Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Handling Maintenance

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On Nov 2, 2014, at 1:25 AM, Norman Gauss <normangauss [at] charter.net> wrote:

> We are ten years old, and original equipment is starting to break down. 
> [snip] At one time, we had a robust
> Facilities Committee, but gradually people moved away or became less
> vigorous over time .  At the moment we are operating with only one 79-year
> old full time member (myself) with the other technically oriented members
> available only occasionally for small tasks because of their day jobs or
> people serving in a non-technical clerical capacity (secretary)

At 14 years we are having exactly the same problems. We have always a property 
management company that does our financial records --going through four in 14 
years. We have added facilities management in some years and had 5 different 
property managers. This morning we just had a meeting to evaluate the latest 
facilities manager. In my opinion they just don't work but every new person on 
the facilities team has to try again--convinced that that they will. "Just find 
a better one."

The managers have a lot of properties to manage and small communities take just 
as much work as large ones. And large ones pay more. The charges are based on 
the number of units. In the condominium world less than 40 units is small.

And we know more about many things than they do. We have professional project 
managers and engineers living here. The managers don't supervise workers on 
site unless you pay them $100 an hour. Our current manager does meet with the 
facilities team monthly and has been good about not charging us extra for some 
onsite presence.

We always blame ourselves for not working well with a manager. "It's our fault 
that we don't call them or expect them to take charge." My view is that their 
job is to tell us what needs to be done and help us get it done. It's not 
totally our place to tell them what needs to be done. That puts us in the 
position of managing and still paying $300 a month for almost nothing. When we 
had an emergency in the middle of the night -- burst pipes that involved a 
whole town house and no one was home, he did get two companies out to deal with 
it immediately. But we could have called them ourselves as we have in other 
frozen pipe emergencies.

The solution that I think would work best is to find a reliable construction 
company that does both small and large job and just call them when you need 
something done. Trust them. Give them feedback when things are done well or 
poorly. Pick their brains. 

When you add a cost for the time of all the members involved in getting bids, 
agonizing, and changing decisions, the cost of not getting bids is lower. 
Getting bids for anything smaller than maybe $30,000 isn't worth it. We waste 
our time. We devalue it.

Workdays are fabulous for small tasks and a sense of community -- of working 
together. And we have a great  person who keeps track of tasks needing to be 
done. We alternate Saturdays and Sundays because we have observing Jewish and 
Christian members. 9-4 with lunch. A job monitor sits in the dining room with a 
list of tasks, a description of each task, and if necessary the name of the 
person in charge of the task (who to see for instructions).

Someone sees to it that the materials required are on hand. If necessary people 
go get them. Lunches are simple -- cold cuts and salad. I would like to see 
something more enticing but that takes people away from the work day.

I have suggested that we hire someone and share them with another condominium 
on the neighborhood but that becomes a balancing act.

For all small condos this is a problem. Not just cohousing. A contractor I knew 
years ago said he didn't "believe" in small condos. I didn't understand how 
small condos were involved a belief system, but now I do. 

Sharon
----
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org