Le conseil d’administration tient à informer les copropriétaires que l’appartement des surintendants de la phase I a été vandalisé récemment. L’appartement, incluant les murs, le plancher, les armoires de cuisines, électroménagers et la salle de bain, a été abîmé par la peinture de métal. Selon un estimé approximatif et conservatif, le coût des dommages est d’au moins $ 5000.
Les autorités ont fait un rapport officiel et une enquête officielle aura lieu par la suite. Le conseil d’administration a pris des mesures de précaution afin d’assurer la sécurité des copropriétaires. Yasmine coopère en nous transférant tous ses clés et en déménageant le plus vite possible.
En règle générale, tous les surintendants sont responsables de remettre leur appartement dans la même condition qu’ils l’ont accepté. À la suite de l’incendie en janvier 2011, l’appartement des surintendants dans la phase I était entièrement rénové en état neuf.
En attendant le résultat de l’enquête, nous avons l’intention de faire des poursuites criminelles et faire des poursuites légales de réclamation du coût des dommages.
Malheureusement, cet évènement affectera l’arrivé des nouveaux surintendants, qui devront s’installer jeudi dans la phase I. Nous demandons votre compréhension et votre patience pendant cette transition; nous faisons notre possible de rendre la transition le plus efficace possible.
This is to inform co-owners that the Phase I superintendents’ apartment was vandalized this week. The entire apartment, including the walls, floors, cupboards, appliances, curtains, and bathroom, has been vandalized with silver paint. The damage is estimated to be at least $5,000 and could be significantly more.
The police have taken a detailed report and as a result a formal investigation will be done. We are taking extra measures to ensure the safety of the co-owners. Yasmine has cooperated with Management by handing over the keys and vacating the premises.
In the meantime, superintendents are responsible to return the apartment to us in the same condition in which they accepted it. Following the fire in that apartment in January 2011, the apartment was effectively in new condition.
Pending a police investigation, we intend to pursue the recovery of the cost of repairs through legal means and also consider pressing criminal charges
Unfortunately, this will affect the arrival of the new superintendents who are due to move in next Thursday. Given this situation, we ask for your understanding and patience while we do our best to make the transition as smooth as possible.
7 comments:
I have a constructive suggestion. We should ask for security deposit, and then people will think twice before doing damage. Do we have a vandalism insurance?
Vadim.
What are the laws in Quebec about vandalism over $5000? I think the person responsible deserves few months in jail. Maybe there he can learn his lessons.
How can we enforce this returning the apartment in the same condition?
The option of a security deposit will certainly be discussed. However, a security deposit would not go very far in this case. Also, it would be difficult to attract good people if we tell them that they have to deposit hundreds of dollars with us in order to work for us.
We do owe vacation pay and have had a discussion with Les Normes de Travails about the legality of deducting the cost from those cheques. It is something we are considering. Of course, the damage caused would swallow the entire vacation payment.
Our insurance covers vandalism but there is a substantial deductible. With our recent claims experience we would not make a claim unless the total cost escaltes beyond what we currently estimate. The fire last year increased our premium by about $5,000 this year and we don't want to feed the fire anymore - so to speak.
Also, what we learned from the fire experience is that getting insurance inspectors involved causes long delays and we want the new people in ASAP.
One thing we will do however is ensure that the people moving in purchase insurance.
Once vandalism is above $5,000 the police involve more investigators than otherwise. Pending the results of the investigation, we may file a civil suit and also press criminal charges.
Even if the person getting sued does not have money at the time of the suit, it seems that the claim may continue for as much as ten years.
We plan to do everything in our power to reclaim the cost incurred and to also punish those responsible.
So these janitors cost us at least $10000 more than we expected (probably $15000). At that price we could have attracted very good people with good experience. I hope the lesson is learned. We need to value people who work for us, we need to motivate them properly. We also need to SUPERVISE them. Our manager (or director) should follow up with their tasks. They should have a constructive honest feedback from the manager, possibly every month.
Is this hard to do?
One must remember that when it comes to supers, everything we do including paying salaries is multiplied by 2 as we need to be fair. Cost aside, we did not renew the contract for reasons which are now obvious to all. Furthermore we intendto pursue restitution of these costs through the courts and other means.
The question of supervision is an interesting one. Not all condos have a manager with defined office hours. In other condos, when co-owners need help, they call their management company and make their request over the telephone. The question that arises is how do they supervise their superintendents with that type of arrangement?
At Les Cascades we have the added convenience of having defined part-time office hours so supervision becomes more feasible and we have higher expectations. However, the supers are still the ones on the front lines and need to take their own initiative.
The directors here take a more active role than they might elsewhere. However, there is a chain of command where the supers report to the manager and the manager reports to the board. From time-to-time that chain of command is bypassed and the supers are approached directly. Certainly this is appropriate in an emergency situation for any board member or co-owner but there are other times where we have fallen into the trap of taking matters into our own hands. All that has done is cause stress and confusion. Also, the fact is that the directors are all volunteers. Many have jobs and take on this responsibility in their spare time. The point is that the Manager is the default point-of-contact at Les Cascades whereas in a management company environment it would be the supers as they do not have a Manager on site as we do. It really should not be the directors.
In terms of follow up, Bogie is responsible to follow up with his supers. The directors follow up with Bogie formally in a weekly operating committee meeting and at the monthly board meeting. Follow up lists are maintained and while progress is often slower than we would like, the fact is our lists are much shorter now than when we started.
Returning to the Supers, on a positive note, we would like to thank Eli Caron and his crew for doing an amazing job bringing the apartment back into a livable condition in just 3 days. Our new supers, Victor and Cornelia have moved in – something that was a huge question mark last Sunday.
A separate announcement about Victor and Cornelia will follow separately.
Phil, I really appreciate your explanations. They are always very interesting to read. It is really amazing that you were able to recover the supers apartment in such a short period of time. Congratulations for that, great decision by the board to get Eli and his crew to do the job !!!
Yes, compare to some other condos we are probably doing ok. I compare with the times when Pierre managed our building and Marcel and Diane were our supers. So, what has changed since? Our buildings were cleaner, and better maintained I find. We are not too bad now, but why we failed so many times to find quality employees? Starting from young couple of janitors, they left because they could not bare so many bosses, so many inputs. They were not so bad, young and energetic. Then, Linda and Donald, Linda was great, she did fantastic job. Donald was upset about too many bosses and too many inputs. Ok, granted we could not keep them, although I would prefer them to what we had after. Now, the last pair was just either not capable (Yasmin) or not willing (Abdel) to do the job. So good that they are gone, and I hope we are out of the woods with the new couple.
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