Insult, Injury

Nothing my developer does should surprise me anymore.

The crappy renovation; having my intelligence insulted; sitting in an administrative hearing and having my intelligence insulted; having the association saddled with a fine that was not of our doing---at this point, I thought I had seen it all from this joker.

I found out last week that my heartless, amoral, shifty developer is developing a piece of property that I can literally see from my kitchen window.

I almost lost my shit when I heard the news.

We have worked so hard just to get back to a level playing field after we discovered the shambles we were left with.

Last year was the start of our rebuilding and let me tell you it hasn’t been all shits and giggles down here on the south side.

You may be a little surprised to hear this but it’s somewhat tough to get the love south of Madison Street.

While not a native Chicagoan, I did go to college in the north suburbs and spent the first six of my eleven residential years living on the north side. I never quite understood the north side vs. south side thing.

It soon became apparent when my zip code changed to 60637 that the south side thing was going to figure prominently into my everyday life.

Apparently your I.Q. points drop and your propensity for criminal behavior go up once you move down here.

My friends beseeched me not to go---that I’d be killed, that no one would come to visit---Hell Woody, why would you move down there? You don’t know anyone?

Jesus, I would have gotten less flak for going into the Peace Corp.

But I did it, I made the break and moved into what I thought was my perfect little place.

The discovery of our problems made me resolute. Clichés fell like pearls from my mouth: Tough times don’t last, tough people do. If we all work as a team we can make this happen.

Blah, blah, blah.

Then reality set in ladies and gentlemen. I was a little taken aback to find out that service people won’t come to give us estimates or return phone inquires because of the perception of our neighborhood.

The ones who would give us an estimate tried to jack us so bad that we should have taken that bullshit to the police and had them brought up on charges.

It took us six months to find The Porch People. We should have had contractors lining up to do the job.

Forget about getting a loan from a downtown bank for the work we needed done. It wasn’t going to happen.

We didn’t look good on paper and besides when the address was given during the initial discussion, those phone calls also happened to not get returned either.

The future was not looking bright.

A lot of hard work, frequent calls to my Alderman, the help of a friend who knows trades people and Shore Bank saved our asses.

Making people tow the line when it came to assessments, a special assessment and a couple of liens didn’t hurt either.

We had approximately $1,000-$1,400 in the bank at the beginning of 2005. We have increased that amount to over $28,000 in less than a year.

So much diligence has gone into getting us fiscally healthy; could there be any surprise that I got upset that the developer was still around.

The man that I believe is responsible for a majority of our problems is still being allowed to profit at the expense of our neighborhood.

You see my friends; his involvement in Woodlawn didn’t end when he developed our homes.

He had his sights set on yet another prize.

A Thousand Words

Both Barrels

With my apologies to Reginald Martinez Jackson I know I'm not the straw that stirs the drink in our condo association. While you good folks are getting my point of view in this blog, I want to make crystal clear that this is very much a team effort.

This team effort also extends to the maintenance of our building.

As I've mentioned, we simply don't have enough money to pay anyone to cut our grass and clean our hallways like we did in the past. Frankly, I considered it throwing money out the window as we have able bodied, healthy people in our association. Trust me, I don't like carving time out to cut the grass but it's got to be done.

Our choices are either pay someone to do the maintenance and raise assessments or get off our asses and do it ourselves. We opted for the later.

So starting in May, I asked for volunteers and came up with a maintenance schedule for the summer. To date, our association has saved approximately $2,700 by not having to pay our former maintenance guy.

That ain't chump change.

Nonetheless, people being people you know there were going to be a few bumps in the road. First off, not everyone participates which means 8 unit owners do the work that benefits all 18 unit owners. That's a fact that I'm sure isn't lost on any of the owners who actually do the work. Secondly, people will start to slack off. I'm not talking "Oops, I missed that cobweb in the corner" but rather I'll just blow off my week because I forgot.

Mind you, when I solicit volunteers I ask if there are any scheduling conflicts, vacations---any of that jazz that I should take into consideration. I rarely get any response. The silence is deafening.

I figure that we're all adults and we can adjust our schedules according to accommodate a bi-weekly indoor and outdoor maintenance schedule.

No such luck.

The straw that broke the camel's back came this week when one of my neighbors attempted to dress me down about the hallways not being cleaned. All the shit that people have said individually and collectively have been saying to me just exploded in the form of an e-mail yesterday.


Ladies and Gentlemen,

Our ongoing effort to save money by doing our own maintenance has largely been a success.

The downside is that I seem to have become the single source of everything maintenance regarding our building. While I don't mind serving as a liaison in terms of the schedule, the hand holding I have been doing officially stops now.

When I become the person that hears the complaints, sends the reminders, checks the supplies and does the schedule; that's a little bit too much. Effective immediately I will no longer issue reminders to individuals about their maintenance commitments. Nor will I remind people to replenish what they use up whether it's gas for the lawn mower or paper towels to clean the glass.

More importantly, I practically begged for feedback prior to and after the fall maintenance schedule was released. I asked if anyone had any problems with the weeks that they were scheduled and if so to get back to me ASAP. Naturally when I didn't hear back from anyone, I assume that all was well. Unfortunately this did not turn out to be the case.

Our indoor maintenance which is only being done every other week to begin with, now has to be delayed another week because the person on the rotation this week is out of town and didn't find a replacement. To add further insult, I'm the person who gets hit with 1,000 questions when the indoor maintenance hasn't been done or why the grass gets too long.

It is not my responsibility to make sure that adults honor the commitments that they make or at least find a workaround when there is a conflict. In the future, if anyone has a question about why something wasn't done or wasn't done to their satisfaction, they need to personally take it up with the individual listed on the maintenance schedule.

Lastly, I am not the person you go to at the last minute concerned that you need someone to take your bi-weekly maintenance shift. With rare exception, everyone who is participating has their e-mail address listed above. Cut and paste it in your address book or exchange phone numbers so you can have a back up in case of a conflict.

Right now we are continuing the fight for our financial lives. The money that we save will help us continue to pay our association bills in a timely fashion and save money. It’s frustrating enough that little under half of the unit owners do all of the maintenance work to everyone's benefit. I know people are getting burned out but if the maintenance schedule doesn't continue to work at least through 2006 one of three things will happen:

Our lawn and building will look like our neighbor's buildings down the street.
We will hire someone to come in and maintain our building
That action will push our regular assessments higher

We all have a choice.


That wasn’t the most subtle way of getting my point across but it unfortunately had to be said. Everyone had to be reminded that if one person shirks on their word, then what’s to stop the others from doing the same. Next thing you know our lawn and hallways will look like ass.

I may live on the south side but I refuse to live in a ghetto.

Fight the Power

With some new blood on the board (myself and my neighbor across the hall), we set about sorting through the friggin mess that comprised our business affairs. We did all of the mundane stuff like set a permanent date to meet every month and discussed the direction in which we thought the association should go. We also chose officers and proceeded to discuss what needs should be addressed in the order of their importance.

For clarity’s sake please note that our developer was still on the board in an advisory capacity. Those were his words not mine.

In short he wanted to keep an eye on us to make sure that the condo association’s interests were not going to conflict with his interests as a developer. Lord forbid a monkey wrench gets thrown into his master plans.

When we met for the first time in February our developer wasn’t present and didn’t make any excuses for his absence. We proceeded without him.

Despite the fact we didn’t have any hard numbers, we all had a strong feeling that the association was not on sound financial ground. No one could point to a comprehensive spreadsheet of what was money was coming in and what was being spent. We also didn’t truly know who was behind on assessments and by how much. I had also just found out that one of the non-resident owner units that had a renter was in the middle of the foreclosure process.

How did I find that bit of information out you ask?

Due to an ongoing problem we had with the residents of some of the units leaving their household trash on top of the dumpster instead of putting it inside (due to the locked gates---they were too lazy to unlock the gates and properly dispose of their trash), I personally put on my gloves and did a little trash picking.

There’s no quicker way to get a fine from the cash strapped City of Chicago than to have open trash in and or around your dumpster. Additionally I hate rats. Want to attract a big swarm of those beady eyed little suckers? Have open trash around and let the feast begin.

I wanted irrefutable evidence against our anonymous culprit and the best way to find that out is to dig through their trash. Well you could have knocked me over with a feather when I found that mortgage foreclosure papers had been sent to one of our non-resident owner’s address.

Great, we had money issues AND a foreclosure. This condo thing was getting better and better.

When I presented evidence of the foreclosure at the meeting, our new president stated that he already knew about the situation. I nearly broke my neck to turn and look at him. He didn’t feel it necessary to inform anyone about this issue as he felt it didn’t affect the condo association and he didn’t want to unnecessarily put “someone’s business in the street.”

I’m sure the smack of my palm against my forehead was heard ‘round the world.

Because of the late notice to not just this foreclosure situation but the three others that immediately followed my discovery of this news, we as a condo association could not file a lien against the property to recover the back assessments that were owed to us. Not anyone’s business indeed. What a crock of shit.

Just to give you yet another gentle reminder kids, condo boards aren’t for lazy people or sissies. You actually have to do some work to make sure things are in top working order. If you fall down on the job, your shit will wind up like ours. Trust me it ain’t no fun making these types of decisions on almost a daily basis and also trying to negotiate the pitfalls of your own personal life as well. Long story short, just do it the right way to begin with. Question everything. Document everything.

Now back to today’s story…

Our developer’s partner’s girlfriend was our treasurer for the first two years that our developer was our president. Yeah, I know, we are supreme dumbasses for letting it happen but let’s get the whole truth out there. If I’m gonna tell it, I might as well tell the ugly along with the good and the bad. She along with our developer made deposits and took care of the bills until she decided last year that the responsibility was too much for her. Then of course she also decided to move out of her unit without so much as a “so long suckers” before she rented out the unit to her sister(s).

That left our now president (the one who didn’t want to put anyone’s business in the street) in charge of the books. While I have a problem with his execution and follow through with much of our condo business, I will say this in his defense---He did make sure our bills were paid on time and that people (mostly) paid their assessments. By nature he is not a technocrat so Excel spread sheets and sending notices of late assessments aren’t his thing. Nonetheless, as we have found and are finding out---everything must be documented. He kept us afloat until the new people could come in and start kicking ass and taking names. For that I’m grateful.

One of the first things our president said to me was that this was like having another job and he wasn’t bullshiting. If he did need help though, my only question is why didn’t he ask for a lifeline sooner? While I may not have been able to run for the board, that didn’t preclude me or anyone else from helping out where and when it was needed. It would have saved all of us a hell of a lot of trouble.

When the financials arrived, from what I understand they were in a paper bag (or something similar) and it took our treasurer about three weeks with the help of one of our other neighbor to put everything together in a spreadsheet. A nicely done spreadsheet might I add. What’s coming in, what’s going out and to whom. Easy to read and completely digestible---those girls are geniuses.

Financials in working order---check!

Now our next order of business was to examine the yearly budget to see where we could cut corners so we didn’t have to raise regular assessments.

Time for the south siders to play “Show Me the Money” or “Get Money and Get Your Ass Out!”

Welcome to Woodlawn---Part II

Moving day came and went. Our building as well as our association started to fill with new and excited first time homeowners. Young people living the American Dream of owning their own home---becoming the captains of their ship so to speak.

There’s always a learning curve when you’re dealing with any new situation so owning your own unit in a condominium is no exception. The difference is that a learning curve mixed with naiveté and conniving developer are a potentially costly mix.

Due to those factors and plain out and out apathy on the part of some unit owners, our developer was the president of our association for the first two years of our existence.

Talk about putting the fox in charge of the hen house.

Naturally nothing significant got done over the next two years. Meetings were held without notice to the other unit owners, financials or meeting minutes were never made available for inspection and our building continued to fall apart under our very noses.

I contribute our failing to detect our perilous state of our business affairs on a few things. Primary was apathy---pure and simple. When you have a group of people who are used to renting and they become owners that old renter’s mentality dies hard. Not that that is a bad thing but when you’re a part of a condominium association, there are certain issues that are time sensitive in terms of warranties and the like. Sitting back and letting your condo developer shoulder responsibilities that everyone else should be taking an interest in is just plain foolish. Don’t worry; I count myself in the group of owners that simply let our developer guide our little ship onto the rocks.

For example, we became a condo association in the eyes of the State of Illinois in 2001. We had been writing checks for our assessments to our association since that time. Yet when the new board took over in early 2005, there were no bank statements or financial records that could be located since before June 2003. The question remains where we as an association had our accounts. We also don’t know if our developer and his partners (oh yes, he had partners) paid the assessments on the unsold units like they should have from the sale of the first unit.

Fun times on the south side, huh?

Secondly we as homeowners didn’t know our rights under the law. Once again, we simply were too trusting that someone other than ourselves had our best interests at heart. But there we sat with our heads firmly up our asses without a care in the world. Whoo boy did that come back to bite us---big time.

Now you’re probably wondering why I didn’t do anything about this sordid mess before it got out of hand. After my closing, I was in a bit of a financial mess that while not of my own making, was ultimately my responsibility. I fell behind on my assessments and wouldn’t you know it, the developer and his partners changed the rules for running as an officer on the board. Right before the first elections in 2002, they came up with rule stating that you couldn’t run for the board if you had unpaid or back assessments.

Brilliant---a masterstroke that shut me down for almost two years.

But you can’t keep a good woman down. I got my financial shit together so to speak and kept on the straight and narrow. I ran for the board, got on and you are now reading about the rest as fast as I can type.

Okay, you’ve heard most of the worst of the drama. I’m sure there are unseen and undiscovered issues that we have yet to make themselves known. Nonetheless I’ve hit the high notes about our problems. The best part of any melodrama is how fortunes are turned around and wrongs are set right.

Next: The road to recovery.

South of Madison Street---Welcome to Woodlawn, Part I

As with most paths to hell, everything started out with good intentions.

I saw a beautiful property; it had the space I was looking for at the price I could afford with almost limitless potential to increase in value. What’s not to like? Yet when the red flags were waving, I ignored them---blew 'em off to nerves. Discounting the common sense that has saved me from many a hard lesson over the years. Obviously I picked the wrong time to ignore my "inner voice."

I should of know what I was in for when I didn’t have a completed kitchen or bathroom three days before closing (November 15th 2001) even though the sales agreement was signed on August 3rd.

When I walked in with both my home inspector and realtor and saw gaping unfinished maws where the bathroom and kitchen should have been a screaming meltdown ensued.

Oh baby, it was on like Donkey Kong.

Future brides fighting at the Filene’s Basement bridal sale is no comparison.

The worst meltdown you’ve ever seen any woman have can only be termed as “mildly annoyed” on my personal scale that day.

When I walked in and saw that my unit wasn’t finished must less ready to inspect. I yelled so loud and so long with so much language unsuitable for a woman that six workmen immediately left the premises.

The Metro Pro sales agent confrontational. She had gumption to ask me why I needed an inspection in the first place. My realtor who was talking me down out of my blind rage saw me making a fist and hurriedly sent me to sit in the car.

For brevity's sake I’ll fast forward a bit. The inspection was completed, I closed, I moved in to what I thought was a beautiful unit with semi wet floors that were hurriedly varnished---and not well might I add.

The red flags were practically unfurling themselves to spell out the message, “Don’t buy this place, dumb ass!” Kind of like the robot from lost in space warning where he flails his arms screaming, “Danger Will Robinson! Danger!” Yet my rational mind would not cede to my irrational one and the deal was done.

It’s all so clear now---so crystal clear---why wasn’t it clear then?

Home Owning Ain't Easy---Welcome to My World

It’s not even noon in Chicago and I already want a drink. A big huge whopping make me forget all of my problems drink.

This condo thing has got me in a tizzy.

The amount of negligent work done by the developer of our condominium association simply boggles the mind. Our three year old association has been faced with soliciting bids for the construction of a brand new porch system, securing financing and levying a special assessment. Note I said that our association is only three years old---those porches should have been replaced with the initial rehabilitation of the building. It seems that the more we think we have our building issue(s) under control; the more construction defects rear their ugly heads.

Here I am getting ahead of myself as usual. Let me start from the beginning of this sordid mess so you can fully understand the situation.