NEW YORK CITY

It is the small details that can lead to big problems. Working as an energy efficiency consultant, Matt Brown, an engineer by training, discovered an airport airline facility was losing $4 million and no one knew why.

Mystery solved: Brown discovered that a button on the building's computerized management system was somehow being disabled. Press a button and save $6 million? Brown knew technology should work more efficiently with buildings.

Is your building in a state historical district or a designated state landmark? If so, you might be able to take advantage of the New York State Homeowners Credit, a law that became effective in 2009 that earns eligible tenant-shareholders and unit-owners of co-op and condo apartments tax credits for doing repairs to the exterior and interior of the building.

To qualify, the building must be an owner-occupied residential structure — sublet units are not eligible — listed with either the State Historic Preservation Office or the National Register of Historic Places, or located in a state or nationally registered historic district and certified as being of historic significance to the district. Designation by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) doesn't determine eligibility for the credit, but the LPC does has oversight over the scope of the work.

A husband and wife found the perfect apartment — no small feat in the complex world of New York City real estate — located in a "white-glove" co-op, complete with private entrance. Very, very posh. The couple's bid was accepted, but then the pair read the building's governing documents and got a glimpse of living large that made them very uncomfortable. "They said that 'household help' was restricted to using service elevators and entrances, while residents could use the main ones. Two sets of laundry facilities separated such workers from residents. My husband noted that since we would have our own entrance and don’t have any household help, the bylaws wouldn’t affect us. But we would still do our laundry in the separate laundry rooms and would still be a part of what we consider reprehensible policies," they write to Ronda Kaysen in this week's Ask Real Estate column in The New York Times. The couple withdrew its bid and wants to know whether the building's policies are ethical or even legal. Kaysen explains that by definition, a white-glove building "connotes Old World (and old money) sensibilities — a modern-day 'Downton Abbey' on the Upper East Side." After all, Kaysen points out, the term "white-glove building" refers to the gloves its staff either still wears or tended to wear in the past. So it's no surprise that, first, they include language about "household help" and that, second, they have policies in place that keep domestic staff out of sight. Kaysen adds, however, that governing documents don't necessarily offer an accurate picture of a building's culture. For example, the language and policies with which the couple took umbrage may have been drafted decades ago and may be no longer enforced. For better insight, the couple might have asked to read meeting minutes, asked brokers for details about the building's cultural atmosphere or jumped on the old Google machine for an inside scoop. 

A READER ASKS: I'm on the board of a midsize co-op in Manhattan. We've had a rough couple of years. Two tenants are in arrears and my fellow board members and I are arguing about the pros and cons of taking them to court. Another tenant has spent the last few months threatening to sue us for everything under the. He has a reputation in the building for being very irate so we want to tread lightly and carefully but at the same time put a stop to the negativity. And if that weren't enough, two neighbors are feuding with each other and threatening each other with court action. Do you have any advice on how to deal with all this? I'm personally at my wit's end! 

Frank Sinatra told us all those years ago that if you can make it here in New York, you can make it anywhere. Life's tough in the Big Apple — never mind expensive. For one New Yorker, it's been an especially tough year. Since January, he's had to move from place to place, twenty in all, including crashing at friends' places and even in his own office. What happened to Art Teman? Well, if the name doesn't ring a bell, you might assume he couldn't afford rent in the big city anymore. Maybe he lost his job. But Teman, who describes himself as "homeless" now, didn't is still employed and wasn't having money troubles until he had to start shelling out cash for sublets and hotels. Teman found himself on the dreaded and infamous tenant blacklist after his Chelsea apartment made headlines last year for being the scene of an orgy. And he wasn't even invited. According to Brickunderground, Teman's "Airbnb guests turned his rental into a 'XXX Freak Fest orgy.'" Hope he's not a germophobe. As a result of the raunchy debacle, his broker dropped him and no new broker wants to give him the time of day. It seems like New York has chewed Teman up and spat him out. According to an open letter Teman wrote to Airbnb on his Tumblr blog, he can't get anyone to offer him a lease in the whole of the city, not even with promises of paying a full year of rent up front. "And now," writes Brickunderground, "we have an answer to the age-old question, 'What could be worse than coming home to find a BBW orgy in your apartment?' Getting stuck on the tenant blacklist, apparently." Duly noted.

It's official! The One World Observatory at One World Trade Center opened today to the public. And what a view it is. The observatory is on floors 100, 101 and 102 of what is — for now, anyway — the nation's tallest skyscraper. To mark the big debut, webcam content, technology and services provider EarthCam released a commemorative time-lapse movie showing the completion of construction from October 2004 to Memorial Day 2015. Hundreds of thousands of high definition images were captured throughout the past eleven years and hand-edited for the exclusive time-lapse movie. Click "Read More" to check it out! 

They may not always be popular, but in a co-op community, house rules are very important. Along with bylaws and proprietary leases, they help to establish criteria that maintain the value of the building and aim to keep peace amongst neighbors. House rules are regulations governing behavior, usually intended to prohibit illegal, objectionable, or anti-social conduct, such as excessive noise, keeping bikes in the hall, housing pets, and so on. But although having written rules is vital to running a building smoothly, it is just as crucial to know when to revise them. Times change, and so do the people living in a building. Outdated house rules can lead to confusion and discontent within your community. When's the last time you took a look at yours?

We all have at least one neighbor from hell story: he has parties every weekend, she smokes, he stomps up and down at all hours, she puts the television on ridiculously loud at the crack of dawn every day (including weekends), he smokes weed constantly, she has loud parties every weekend. The list is endless and usually filled with issues that are understandably annoying, but usually not scary. But sometimes these things escalate, and objectionable conduct has led to eviction. Objectionable conduct is the topic of this week's Ask An Expert column on Brickunderground. "My neighbor has broken into my apartment, vandalized my door, issued death threats to me and my family (I have this on video). He screams at me and other neighbors through our walls — the list goes on. He has multiple police reports for harassment from multiple neighbors, but my building just keeps telling me to document incidents (which I have been)," a shareholder writes to Brickunderground. The shareholder wants to know what he can do to start an eviction process. According to the shareholder, "everyone in [the] building and board wants him removed and so do the lawyers … yet no one will take action against him." It's a situation that's beyond frustrating. It's downright scary and highlights just how time-consuming the eviction process can be, even with all the documented incidents. Brickunderground's experts advise the shareholder to consider getting a restraining order. "Because of the inherent delays in the Housing Court proceedings that would be entailed in evicting a shareholder, a quicker and likely more effective response would be to secure an order of protection from the local precinct," says real estate attorney Dean Roberts of Norris, McLaughlin & Marcus. As for giving this apparent neighbor from hell the boot, the experts agree "there's no reason for [the] neighbors, the board, or the building's lawyers to be dragging their feet…. One of the perks to living in a co-op in this situation is that there's protocol to evict a wayward shareholder, a process that's much more difficult in a condo building." It's still a lengthy process, but there's no time like the present to get that ball rolling. 

Anyone who lives in a co-op or condo understands all the time, money, and effort that goes into tackling capital improvement projects — never mind when it feels like everything in the building needs fixing at the same time. The unfortunate reality is, of course, that nothing lasts forever and nothing is exempt from wear and tear. So even if your building just spent a small fortune replacing the boiler, the windows, or the roof or revamping the lobby or the pool, it's important to keep an eye on things and stay ahead of potential problems with general checkups or simply by double-checking that no major problems have been overlooked. This is the type of situation where a walkthrough inspection can be advantageous to your building. 

Last week, we took a look at the stage in the bidding process where boards get to meet vendors in person. In this fourth and final installment, we review making last-minute changes to bids, deciding who gets the project, and drawing up the contract. Sometimes you might have to request changes to all the vendors' bids after they've come in. "One contractor will say, 'You left [something] out of the request,'" says Warren Schreiber, president of Bay Terrace Cooperative Section 1 in Queens. "Sometimes it can be a contractor who is just looking to drum up more work, but in my experience, more often these are just people who are really knowledgeable, who have been doing it 20, 30, 40 years, and sometimes you'll reexamine the project and say, 'That's right, we did overlook this.'" When that happens, he says, "we ask [the vendors], 'Could you also give us a bid on this particular item?'"