NEW YORK CITY

A READER ASKS: I am a member at my co-op's board. One of the tenants called us to let us know she found mold in her apartment. We are already discussing the steps to take to eliminate the mold; but I am concerned that we aren't moving fast enough. Instead, we seem to be getting caught up in a debate about who pays for what even though the tenant hasn't broached the subject of who's responsible for footing the bill. I'm concerned that if we wait too long, the tenant will get sick and take us to court. My fellow board members think I'm worrying over a whole lot of nothing. Can you advise us on the steps we should be taking so we can avoid a worst-case scenario? 

A co-op in West Harlem has two sets of front doors. The inner door is always closed; to get in you need a key or have someone buzz you in. The outer door is open during the day, but closed at night — and the only way you can open it is with a key. Never mind that it's a pain for shareholders to have to walk downstairs to let guests into the building at night. What about residents with mobility issues? Or residents who are too ill to leave their apartments? And what if there's an emergency? These are the questions Ronda Kaysen tackles in the latest "Ask Real Estate" column in The New York Times. Kaysen explains that keeping the outer door locked at night not only constitutes a safety hazard but also violates city and state rules. Although apartment buildings with eight or more units are required to have self-locking entrance doors, she explains, visitors — not to mention emergency services — must have access to the buzzer system. That's just good sense. Safety first should always be the bottom line for building residents, but total lockdown is taking caution to the opposite extreme.

Your home may well be your castle, but when it comes to co-op life, everyone has to abide by the house rules. And those rules vary from co-op to co-op, including the 80% carpet rule. Many buildings, including co-ops, are sticklers about carpets because they dampen noise and keep noise complaints down. But what about rugs? That's the question a retired nurse (with a chronic illness) asked Brickunderground.com in its latest Ask the Expert column. Her co-op board requires wall-to-wall carpeting — which it can do thanks to the business judgment rule. She's restored her wood floors, hence the rugs, and says that her downstairs neighbor has never complained about noise. But the board — which discovered she was in violation of the carpet rule while conducting a building-wide inspection on another matter — is saying she's got to install it, and she's saying she can't afford it. While one Brickunderground.com expert doubts the board will take her to court over the matter, another points out that a court, thanks to the business judgment rule, "could easily defer to [the] board on [the] issue." The bottom line: the cost of fighting in court would probably be greater than just getting the wall-to-wall carpet. Then again, the business judgment rule allows boards to rescind rules. Maybe with a bit of smooth talking she can convince her board to sweep the rule under the rug.

Community Board 7 last week approved a proposal to convert a historic church at 361 Central Park West into condos after architects agreed to revise their original design. According to DNAinfo, Li Saltzman Architects and GKV Architects have removed dozens of the 70 windows they planned to add after board members argued it made the 100-year-old landmarked Crenshaw Christian Center East look like it had been "shot out [with] a machine gun." Whoa. Replacing the small windows will be "three long windows spanning nearly the entire height of the building that they described as 'ribbons' of glass," reported DNAinfo. Despite getting the board's blessing, however, it seems the old adage that you can't please all the people all of the time rings true here. Not surprisingly, neighboring residents who largely oppose the project still hate it. You can't really blame them, either. The architects plan on getting rid of the church's stained-glass windows. Sadly, however, it comes down to an ultimatum: Lose the windows, or risk losing the whole building. The condo conversion project goes before the Landmarks Preservation Commission today for review.

Nobody wants to be that guy — the chronic complainer, the nit-picker, the drag who makes mountains out of molehills — especially when it comes to subjective issues, such as noise complaints. Hearing a next-door neighbor sneeze now and again may not be a big deal to many. Hearing a next-door neighbor hock loogies for an hour while you are trying to have dinner? No. Noise is an especially sensitive issue within co-ops and condos. The problem, of course, is that boards need to figure out whether a tenant is overly sensitive to noises that are par for the course in apartment life, or whether the noise in question is truly bothersome.

My friend Victoria is no heating expert, but she knows a lot more than most people, and is frequently at loggerheads with the insufferable know-it-alls on her cooperative's board — especially when they are about to waste a lot of the co-op's money.

When I got home I found an agitated e-mail from her. There appeared to be a significant leak in her boiler, a contractor had taken a look and recommended a new boiler, heating season was starting in a month, and the know-it-alls were about to vote to go ahead with the replacement. Could I take a look ASAP?

My recollection was that her building had a hydronic, or forced hot water, heating system with multiple atmospheric gas-fired cast-iron boilers. It had been installed recently, but before Victoria had joined the board.

A READER ASKS: Our co-op is usually well maintained. A few weeks ago, however, one of the shareholders called the super to complain about cockroaches. A few days after that I found and killed a couple in my apartment. We've never had bugs before. I suspect the source of the infestation is a possible hoarder on the floor above me. How can we prove this without violating anyone's privacy, and if it does turn out to be a hoarder, what should we do next? 

Old joke: Marriage is an institution. And so who wants to live in an institution? Bah-dump-dump. 

Here's the point: When you live in a co-op or condo, you live in a corporate institution run by a board of directors — who happen to be volunteers who can leave the board if they burn out, move away, or find they need to spend more time with the kids. Once two or three of them of do, your institution starts to lose something that more traditional institutions do not: institutional memory of decisions, policies, and rules made eight, nine years ago that no one remembers anymore.

The first week of December has come and gone and pretty soon it will be holiday party time. Brickunderground.com compiled a list of do's and don'ts for hosts to ensure they don't tick off building staff and neighbors. Advice includes letting the doorman and immediate neighbors know ahead of time that you're having a party; covering floors with cheap carpet, so dancing shoes don't drive downstairs neighbors batty; quieting down by 10 or 11 p.m.; and making sure party guests don't spill out of the apartment into common areas. If you're the one throwing the party, you may think these rules are an 11 on a Scrooge scale of 1-10. Not so much if you're the poor soul on 6C being serenaded by cackling merry people clomping up the stairs, past his door, to smoke on the roof. 6C probably didn't sign up for three or more hours' worth of foot traffic and noise. So even if party rules are already covered in your bylaws, the time is ripe for boards to distribute gentle reminders to residents who plan to host parties, to make sure guests have a good time without disturbing the rest of the building residents.

A READER ASKS: Some of the tenants in our co-op have dogs. When they go away for the weekend or on vacation, they hire professional dog-walkers. This causes friction among tenants who don't have pets because strangers are coming in and out of the building, usually with packs of rowdy dogs. And what if someone masquerading as a dog-walker robs an apartment in our building? It hasn't happened to us yet, we want to safeguard our building against all these issues. What can we do?