I would like to share with you a real life personal story.
My apartment is in a building with over ten tenants.
We have a "building committee" that has been run quite well over the past two years, by three ladies in their sixties.
They collect a monthly fee to pay for lift maintenance, electricity, cleaning, gardening and bank charges for a special account.
All this time they never bothered to post a report about expenditures, although it is normal to do this every six months.
No one knows what is happening with the money that they collect, but we have a rough idea about the cost and it seems reasonable.
Out of the blue, they posted a notice few weeks ago that they have decided to change the tiles in the lobby floor and mentioned a small sum that they need to collect from all the tenants.
I immediately smelt a rat as the amount seemed too small for such a project, and asked about the total cost of the materials and work, but they told me that all I need to do is to pay the money that they mentioned on the notice board, but wouldn't give me any more details.
Normally, any special "project" should be given notice of beforehand and no decision should be made without getting the approval of all or most of the tenants.
As the present tiles were perfectly OK, just needed a bit of hard cleaning, I thought that at these hard times it would be a waste of money and we should use the money for something else that would surely come up soon.
The funny thing is that some of the tenants (1/3 have rented apartments) and the renovations should be taken from their landlords and not from these poor tenants.
So I told them that they are being unfair to them and that they should tell us all, the actual amount of the cost and then ask the landlords to pay their portion and not just the small amount that they asked for.
It turned out (that is my theory) that they have saved quite a bit from our monthly payments, as we were paying more than what was coming out, and as changing tiles is a women obsession, they decided to go ahead and do it without consulting with anybody, otherwise they wouldn't have a chance of approval.
Tried to post a notice asking for full information about the cost, but they just tore it up.
Didn't want to make a fuss over this, because they have a secret weapon:
Upsetting them would get them into high blood pressure and then where would I be if any of them get into intensive care because of me?
(This is what they did to one of the tenants few months ago who disputed something and he just settled the problem the next day)
Most of the tenants don't seem to give a damn about the whole thing. So all in all they kept the secret (about the cost) well guarded till now.
So now I feel like Don Xote (or should I say Donkey Xote), as I seem to be fighting in vain.
The only thing I can do now is to not pay the small amount that they mentioned, but knowing that they already used our hard saved money on cosmetics is really upsetting me, not to mention the lack of support from the other tenants.
My only concern is that they will keep doing it again and again, knowing that once they succeeded, there is no reason why they shouldn't do it again.
This reminds me of how a corrupt institution starts of, especially when the public don't give a damn and don't want to get involved in anything, except living in their well guarded bubble.
Voting on elections day? Who cares. Better use the day of going to the beach with the wife and kids, using free transport, instead of waiting in line and do their civil duty.
Now I wish that I worked ten times harder all my life so that I would have bought a house of my own, instead of sharing with such rubbish and malicious people.
Sorry, if this is too tiring, but I am interested to know your opinion about this fiasco and what options do you personally have in shared buildings.
Thank you.
My apartment is in a building with over ten tenants.
We have a "building committee" that has been run quite well over the past two years, by three ladies in their sixties.
They collect a monthly fee to pay for lift maintenance, electricity, cleaning, gardening and bank charges for a special account.
All this time they never bothered to post a report about expenditures, although it is normal to do this every six months.
No one knows what is happening with the money that they collect, but we have a rough idea about the cost and it seems reasonable.
Out of the blue, they posted a notice few weeks ago that they have decided to change the tiles in the lobby floor and mentioned a small sum that they need to collect from all the tenants.
I immediately smelt a rat as the amount seemed too small for such a project, and asked about the total cost of the materials and work, but they told me that all I need to do is to pay the money that they mentioned on the notice board, but wouldn't give me any more details.
Normally, any special "project" should be given notice of beforehand and no decision should be made without getting the approval of all or most of the tenants.
As the present tiles were perfectly OK, just needed a bit of hard cleaning, I thought that at these hard times it would be a waste of money and we should use the money for something else that would surely come up soon.
The funny thing is that some of the tenants (1/3 have rented apartments) and the renovations should be taken from their landlords and not from these poor tenants.
So I told them that they are being unfair to them and that they should tell us all, the actual amount of the cost and then ask the landlords to pay their portion and not just the small amount that they asked for.
It turned out (that is my theory) that they have saved quite a bit from our monthly payments, as we were paying more than what was coming out, and as changing tiles is a women obsession, they decided to go ahead and do it without consulting with anybody, otherwise they wouldn't have a chance of approval.
Tried to post a notice asking for full information about the cost, but they just tore it up.
Didn't want to make a fuss over this, because they have a secret weapon:
Upsetting them would get them into high blood pressure and then where would I be if any of them get into intensive care because of me?
(This is what they did to one of the tenants few months ago who disputed something and he just settled the problem the next day)
Most of the tenants don't seem to give a damn about the whole thing. So all in all they kept the secret (about the cost) well guarded till now.
So now I feel like Don Xote (or should I say Donkey Xote), as I seem to be fighting in vain.
The only thing I can do now is to not pay the small amount that they mentioned, but knowing that they already used our hard saved money on cosmetics is really upsetting me, not to mention the lack of support from the other tenants.
My only concern is that they will keep doing it again and again, knowing that once they succeeded, there is no reason why they shouldn't do it again.
This reminds me of how a corrupt institution starts of, especially when the public don't give a damn and don't want to get involved in anything, except living in their well guarded bubble.
Voting on elections day? Who cares. Better use the day of going to the beach with the wife and kids, using free transport, instead of waiting in line and do their civil duty.
Now I wish that I worked ten times harder all my life so that I would have bought a house of my own, instead of sharing with such rubbish and malicious people.
Sorry, if this is too tiring, but I am interested to know your opinion about this fiasco and what options do you personally have in shared buildings.
Thank you.
