KIPS BAY

Managing agent Maria Auletta of FirstService Residential recalls walking into the boiler room of the 162-unit Tracy Towers at 245 East 24th Street about a year ago. She was the new agent for the building and was floored to see such a clean boiler room. "It says a lot about the leadership of the building," she observes. "I've been in property management for ten years and most boiler rooms are average at best. They have to be somewhat clean — but at Tracy Towers, you can eat off the floor. It's that impressive." In comparison, Auletta remembers walking through a boiler room at a different building and seeing water bugs so big that she left the room. "No one wants to go into [those types of] boiler rooms," she observes. Because shareholders rarely see the boiler room, it can easily become a mess. In fact, its appearance can reflect on how the super does his job.

A doorman who helped save the life of an elderly tenant trapped in her apartment for two days with a broken hip. A porter who collapsed on smoke-filled stairs after having helped get residents out of their apartments during a fire. An engineer and former New York City Department of Buildings inspector who became the super for a six-building, 1,700-apartment complex. They and 18 other city residential and office workers each took home a prize as the best in their categories in the 2014 Building Service Workers Awards.

The best step in a condo / co-op board can take to keep your building from becoming an illegal hotel — with absentee owners renting their apartments week-to-week or month-to-month via Airbnb and other short-term accommodation websites — is prevention, a topic Habitat covered earlier this month. But what do you do once you have a parade of non-vetted strangers living next to you and sharing hallways and elevators with your spouses and kids? You're not helpless. There are steps you can take.

Mark Andermanis, board president of the subsidized East Midtown Plaza co-op in Manhattan, and his wife Sandra have three kids. Normally that means New York City can't give them a four-bedroom co-op since those are reserved for families of six. But the Andermanis family got one anyway. Not only that but they jumped ahead of another family on the waiting list for a larger apartment. And yet a court decided unanimously that the line-jumper could keep it. What's wrong with this picture?

Recent news affecting co-op / condo buyers, sellers, boards and residents. This week: Seriously? Mark Andermanis, board president of the subsidized Mitchell-Lama co-op East Midtown Plaza, jumps ahead of others to score a four-bedroom apartment — reserved for families of six, which, additionally, he does not have —  and when he won't budge, an alert shareholder sues him. But he gets to keep the primo place because the shareholder doesn't have standing to sue ... and while the co-op board, perhaps, could, here's the thing: He's the co-op board president! Does this sound proper or right to anyone ethical? The good guys do win one, though, when a developer who refused to fix a Long Island condominium complex is permanently barred from selling condos. That's something, at least.

And then there's another reason for condo and co/op boards to be wary of Airbnb....

Recent news affecting co-op / condo buyers, sellers, boards and residents. This week, one of the world's richest condominiums has a big, circular driveway it won't let limo drivers use. Why should it? The NYPD looks the other way as a half-dozen or more limos idle daily in a no-parking zone, spewing fumes to other, less connected buildings. Very nice, 15 Central Park West. Meanwhile, rent-controlled seniors in a co-op are forced to evict their son, and a co-op board president admits that people were ahead of him in line when he took a four-bedroom apartment at the affordable-housing East Midtown Plaza. He doesn't have six people in his family like City rules say, but so what? He's just practicing to be the kind of people who live in 15 Central Park West.

Josette Cerasuola has lived at the 57-unit cooperative Gotham House, at 150 East 27th Street in the Kips Bay neighborhood of Manhattan since before it went co-op in 1979. She began her long service on the board in 1992. She recently spoke with Habitat Editorial Director Tom Soter for the first in a series in which board members help other board members by sharing their tips and philosophies.

Recent news affecting co-op / condo buyers, sellers, boards and residents. This week, uncertainty still abounds after the Department of Finance makes a claim neither New York City nor New York State will confirm about the possible extension of a crucial property-tax abatement. Plus, a court forbids a Mitchell-Lama co-op to privatize, Madonna is selling one of her apartments and a Financial District condo board gets sued for its actions, or lack thereof, in the wake of superstorm Sandy.

Recent news affecting co-op / condo buyers, sellers, boards and residents. This week,it's a nail-biter as New York City and New York State play chicken over the technically expired property-tax abatement for co-ops and condos. Plus, private playgrounds are the hot new kid-friendly amenity and Alec Baldwin's new wife buys a condo ... right next to her husband's. Is that like his-and-her towels? For condo and co-op boards, we've no less than The New York Times says sic 'em when it comes to condo arrears. And here's how you break up with the nice, friendly volunteer who's not so great at the job.