This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/fuckhoa by /u/Competitive_Oil5227 on 2023-09-23 20:05:14.
I was elected on my building board after the death on a member. Median age on the board was 80. I was 40 and the building manager was around 30. Beautiful art deco building full of very old owners; the older crowd wanted nothing to do with funding any repairs and pretty much ruled the board but each unit that sold was generally remodeled with younger owners (who mostly did not bother with board meeting) and there was tension. The elevator in my tier (from 1938) finally completely broke and was not easily fixable, giving me the option of walking up eight flights of stairs or using the service elevator and riding with the garbage trolley and everyone’s dogs and laundry. At the next board meeting I was so sick of hearing ‘fixed income’ from these people that had used the elevators (and everything else) for 40 years without ever setting money aside for eventual replacement…and one old lady (who still had a functioning passenger elevator in her tier) kept interrupting to tell us we should just be happy to use the service elevator and to understand that residents couldn’t afford any extra money. The building literally didn’t have the funds to address the issue and a 7 figure special assessment was needed. The next week the property manager (who was also just over it all) sent out a notice that the other passenger elevator had broken and repairs were not able to be made…and that we would all be using the service elevator. She included the schedule the custodian had for garbage removal and a note that dogs would no longer be allowed on the elevator between 7:30-10 am and 4:30-7 pm. It was a mass chaos with one creepy old service elevator for 90 apartments and people having to ride with the giant garbage can. After maybe a week or two, the service elevator (which had been modernized to not be from the 30s but still dated to 1970) stopped working. This really was an issue, leaving some people effectively stranded in their apartments. Another memo went out, letting people know that repairs would take several days and that garbage pickup was suspended…asking residents to carry their own garbage down with them. An emergency board meeting was called and a few hours before that meeting the main pressure pump for the water failed, leaving people above the 5th floor with just dribbles of water and the inability to flush the toilets. The entire thing was just a sh**show and as the majority of the building met in the lobby I was queasy, wondering what the hell was about to be decided. The building manager, to her credit, had her boss and her bosses boss there along with an attorney, letting the building know that emergency funding had to be approved or they were going to cancel the management contracts and that the board was in violation of our state condo laws. One lady named Evelyn was the board president and lived on the third floor…and voiced her opinion that we had to let people with limited means take priority over building needs. I thought she was going to be murdered right there. We managed to halfway fix the elevator and the experience forced the new owners to get involved with the his board and elections and attend meetings.