Category: Maintenance

In 1999, after her four-year-old son began coughing up blood and her husband started suffering respiratory complaints and memory loss, Melinda Ballard and her husband Ron Allison were told by their family physician to evacuate their Austin…

On April 5, David Letterman joked that the drought threatening the Northeast is so severe that New Yorkers can't even get a moist towelette at Kentucky Fried Chicken. While the water shortage hasn't yet impacted the city's population to…

Although spring ushers in a host of good things–like warm weather, longer days, and lower heating bills–the season also brings with it a proliferation of critters, not all of them welcome. Unfortunately, most condo and co-op dwellers ar…

New York City has over 80 historic districts featuring unique styles of design, exceptional attention to cultural details, and hand-painted or hand-carved architectural embellishments. Of course, a lot of these historic gems are homes to mo…

No two ways about it–appearance counts, and chances are when you decided to buy into your building, part of your decision was based on whether the building appealed to your eye. Now you and your fellow board members find that the passage of…

We all know what happens to our bodies as they age: things shift, material consistencies change, and gravity begins to assert itself. The same is true of the buildings we live in. As time marches on, brick and mortar deteriorate under envir…

Suppose you want to give new life to your dingy old kitchen, enlarge your living room or convert a bedroom loft into a cozy, office study. You have to choose a professional who can best turn that dream into reality, and choosing the right p…

The side of your residential building is a windowless plane of painted brick that stands ten stories higher than the adjacent co-op, clearly visible from the well-trafficked Queensboro Bridge. The side of the building has deteriorated a bit…

Anyone who’s lived in a co-op or condo building for a number of years usually has at least a passing understanding of what happens when their building’s lobby needs repainting, or when the board meets to decide what style of new wainscoting…

"…In 1973, I received my Pest Control license and started my business. My first job was in a building in the South Bronx. The owner of the building had given me the keys to the basement, and I remember driving up to the building and thin…