So it was pointed out by several people that I’ve been very bad at posting to this blog (and we’ll completely pretend I don’t have another blog where I never remember to post)…. So I’m trying to improve that.
I live in a townhouse development, and, I’ll be honest, not one of your more upscale ones. For some reason I have never figured out, our condo corporation has chosen to hire a property management company. Which is fine. In fact, I think that’s a great idea. Only, the company that we are currently with… Sucks. A lot. I’ve called with an emergency, and was told I had to wait until business hours (er, 11 a.m. when our contact rolled into work) to get a response. That did a lot of the leak in my roof in the middle of a rainstorm, let me tell you. I’ve been yelled at by our contact, and by the receptionist when she screwed up and I tried to explain what I needed. And I’ve had to mediate between the company and a utility company, because our contact didn’t seem to want to do his job.
But the latest incident in my ongoing saga has to be my favourite. We have a central area for garbage and recycling. Which is handy, because I don’t have to wait for a specific day to take out my trash. But, let’s face it… it’s our garbage. It looks…like garbage. And, in the summer of spring cleaning and garage sales, people have a lot of old furniture and other assorted crap that they throw out. And they’re throwing it on the lawn of our garbage area.
Someone got the great idea to hide this garbage area with a fence. Which, sure, it hides the garbage, and makes our development look less… trashy. (Hmm. here’s a thought. maybe the garbage area shouldn’t be at the entrance to our development. Just saying.)
But, this fence keeps the garbagemen from actually GETTING to the trash. So, the same broken appliances and furniture have been sitting there for a month waiting to be picked up. And, hell, if I were a garbagegirl, I wouldn’t want to climb a fence (albeit a three-foot tall one) just to do my job. It’s hard enough as it is, without adding fence climbing to the mix.
I stand on my balcony and laugh every Thursday when the garbage collection comes and goes, and yet, our garbage remains.
Someone tell me again why we pay this company to work for us?
Le Stylo en Rose 
Mike Said:
on June 29, 2006 at 2:54 pm
All of those management team are horrible. When we lived in our townhouse, we never got off the phone with them without yelling.
How do the garbagepeople get the trash that they are removing from the fenced in area? It seems like if they could get some, they should be able to get all.
Lara Said:
on June 29, 2006 at 2:58 pm
It’s only the big overflow garbage that’s fenced in… the appliances, old couches, giant pieces of wood and crap like that… Our actual garbage bags are stored in a very smelly shed, with a door on it.
And yeah, it’s possible that the devil we know is better than the crappy management company we don’t know 🙂
Garnigal Said:
on July 5, 2006 at 9:51 am
Stupid property management companies. We’re in a townhouse condo development as well, and we hate our property management company. Fortunately, they have very unfortunate intials, so we can appease our anger by insulting them.