Saturday, May 27, 2006

The Opposite Pole

My brother serves on his condo board. I'm smarter than he is. (Fair's fair. He has more hair.) I turned down the offer. He goes to frustrating meetings and actually has to do something about things. Our meetings look more like this:


We have a very efficient board. You'll notice our staff didn't waste any paper printing a brand-new sign. We just re-used the one from last month, because it hadn't been rained on much since it was originally posted.

Please don't think we're not getting anything done around our condo. The board is in fact evaluating replacement windows for the entire complex. (And yes, as a nonmember, I've had plenty of input.) But until we have some sample windows installed, there's no point having a meeting.

Just as well. I worked till 7 that night, so I would have missed the meeting if there had been one.

1 comment:

mrjumbo said...

Well, to be completely fair, I'd say our complex has about two dozen ground-floor units built in the 1990s, where yours has several times that many in an eight(?)-story tower built back when it was still legal to install fire-hazard breaker boxes. (And, I'd point out, every unit in your building besides yours probably has one of these.) Our buildings don't have to put up with any worse than California weather. Yours, in Virginia, regularly endure freezes.

Our management company is as close to ineffectual as you can get and still have to pay for it. One of their reps literally and quite seriously told me the ants all around our building are a sure sign we're going to have a lot of rain this year.

The board, I would say, is frustrated by owner apathy but otherwise does a better job than anyone else at maintaining the buildings, grounds, and reserves.