Cods and Lettuce

Pardon the pun, but I've been listening to a lot of Jack Benny lately - puns and wordplay were very in back in his day, and I'm starting to get into it myself.

It's time to dip into Fred's letterbag and answer a letter (ok, a comment) from Josh:

I have to disagree with you a bit. I agree with the rest of your association that the no trespassing signs are a non-starter. You might see them on the back of a building, but on the front entrance they are an eye sore, and don't really serve any purpose. The cops can still shoe someone away, they just can't arrest them, so I don't understand why you say "the police can't do anything". They can certainly tell a non-resident to leave, and back it up with the threat of force.

As for the door - it should close and lock properly on it's own. If it doesn't it is broken. The is a basic tenet of physical security. Any door on an secured office building will behave this way. It should be no different for a residential property.

You just cannot depend on people to actively shut the doors behind them. This doesn't mean they are stupid. It means you have to make sure the door is in good repair and the closing mechanism is sufficiently powerful to shut and lock the door. Attending to this shouldn't require too much of an expenditure.

Although I sympathize with your situation and the trauma of the break-in, I think you need to step back a bit and give some more weight to their arguments, they are not entirely out of line.

-josh

Of course, I have to address and attack this well-thought out argument made by a generally kind, intelligent person who is fun to hang around

No Trespassing Signs are an eyesore: Yes, the ones I bought were awful . However, we can get nicer signs. Also these don't have to be displayed in the window or on the door. They just have to be in the lobby somewhere.

"The police can't do anything" : Except for asking them to leave, the police either can't or (won't) do anything about trespassers if there is not a no-trespassing sign posted. So where the "random homeless guy" is involved, sure, that's enough. But as for a bunch of guys hanging around casing the joint, it isn't.

The Door: My whole point is that the $1000 door isn't what is broken. It is the $200 mechanism that simply needs to be tightened, not replaced. You don't replace your camera when it runs out of batteries, do you? The mechanism has been fixed by the way. It took three turns of an allen wrench. What I was upset about was the homeowner who a) over-reacted to the situation and; b) threw up her hands and said "you fix it, you fix it." It is her home as much as it is mine. Our home is a 100 year-old building. Every home needs maintenance. If you can't handle that, continue to rent. Nowhere in the bylaws does it say I have to do everything. An email stating "the door isn't closing properly, who can I call about this?" or even, "Hey, I have to work Monday. If I call and get an appointment, can someone else stay home," would have sufficed.

People who can't close doors aren't necessesarily stupid: Yes, actually, they are. Nobody's own front door has a hydrolic mechanism. They need to pull that shut and lock their own doors. I don't see why the front door can't be closed the same way.

"Although I sympathize with your situation...": Please don't patronize me. The issue on the table is that the people I live with are all adults who have chosen to become homeowners. They know we don't have a mantenence staff and they all have copies of the bylaws that outline the Board of Director's responsibilities.

These adult homeowners also need to understand that we live in a big city. If you see people who don't belong, and who could very well be checking out the locks on the basement doors, don't wait a week to tell your neighbors. Also, if you've already been told by the police what you needed to be doing (hanging signs) to assure that people who don't belong are taken away and then given a further incentive not to trespass again by being and fined, don't fret that it looks unfriendly. Find signs that aren't necessarily hiddeous and put them up. If the signs that were bought in a frenzy (before the robbery, mind you) are up for a day or two in a corner of the lobby or on the basement door until better signs are found, what's the big deal? The people I live with were being very rude. Instead of, "thank you for informing us of what happened and thanks for going out on a cold Sunday to buy the signs, but you know, they're gross, can we do something else?" I was electronically bitch-slapped.

In conclusion, I would like to restate that while I am still glad to be president, I have to admit that it can be a real pain-in-the-ass job. People are rude and lazy, and I wind up taking care of a lot of building maintenence issues myself, which leads to my work being taken for granted. I don't mind making initial phone calls and establishing relationships with vendors, or even being the person who approves expenditures. This is all very educational.-- I like knowing what to do.

Just for fun, the treasurer and I have contacted a couple of companies that manage condo associations for a fee. We're going to meet with them, see what they charge and what they do. I'll be presenting these findings at the next meeting. If this is what people would prefer, then so be it.

You know, it is strange. Although I am generally against everything that comes out of G.W. Bush's mouth, simply by virtue of the fact that it is, well, his mouth, I find myself agreeing with him on one issue. Being president is hard.