leaks, Electric, Rentals,and bad Installers

Electricity– the electric in the building went off sometime Friday afternoon. Get an electric clock and you can see how many times this happens

Rentals: I count about 20 rentals in the building. Those are the ones we know about. If there are 8 more we are 20 percent rental. This is concerning.

Kitchen redo: Someone put in new appliances in their kitchen and the installer did not put the dishwasher in correctly. Thus a flood to the downstairs apt. I thought Frank was diligent to only allow licensed and registered workers in the office people that handle plumbing or other harmful deeds?

Lastly: The owner of 807 went to bed with the faucet running in the kitchen. It was discovered the next morning by her housekeeper. The water was throughout her wall to wall carpet and almost reaching her bedroom. The office was called and Frank has a relationship with a restoration service that came right over to start the sponging of the water. This owner is a senior and not well and it seems has no family. She has someone that comes in during the day but no one at night.

Apt 707 got up and her dining room ceiling was a waterfall. She has beautiful wood floors that were awash with water. She was lucky that the ceiling did not collapse. I must say she was very calm throughout this horrible incident. Better than I would be. The restorer was already working in her apt when I saw it.

Apt 607 had similar damage but I did not see her apt.

The lesson is two fold. I know that the two upper apts have insurance and their companies did come. I do not know about 607. The second lesson is there are people that need care in the evenings and should not be left alone. Families or friends should be contacted and these people need to be cared for.

After this which will cost tens of thousands of dollars do you think we need a home insurance mandate?

Lastly I was told, our hallways which are not the concern of condo owners insurance companies and restoration companies are full of mold.

 

Manager’s Meeting – Portofino South Jan 11, 2017

7PM meeting attended by Frank Legalante and residents/owners.

-Window/Door Replacement
Manager sought quotes for owners wishing to replace all their outdoor unit glass with “hurricane glass” i.e. impact-resistant glass. Quotes were obtained and passed out during the meeting for four companies, who were promised at least 15 owners would buy. Manager recommended All American Windows, which had prices ranging from $8-17K for complete unit glass replacement. This contractor participates in PACE financing, which allows principal and interest to be paid through the property tax bill. Current owners who have replaced the original glass (1971) said they had seen benefits including less A/C usage and less ambient noise getting in to the apartment. A quote was also obtained for new shutter installation ($2.5-5K per unit), but glass replacement was recommended by manager.

-Cooling Tower Replacement
Replacement is scheduled to take between 2-3 weeks and will commence in March. No units will have A/C during this time. Bids for this project are not yet in.

-Parking Lot Replacement
Replacement is scheduled to take 4 months and will commence in May. Bids for this project are not yet in.

-Possibly, the two above replacement projects will be financed through loans the association already has.

“For Sale” Open House Thursday

I was made aware by the realtor of my unit, 1210, that there is an open house of the “for sale” units of Portofino South tomorrow, Thursday the 8th, from 1-3PM. Some, if not all, realtors representing for sale units in the building are participating. So come down to the lobby during that time and meet with a realtor if you are interested in acquiring a(nother) unit.

Because of the high number of units currently for sale at Portofino, the management office approved an open house. However, I don’t believe the office has posted any notice for residents.

-BL, #1210

Renting Your Condo

If you rent your apartment you are obligated to pay a Business Tax Rental to the city of West Palm Beach. I do not know where the condo association falls in not putting this into effect. Below are links to the two forms to fill out.

http://wpb.org/Departments/Development-Services/Taxes/Business-Tax/Rental-Taxes

http://wpb.org/Departments/Development-Services/Forms/Rental-Tax-Forms

Anyone renting and not paying this is in violation of Florida law.

Just My Opinion

-Portofino South, West Palm Beach

I am sure the board and some owners will be very unhappy about my opinions below but we are not invited to speak at the meetings so as owners and the people that elected this board we have no outlet to question any of their decisions. The building has a new website and that was not even discussed at the meeting. Those meetings just make people mad and frustrated so very few people attend. Bravo to Betsy for questioning some things.

The Pool

Yes, it was only supposed to take 5 working days but as Frank explained last night at the board meeting they found multiple problems thus the longer time. Since the pool is part of the original structure of the hotel, of course, there would be multiple problems. Since a lot of said problems were in the over flow part when whatever company estimated the job did not they investigate this. Also this company seems like a band of loose people. Where is the supervisor, uniforms, company trucks? And why are we allowing them to park their personal vehicles in non-parking spots. They leave the pool each night like a garbage heap. There are of course overages in costs. Each project that the building tackles there is a complication. The roof and the repaying of the parking lots are next. What company fixed our pool? Does anyone know?

(yes someone knows and the company is Skyler Pools and it does not have a good report on www.ripoffreport.com. Same issue of taking forever to fix or build a pool.) Ever hear of google before you employ someone? Also checked www.Yelp.com  in Coconut Creek and there were two similar complaints about time and issues never resolved. These two users are thinking of suing this pool company.

Illegal rentals and boarders.

Apt 808 has just been redone and is not waiting the two-year rule to rent it. He has had two different ” guests” that have signed in for three days each. When I have guests they usually stay with their hosts? These owners started the same way with apt 903 and continued to get away with it …not obeying the rules. Do we still have an apt with a boarder? It has been discussed at board meetings but I do not think it has been dealt with.

Our entrance looks very bare

The white boxes have been taken away. I cannot believe that we cannot find a plant species that will grow in that spot, what about all these gorgeous lush PB gardens on the beach that populate the island. If all else fails there are some fabulous fake trees or plants that would give the area a little pizazz. Also the hedge at the northern front end of the parking lot has to be replaced, it has been dying for months.

There is a new decorating committee

Announced at the meeting. who is on it? Someone I know in the building was asked

Led to believe she was on it and then called and told the committee was full. Such community well feeling in this building… it always amazes me.

I do not know why the building refuses to have a fire drill

We had last week another stove fire which turned out to be no flames but a lot of smoke.

It was started by a guest but the doorman had no telephone number for her as she never registered as a guest. The guest did the wrong thing by opening the front door so the smoke went into the hall. Some apts on the 9^th floor were alerted that there was a fire and we should leave our apts and walk down the stairs. One couple on the floor did not know where the stairs were. People came up from the lobby via the elevator to help and see what was going on. I thought you were not supposed to use the elevators during a fire? At least 10 people called the doorman to ask if they should evacuate. The door man was very calm and tried to do his best but did not know that he could get on the intercom and tell all the apts that the fire was not serious and they did not have to walk down the stairs. I walked down 9 floors!

Don’t you think it would be a good thing to educate us condo owners how to conduct ourselves during a fire? It was chaos on the floor.

Notices near the mailboxes

For notices such as meeting announcements and board meeting agenda: The font is too small and too high up for people to read.

I also feel having a locked bulletin board isn’t very democratic. I wanted to post something and it was rejected by the office as it was advertising a service.

Lets start to think Smart and Green and Forward.

How about solar lights in the parking lot and the perimeter?

How about a green roof? There are builders in WPB that are installing these and since we have to redo our roof why not look into it?

When doing the parking area over how about a few outlets for electric cars?

Construction During Season:

Since there are new rules but they have not been given out construction goes on during PB high season. The window replacements in # 1102 started at 8:30am one morning last week. I went to the office and Frank spoke to them too late I was up, I went up as my terrace was full of pieces of cement and of course rudely spoken to by the installers. I also noticed that they were using the electricity from a hallway outlet, we are paying for that, down to Frank and he allowed them to continue. I believe that we should not have any noisy construction during season and someone has to monitor it closely. Glass fell on my downstairs neighbor’s terrace. I suggested to Frank that the contractor should be billed for clean-up and if there is no electricity bring a generator. Even though the windows are done all the sawing for the interior of the apt is done on the terrace and it continues. I think we are in the 4^th or 5^th week of construction noise.

Yesterday on the ninth floor there were white footsteps on the carpet coming from construction in #904. Also the workmen used our laundry sink to wash out their tools or brushes. Do I want to put my clothes in this sink to perhaps prewash?

Wouldn’t it be a good idea for Frank before he ­leaves to check if all this construction isn’t migrating to other areas.

Suggestion:

Notices for meetings could be printed in a larger font and placed lower so we might be able to read them. Also, if someone volunteers to chair a meeting there should be some respect from the board during said meeting. I have been on three committees: one I was fired from, second one I worked with a partner to gather a lot of info and it was ignored and the last one I was told it was asked to leave as it was just for board members despite non board members were present.

I get the hint no more meetings for me !!

Your old Toilet

The state of Florida will give you a $120 rebate if you want to replace your old one for a newer model. The newer toilets use a lot less water and they are trying to save water. The rebate is part of the Water Smart Program.

The above is just my opinion and written to start a dialogue. Please leave comments and give at least a partial name to identify yourself.

 

July 4th 2015 Blog is back online

It has been a very long time since I posted anything about the building. One reason was that the comments got very ugly and mean. This time around I will not post any comments or blogs without a known name with their email address attached. That might take care of the “nasties”. Second reason was that the building was supposed to build a website but like all things in the building it did not get done in a timely manner. Maybe it is coming? And lastly why I want to reopen this blog is that owners have no where to go with problems, questions, or to get anything done. The board has internal problems and the office is very hard to motivate.

I am a snow bird and not there for 6 months a year. When people such as myself are gone we never hear anything of the building. We are never called, emailed or sent any mail of meetings, changes or problems going on. My maintenance is 12 months but my service is 6 months and only when I am there.

About a month ago a neighbor told me that the power went off in the building. In the past, my air conditioning , that I leave on , does not go back on by itself. So she is kind enough to go to my apartment and put the air conditioning on again.  My neighbor does this for two other owners that have the same problem. I called the office to see if they knew of the outage and did someone go up to the apartments that the building has a list of that has this problem. I was very unhappy with the answer that they were not responsible. I then wrote a letter hoping that the board or the office would address this problem for some of us but a letter was received back with the same ” we are not responsible”. I then called the office and asked if they could research if there is a solution to this situation by putting in a device to the system. I was told they would get back to me. No one ever called or helped.

This is real hard to fathom when you write out your maintenance check each month and this was the first thing I asked the office to do since I left in the end of April.

Well I researched the issue and there is something that could be installed that would help with this situation. With 50 percent of the building gone during the summer you would think they would have time or interest to help the owners. If anyone wants to know what the solution is please email through the blog and I will tell you.

So this is what this blog is all about. If you have a problem and it is not addressed please lets share and see if we can help eachother.

 

 

Our all brass door knobs

I do not know if most newcomers to the building know that our doorknobs in our apts and outside all all brass. One day I decided to polish one and after 4 hours of lots of elbow grease they look wonderful. However, since it took so much time and muscle I have decided to give them out to a professional.

But please look at the difference in the pictures below. It makes such a difference and we are blessed with all brass knobs that are all original.