You know the scenario: A couple days before laundry day, you start buying lots of gum and other sundries to start collecting quarters in your change — quarters you have to haul in a heavy bag and feed into washers and dryers. But increasingly, laundry rooms equipped with smart cards and coinless systems are making quarters as obsolete as subway tokens. Is such high-tech sudsing worth the agitation involved in refurbishing your building's laundry room and changing your residents' long-term habits? Aside from removing the gotta-get-quarters shuffle, what's the advantage? Read More »

June 30, 2008 — When the extensive and expensive landscaping at two large co-ops began dying during a drought and its subsequent water restrictions, both turned to the same solution: Install water wells. The technology is dead simple, unchanged for thousands of years except for the ease of modern machinery. And each co-op's water bills have dropped precipitously. Here's how they did it. Read More »

A shareholder in a 37-unit Manhattan co-op, fearing for her security, refused to let the co-op board have duplicates of her keys. The board, concerned about access to the tenant's apartment during emergencies, insisted on having a set. The stalemate was broken when the board attempted to evict the woman for breach of the co-op's proprietary lease.

Eviction? Over who's got the keys? Read More »

Urban trees aren't just great ... they're tree-mendous! Who doesn't love living on a leafy lane? And while maintaining a sidewalk tree takes a little effort in its sapling days, the New York City Parks Department makes the actual getting of a tree or two pretty easy for your board or a resident-volunteer (with board permission) to do. Read More »

The 40-year-old boiler at 504-510 West 110th Street in Manhattan had been giving the co-op board trouble. An inspection confirmed it should have been replaced years ago, and was only still running because of the ministrations of the building's dedicated super. But replacement posed complications: The boiler room also contained the building's condemned and unused coal-fired boiler from 1909, which would have to be dismantled. Water was seeping in via an underground stream that was slowly surfacing. And the equipment was lined with asbestos, requiring hazmat precautions.

Replace or repair? Upgrade or maintain? These are questions countless co-ops and condos face when aging boilers can bring a board to the boiling point. Read More »

You may call me mad — other men have. Yet a story is no less true for having driven its witness into the mouth of madness. You will understand, when I report to you of a creeping unknown more dark and fearsome than Cthulhu or Shuma-Gorath … the entity known as Local Law 48 of 2006.

I first heard of Local Law 48 — which amends Section 26-118 of the New York City administrative code to increase the fines for violations of stop-work orders at construction sites — from a gentleman I shall call T. His small, self-managed Manhattan co-op was having plastering and waterproofing done on one façade. Their contractor had inadvertently neglected to obtain a Saturday work permit. A small thing, 'twould seem, no more loathsome than a pedestrian crossing 'gainst a stoplight — a technical violation of no noise or bother.... Read More »

Gerard J. Picaso has been managing New York City co-ops and condos for over 30 years, and prides himself on his business acumen. So when it comes to greening the 48 buildings in his portfolio, Picaso says his motivation is as much common sense as it is dollars and cents. Read More »

Condo-association president Richard Campbell would probably agree with the approach of deadpan detective Joe Friday on the old Dragnet TV series. Whenever a witness veered off on an emotional tangent, he steered her back with a much-parodied catchphrase: "Just the facts, ma'am." And Campbell is after "just the facts" about the operations of his building — using a standard big-business tool that's still new to co-op and condo management. Read More »

Three o'clock in the morning is a time for the sandman, not sandbags. And so if that's the time that flooding hits and the water is rising in your basement or garage, you may not have the manpower to lay sandbags in time — leaving you with the prospect of tens of thousands of dollars' worth of flood damage. Read More »

It may sound like some accessory from your childhood Micronauts, but there's nothing kid-stuff about a microturbine — a gas-powered, on-site device that actually creates electricity for your building and even produces heat you can use for some of your building's hot-water needs. Read More »