| Author |
Message |
Roxip
Member
01-29-2004
| Monday, November 19, 2018 - 8:54 am 
Apparently the homeless man was in on the scam too...and then the couple cheated him so it all came out in the open.
That is what I do not like about GoFundMe. It appears that now everybody thinks they are a charity case. I had a friend whose daughter put up a GoFundMe because she was surprised at how much it cost to raise her new baby...the new baby that was planned for (not even a whoopsie). Shouldn't you have figured out the costs before you chose to get pregnant? She and her husband were, by the way, both employed.
I truly believe in supporting those who are truly in need but it is getting harder and harder to figure out who that is.
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Mack
Member
07-22-2002
| Tuesday, November 20, 2018 - 7:03 am
We had a sad story developed this past weekend here in San Antonio when grandmother and her grandson died as a result of a house fire Sunday night. This struck close to home as the grandmother worked indirectly for my wife. My wife is on vacation this week but spent several hours yesterday coordinating support to the extended family and making sure there was support to the staff in terms of grief counseling.
I’m bringing this up not to garner sympathy but to raise the issue and remind all of us to take care of ourselves and those around us. It is early on in the investigation of this tragedy so still some questions like the cause of the fire and the exact cause of death are not known but one thing is and that is that there were no working smoke or fire alarms in the house. Yes it was an older but well kept home. The grandmother was a well educated senior manager with a substantial income. On the surface it appears two people may have lost their lives for the lack of a $20 smoke/fire detector or $3 battery. Don’t take anything for granted. Check your own house, check older family members’ houses, and check elderly neighbors. Right now I’d personally rather be considered a pain in the backside and at least know I tried than to attend a double funeral after Thanksgiving.
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Dogdoc
Member
09-29-2001
| Tuesday, November 20, 2018 - 7:56 am
Mack, yes, smoke detectors AND carbon monoxide detectors.
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Mack
Member
07-22-2002
| Tuesday, November 20, 2018 - 8:28 am
Right Dogdoc and I should have added that in my posting. Luckily I’m still pretty handy so two years ago I switched out our six smoke and fire detectors for smoke, fire, and carbon monoxide detectors. We have a hardwired system so all six are connected so if one goes off they all alarm. I went with a model that has rechargeable batteries so I don’t have to change them yearly. I do have the system tested as part of a whole house maintenance contract I have with my heating and cooling company who also does electrical and plumbing. Should add that batteries notwithstanding the average life of any detector is about seven years. After that detectors start to lose their sensitivity due to dust, etc. Ours were 12 years old and I decided it just wasn’t worth taking the chance and the old ones didn’t have carbon monoxide detection.
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Mameblanche
Member
08-24-2002
| Tuesday, November 20, 2018 - 11:19 am
(((Mack and DW))) Condolences for this very tragic loss.
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Sadiesmom
Member
03-13-2002
| Tuesday, November 20, 2018 - 1:20 pm
the last time I gave to a GOFUNDME was when an online friend had cancer and the doctors gave up on her, but there was an experimental thing she got accepted to but could not afford to move to the area for treatment, now other people that I knew from real life knew her, which is how we became facebook friends. I put in some money more than once, and she went for the treatment, it helped for a while,but she died this spring. that was a worthy cause.
Chewpito, my heart breaks for you and your neighbors and friends who are all going though so much of everything.
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Dipo
Member
04-23-2002
| Tuesday, November 20, 2018 - 8:40 pm
CDC Verified account @CDCgov
7h7 hours ago
More
Outbreak Alert: Do not eat any romaine lettuce, including whole heads and hearts, chopped, organic and salad mixes with romaine until we learn more. If you don’t know if it’s romaine or can’t confirm the source, don’t eat it. https://go.usa.gov/xPAy5
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Colordeagua
Member
10-24-2003
| Thursday, November 29, 2018 - 7:13 pm
Changes here at home? I have lived in the same condo for 34 years this coming summer. Not perfect, but mostly good. OK for all these years. We've always had an inside condo board. That is changing. Former / outgoing board prez resigned. Can no longer serve due to his job. (I have no idea what it is. It will take up more of his time.). So we are going to have an outside condo board / management. Is it likely to mean big changes or things as usual? Our annual increase in monthly maintenance has always been app. $5-ish. Pretty good. I don't know what to expect about anything. Many years ago I heard inside condo board is better than outside. So now what?
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Dipo
Member
04-23-2002
| Thursday, November 29, 2018 - 8:00 pm
I have never heard of an outside condo board, what does this mean. Does it mean there are no people in your project who will be on the board so you are asking people who don't live there to be on your board?
We always try to keep our dues increase down, I think it has run about $10 per month for the last few years, it's always less than 5%.
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Colordeagua
Member
10-24-2003
| Thursday, November 29, 2018 - 8:54 pm
Apparently there's no unit owner who wants to be president of the condo board. Maybe there's still a condo board of sorts who hires a condo management company. After prez resigns, there's four remaining from the board.
I didn't go do condo meeting when board prez announced he was resigning. Bi-monthly condo meetings always have had low attendance. I go occasionally. Not this last time.
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Dipo
Member
04-23-2002
| Thursday, November 29, 2018 - 9:24 pm
So odd, why doesn't anyone else want to be President, it's the easiest job, you just have to run the meetings.
Also maybe if they only did monthly meetings more people would want to serve. We have monthly meetings except none in December and it works just fine. We also have a management company that we pay to support the board.
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Colordeagua
Member
10-24-2003
| Thursday, November 29, 2018 - 10:26 pm
Maybe that's it -- still have a board, but with a management company.
Bi-monthly is also every two months which is what we have for meetings. Used to be monthly until couple years ago.
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Dipo
Member
04-23-2002
| Thursday, November 29, 2018 - 10:42 pm
Oh, I was thinking of it as semi-monthly, LOL. That is even easier, who pays the bills? Our management company takes care of all the bills and bank accounts (writing the checks) and we just sign the checks for the projects we have approved.
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Mack
Member
07-22-2002
| Friday, November 30, 2018 - 5:23 am
I’ve lived in two communities with fairly robust HOAs. The first one was all internally run with elected and volunteer homeowners doing pretty much everything from collecting dues to paying HOA bills to conducting periodic board and community meetings. I think the only external support we got was legal and auditing of our accounts. The HOA I live in now is huge in comparison and uses a external management company that pretty much runs the HOA on a day to day basis. Because most of the included communities are at least gated, some even guarded, the HOA takes care of security, road maintenance, common grounds, and garbage. It’s way more than a bunch of elected and volunteer homeowners could do on their own. Once in awhile many of us feel the management company forgets they work for the elected board so there have been a few tense meetings and a few times has come down to threatening getting a new management company. With 13 sub-communities and somewhere around 3,000 homes it is a big HOA and good sized “business” with a multi-million budget.
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Colordeagua
Member
10-24-2003
| Friday, November 30, 2018 - 6:45 am
Mack, that sounds like what we were and will be. I live in a single 60 unit building. It has always, until now, been totally internal operating. Now as the board prez is resigning, we will have an external management company who will operate everything re money. We will still have an elected board. So life will go on here pretty much as it has. I expect my normal annual increase for monthly maintenance fee of app. $5 will go up. 
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Mack
Member
07-22-2002
| Friday, November 30, 2018 - 7:30 am
I won’t say what our monthly maintenance fee is other than it’s a lot more than $5. 😬😱 With community facilities like tennis courts, pools, and parks then add garbage collection, road maintenance, and security it’s significant. Of course my son owns and lives in a condo in San Francisco that has much of that plus building maintenance and his monthly fee is astronomical, more like a luxury car payment than an HOA fee.
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Kookliebird
Member
08-04-2005
| Friday, November 30, 2018 - 9:05 am
My 80 unit condo has an HOA Board that works in conjunction with an outside management company. I pay about $350 a month in HOA fees, which covers quite a bit. The condo is managed quite well.
I find that the president of the HOA does a lot more than just run the meetings. They work directly with the outside managers, coordinate any major projects and do a lot of communication to the condo owners on a regular basis about issues or changes. The outside management company goes out to get the bids, etc for work being done and resolves any issues that arise. For example, in September, the city water bureau did some work on the water pipes near the building and 'tapped' into the condo water supply by mistake. The water bill doubled for that month. The HOA president and the management company are working with the city to resolve the issue.
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Friday, November 30, 2018 - 9:23 am
I believe your Board will still manage the management company?
We've considered that here (we have 31 rural homes) because no one wants to serve.
We still have a President and Board that makes the decisions. The management company just makes all the phone calls, handles nonpayment of dues (ours are expensive because we have to do our own road maintenance), contracts with waste disposal, weed spraying, snow removal, etc.
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Kookliebird
Member
08-04-2005
| Friday, November 30, 2018 - 9:28 am
Yes, our board manages the management company.
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Colordeagua
Member
10-24-2003
| Friday, November 30, 2018 - 9:46 am
I learned more. It's law (at least here in Illinois), must have a condo board. Management company will handle everything, including complaints that don't involve money or services. For instance, complaints about dogs. Sixty units in the building. I believe there are six dogs. I have a dog. There are two definite dog haters that I know of. Avis is on my floor. The other is her good friend Sue who lives in unit above her. There is a dog in the unit across the hall from Sue. I've never even seen that dog much less heard it. (20 lb limit on dogs.). Avis and Sue COMPLAIN about that dog. I don't know if they have good reason to or not. They practically do battle with that unit owner. No one else complains about that dog or the unit owner. Sue and Avis can be a problem in any case. Has me a little anxious.
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Dipo
Member
04-23-2002
| Friday, November 30, 2018 - 1:10 pm
Yes, my condo is 60 units, I am the President. The management company handles everything day to day, the board supervises the management company. They can't do anything that we don't tell them to do, including mailing the owners.
In CA we can increase dues no more than 20% per year but try to keep it down as long as we can pay for all the basic bills and do some repairs.
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Juju2bigdog
Member
10-27-2000
| Friday, November 30, 2018 - 8:40 pm
We own a small one bedroom condo that we rent out, and we also now live in a 123 unit over-55 condo townhome community. The rental condo was owner operated when we bought it in 2000, but has since gone to an outside management company. There is still a board of directors. We had very low condo fees when we bought, no reserve, and had HUGE assessments in the meantime for unforeseen maintenance. Our condo fees there are now around $300 a month, I think, and we now have a healthy reserve.
The condo townhome we live in is owner operated. I would NOT want our condo president's job, but it is not even the worst job here. The worst job is Buildings and Roads, and it is pretty much a full-time job for no pay and no gratitude and people carping at you all the time, accusing you of favoritism, and demanding you come over and take care of their carpenter ants RIGHT NOW. The guy who took over the job is one of those who wondered what he was going to do with his free time after he retired. And then his wife died unexpectedly about six months after they moved to our complex. My heart goes out to that guy. I have threatened Bigdog within an inch of his life that if they ever get close to convincing him to take over, we are moving OUT. So he makes up for it by doing a variety of odd jobs during the months we are in residence, like keeping pathway lights in good repair and replacing outdoor garage lights, painting bridges over creeks (it is a park-like setting), and re-painting the entry sign. Oh yeah, and he is also the flag guy. We fly a large American flag at our entrance.
The condo President asked me what job I might like to have. I told him I am not looking for a job. I mainly share knowledge on things people don't know how to do and spread oil on troubled waters with humor, like when we had the miner bees alongside a pathway, and things quickly broke down into kill them suckers RIGHT NOW and don't kill any living thing ever camps. It was a lot of fun writing that little diatribe, and I got a bunch of private thank you notes (probably some other people are plotting my demise, but luckily most of us are losing short-term memory). The bees lived, and there were no human fatalities either. Not a soul got stung, and the adorable little bees aerated our clay-like soil.
Uh, where was I ... ?
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Colordeagua
Member
10-24-2003
| Friday, November 30, 2018 - 10:41 pm
My monthly maintenance was supposed to be $230 on January 1 before the change to management company. It will be more. I hear an additional $20. IIRC when I moved in in July '85 monthly fee was $89. Not bad increase over 34 years.
Hope new management doesn't come up with a mess of new rules and regs. Can I expect that?
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Mack
Member
07-22-2002
| Saturday, December 01, 2018 - 7:41 am
Usually property management companies enforce rules but don’t have the power to make new ones. Of course if the HOA board has been slack in enforcing covenants and restrictions and the management company starts doing that it then might seem like “new” rules and regulations.
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Saturday, December 01, 2018 - 9:13 am
Also, depending on what state you live in, there may be new requirements for your HOA that they may not have kept up with. I find that very true in Colorado where the laws were changed about 5 years ago.
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