -- not when we redecorated the hallways, repainted the back stairs, got our fire alarms 's hooked up to the fire department, and so on. How big should a reserve fund be? We hope to answer that question in next week's FAQ. But, offhand, I think $2,000 or $3,000 per unit is reasonable.
Monday, February 6, 2006
For the last two weeks, I've been looking at a plastic garbage bag that managed to get caught in a tree four stories high right outside my window. It's withstood rain, snow, and windy weather, and from the looks of it, it might very well still be there next year. That bag, made me think of one of the least celebrated achievements by a political leader in my lifetime. Granted, I was only a child when she was in power, but I remember as a little kid, it wasn't that terrible to throw a candy wrapper on the ground. A lot of people littered, even adults. But, then in the mid-1960s came President Johnson's wife, Lady Bird Johnson, who played a major role in the campaign to Keep America Beautiful.
While the streets may be pretty clean, our laundry room sometimes is not. In fact a few months ago, an anonymous resident posted really nasty notes demanding that people clean up after themselves. The notes said that people should not wash pet blankets, should take their clothes out of the washer or dryer on a timely basis, should wipe up spills, put dryer lint in the garbage, throw away empty containers, and otherwise make the room nice for the next person who comes along. The nasty notes did some good. Sometimes a complaint from a fellow resident has more impact than a request by the condo committee in the minutes.
Thursday, February 2, 2006
Firetrucks. Someone rang my buzzer about a week ago and it turned out to be a fireperson. In fact, there were about five of them. Turns out black smoke was spewing from the building's chimney and a neighbor called to report it. Turns out our furnace wasn't working properly and someone had put it on bypass (meaning it runs nonstop). Well, that's not the end of the story.
As a result of that, a nasty note had to go out to everyone telling them never to touch the furnace controls. Further, we've decided to put a lock on the thermostat. Worse, we had to call our service company to inspect the furnace. They, of course, found all sorts of problems -- a broken pump, a bent pipe, a damaged filter. $2500 worth of problems.
The moral: Make sure people don't play with the furnace.
Heating oil prices have hit us hard, pushing us thousands of dollars over budget for last year. Fortunately, we have pretty healthy reserves, so we didn't have impose an assessment. But it does look like we will have to raise condo fees by around 10 percent. It's crazy the way oil prices have skyrocketed. We have an oil man in the White House, we knocked out Saddam Hussein, you would have thought that would have helped our oil situation. But, I think our oil man president is more loyal to his oil company buddies than to the rest of us. (I own 100 shares of stock that languished at $24 for years. Since Bush became president, it's climbed to almost $80.) There ought to be a serious investigation of the skyrocketing oil prices. I think almost everyone agrees it's at least a little suspicious.
Monday, January 30, 2006
I'm a condo trustee. Why? I don't really know. The committee acts like a dysfunctional family, where people get along until the outbursts and insults. No one drives me crazier than Marie (name changed, of course), who brings complaints to every condo meeting. "Our oil expense is over budget." Yes, but we didn't expect oil prices to skyrocket like they did. "The building's too cold." But you leave a window open and a fan on much of the time. "I don't think you are doing a very good job as trustee." Well, I think you're the problem. Etc.
The building I live in is a 16 unit brick building in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We have a live-in manager who gets a free apartment in exchange for taking care of the building. He also holds a regular job. In the 10 years I've been a trustee we've dealt with everything from deleading to repointing. As a self-managed condo, I figure we save at least $5,000 a year versus using a management company, but then again we probably blow a couple thousand because we make mistakes.
A few years ago, I got mad at two elderly trustees (80+) who without discussion bought a ping-pong table for $200. I said no one would use it. A month later I went down to the common room for our meeting, and there were the two trustees playing ping pong. I don't think it's been used since, except as a refreshment table at our annual meetings. And to see those two play Ping-Pong was not worth $200.
Since you probably came here as a result of a search engine, you may be one of those people have issues with their homeowner or condo associations. Some associations sound just awful, imposing arbitrary rules directed at individual residents, refusing to post minutes, or making costly investments in things no one wants. While I'm sure there are some corrupt associations, by and large I think most are honest.
I have enough examples from my own experience as a trustee to see how mistakes happen. For instance, some months ago, I argued convincingly that we should put our small outdoor shed against the building, rather than in the corner of our very small yard. After it was done (at a cost of about $75), the person who lived above the shed asked if it would be okay if he bought bars for his window, since it would be easy for someone to climb the shed and then through his window. Instead, we moved the shed to a corner of the yard -- at a cost of about $75.
This blog will explore condo life and will draw from my own experience, as well as the experience of others I know who live in condo associations. Soon, we'll be set up so that you can add your comments, but in the meantime, if you have anything to share, send us an email at info@condopedia.com.
