A manager might have to coordinate operations with a single maintenance person or work with any number of doormen, porters, custodians and handypersons depending on the size and nature of the building. When well-trained and motivated, thes…
Though mostly unseen, a building’s plumbing and piping network is one of its most important systems—as anyone who has ever had to endure a freezing February shower, or who has come home to a flooded floor, can attest. Plumbing includes not…
The rarely stated—but all too well understood—Murphy’s Law for Boilers— asserts that if your boiler quits working, it will do so on Christmas or New Year’s Eve, or at 4:45 p.m. on the coldest day of the year. With some planning, though, th…
From the outside, the structure of a condo, co-op or townhouse building may appear to be monolithic; just pieces of brick, steel, vinyl or wood, punctuated with some glass here and there. That's an oversimplification, however. A multifamil…
Pests are a part of life. Wherever there are people, vermin of one kind or another are sure to follow. This is particularly true in urban environments like Boston, Providence and New Haven, where rodent and roach sightings come with the te…
While natural disasters causing catastrophic property damages are on the rise, associations also have to be prepared for other unexpected pitfalls such as a roof repair and replacement project or the installation of a new heating and cooli…
Saving energy: it’s good for the environment and it’s good for your wallet. Researching your options can be overwhelming, though, because there’s a lot of information out there on clean energy, incentives, and paybacks. Where’s a con…
Recycling has become an entrenched part of solid waste management for communities everywhere, and condo managers report that, in general, unit owners have been steadily moving into compliance. Often though, it’s difficult to find a t…
Funny thing about human nature—it’s not impulsively "natural" at all. Despite knowing that 1.1 billion people lack clean drinking water and thousands of children die from the diseases in that dirty water, people living in better circ…
In the business world, benchmarking is a management tool that is commonly used to analyze where one business stands in comparison to others in the same industry. For example, a doctor’s office might want to benchmark the practice to analyz…