MANHATTAN

Are you having a dispute with a staff member over a thorny issue, such as a denied request for overtime, which is seen as a vendetta? Are you involved in a dismissal for cause that the dismissed party believes involves discrimination? And are you finding that such situations have led to drawn-out lawsuits?

Certainly many managers are. "We fired someone and they sued," says Paul Brensilber, president of the Manhattan-based management firm Jordan Cooper & Associates. "What with the trial and appeals, we spent a fortune fighting it."

Recent news affecting co-op / condo buyers, sellers, boards and residents. This week, residents' outrage over rodents reaches a roar in one middle-class Bronx neighborhood's historic old co-ops (albeit spelled "coops"). Meanwhile, in a more upscale area of the borough, a condominium gets millions in tax breaks. Life as usual, in other words. And speaking of taxes, we've news on the class-action suit aiming to make New York City's crazy property-tax calculations fairer, and an Upper East Side condo is suing the MTA for Second Avenue subway-related damage. Plus: Celebrities buy penthouses!

I'd probably be dead right now. Maybe you, too.

That's because in all the years I've been writing about co-ops and condos, including fire-exit regulations and Fire Dept. inspections, I probably would have headed down the stairs at The Strand. That's what Daniel McClung did during the blaze at that W. 43rd Street condominium on Jan. 5. Knowing only that his building was on fire, he tried to escape from the 32nd floor — and ran headlong into smoke from the 20th that killed him.

But I mean — it's a fire. You're supposed to get out, right?

A trio of New York City statutes instituted last year are designed to make it easier for co-op and condo boards and other building owners and managers to address the extreme-weather effects of climate change, as well as better prepare for emergencies generally. We've written about Local Law 110/2013, which requires, among other things, drinking-water stations that draw separate from the main water line; and Local Law 111/2013, which addresses the complicated rules that govern backup-power generators.

The third leg of this triangle is Local Law 109/2013, which helps make it easier for buildings to install flood barriers.

I moved to my building, a Greenwich Village co-op at 45 West 10th Street, in the late 1970s. I was drawn to the location. I knew it would be a nice place to live — but it turned out to be a very nice place to live. I never thought about it before, but our board contains six professionals. We have a retired attorney, a professor, a financial executive, a photographer and a real estate executive, and I'm in the textile business. It gives us a professional air; everybody contributes. It also helps that I run my own company — that means I bring a business sense to the board. We don't always agree at first, but we end up agreeing in the end. It's a great co-op board.

Recent news affecting co-op / condo buyers, sellers, boards and residents. This week, a co-op board didn't want to let a diabetic senior with Parkinson's disease have air conditioners since, really, what's more important? Your life and health or your building's aesthetic profile? Elsewhere, a hedge-fund giant wants what he wants at his condo's pool — but can he fight the condo's moms and win? In Tribeca a gym is out, in Greenwich Village Philip Seymour Hoffman's last apartment is on sale, and in NoMad — yes, NoMad, that's a thing — there's a high-tech condo called Huys, pronounced "house." Plus, here's what'll happen at your own apartment huys if workers go on strike.

When the co-op board at 90 Riverside Drive in Manhattan got ready to refinance its mortgage in 2012, a round of Local Law 11 repairs came due — and once work began, the board found itself with a cash-flow problem when unanticipated repairs and expenses arose. So by the summer 2013, realizing the building needed a bridge loan, the board put out a request to shareholders, offering an interest rate significantly above that being offered by current money-market accounts.

Around 2 o'clock one dead-of-winter January morning, the telephone rang on Asher Bernstein's bedside table. The co-op board president of the 100-unit Butterfield House in Greenwich Village picked up the receiver and found himself listening to the agitated voice of his building's superintendent.

Bill Bissell said, "Asher, there's a flood! You better go take a look at 13th Street — it looks like the Hoover Dam opened up!"

Around 2 o'clock one dead-of-winter January morning, the telephone rang on Asher Bernstein's bedside table. The co-op board presidents of the 100-unit Butterfield House in Greenwich Village picked up the receiver and found himself listening to the agitated voice of his building's superintendent.

Bill Bissell said, "Asher, there's a flood! You better go take a look at 13th Street — it looks like the Hoover Dam opened up!"

Recent news affecting co-op / condo buyers, sellers, boards and residents. This week, is Howard Beach, Queens, co-op board vice president Ellen Di Stefano Buonpastore one of the most foulmouthed in New York City? We can't say, but Howard Thompson of WPIX's "Help Me Howard" segment has a report about her, stranded seniors and an elevator repair that will astonish you. Plus, what happened to the super at The Plaza's condominiums? What's the latest in the ongoing saga of the Brighton Beach boardwalk bathrooms? Did you know boards can help resolve disputes through free mediation? And where is Mad Men man Jon Hamm hanging his hat?