I've been on co-op boards in New York City for the last decade. It's a nonstop game of looking for...
Here's how to avoid a property management nightmare
Let me describe a quick property management nightmare.
Deep in the dingy basement of your high-rise building, the device that helps regulate the water temperature breaks.
For weeks, months, or even years, tenants go on to take their showers in the morning and, like most of us, test the water temperature before getting in. They notice the water is a bit warmer than usual and turn the knob toward ‘cold’ without thinking anything is amiss.
But one tenant doesn’t bother to test the temperature and steps right into the near-boiling hot shower.
The tenant burns himself and is rushed to the hospital. Later, a lawsuit is served to the building owner and property manager.
As far-fetched as this may seem, I’ve seen it happen many times.
Why does it happen?
In short, most mechanical problems aren’t noticed by management until days, weeks, or even years after they begin.
At best, the issue could just cost the building a bunch of money - like boiler leaks that secretly spill hundreds of gallons of hot water into the ground each day. At worst, the issue could be life-threatening - like a heating system down when it’s zero degrees out or scalding hot water that burns tenants. And even if/when you find out about this issue, it will take hours or days to fix it.
Too many buildings rely on humans to notice and report every problem. But sadly, humans aren’t always great at that.
This is the old way of managing buildings.
The new way is with smart controls that use wireless sensors and software to make your building proactive instead of reactive.
This is why we built the Runwise Smart Control platform and why 6,000+ buildings use it. We help them catch problems immediately, not a couple of days or, worse, lawsuits later.