Importance of Cleaning Your Condo Building

January 1st marks new beginning for all who are looking to update their lifestyle & business operations. We all set ourselves out to have resolutions because we know old habits die hard. 

 A New Year's Resolution for Property Owners

Property management and condo cleaning fall into this category. It's essential to add value and keep tenants feeling secure about the fact they have a reliable property management team that always prepares for the coming months to start the year.

To discuss the importance of condo cleaning to start 2016, we compiled a short bucket list to get landlords and property owners what they need to do to make their building and its tenants feel refreshed for a successful 2016.

5 Ways to Improve Your Business Operations

Cleaning does not only mean to wipe down windows and mopping hallways floors in your building. It also means to have quality information updated in your business records, and online human engagement.

Not all property owners are expected to be tech savvy. 

Understand that consumers need a sense of tangibility in order to feel like they are involved in their purchases. In the case of rental operations and real estate, this applies to tenants who have made the decision to set up their living quarters within your condo building.

Effective communication methods is the crux of our suggested resolutions for 2016.

This improves the tenant-to-property owner relationship feel trustworthy and prompt, not having to wait numerous days or weeks before problems get resolved.

Whether they are renting or bought the condo outright, their sense of tangibility comes in the form of these resolutions:

• Frequent Website Updates - You will need to update your website at least once a week or whenever their is a change in your operation and regulations for your tenants to take note of. This not only connects the tenant and landlord faster via mobile devices. A great way to stand out to your tenants is how progressive your service is by using an online community builder. 

Visit our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, pages to see our strategy.

• Cleaning and Decorating With Seasonal Appeal - Make sure that if the Holidays are over, don't wait until March to take down your Christmas decor in the building. Send out information  about live Christmas tree collections for recycling, and take down Holiday lighting and ornaments down as January 1st comes. Update each se

• Enact a No-Smoking Plan - If you are the type of landlord who is lenient towards having pets in your rental units, you should implement a non-smoking environment. This will help keep the walls in your units from yellowing with nasty nicotine stains on them. Especially if you have carpets, just like your lungs, they will suffer and smell tremendously from the second-hand smoke. This also reduces the chance of halloween disaster stories and other holidays in the building or on the property grounds.

• Reward Tenants For Their Compliance - If a higher condo fee is assessed for the new year, or if your tenants have collectively helped you receive a government-subsidized rebate check for reducing your energy costs with sustainable property management, reward them for being a tenant. The best ways to carry this rewarding out is to promote prizes to them like flowers on each tenant's birthday, or hold a toy drive for the children in the building, or picnics in the spring and summer months. 

• Fire Safety - There were many stories of fires happening in condos the past few years in the Boston area in Allston, Brighton, Cambridge, and the Back Bay Area. Make sure that the fire safety regulations are either printed and given to the tenants every time they begin a new lease, and/or sent to them via email.

Final Thoughts on Cleaning your Condo Building

New Years resolutions can be hard to maintain once you make them. But with the right property management team, you can stay motivated to uphold your promise for updating your images, business, and character online and offline.

Have you created your own list of New Years resolutions? Do they match up to our list?

Tell us how you have used New Years resolutions and cleaning to push your tenant's lifestyle and condo building's image forward.

Property Management Halloween Stories That Will Make You Scream

Not for the faint of heart! This blog contains graphic scenes and images. 

Halloween is the time of year in which we have the most fun with our decorations.

But tenants who are not pleased with the operations, or those who have been delinquent in their monthly rental payments and soon to leave while breaking their lease can be problematic.

It’s integral to have a great property management service who can curb the horrors of dealing with these mishaps. Have you heard stories of spine-tingling creatures living in the crevices of your tenant's units?

Or the jaw-dropping tales of fire suddenly ripping a large condo or apartment building to shreds while fate cuts a tenant’s life short for sleeping and not waking up to the emergency?

We will give three horrific, spine-tingling instances of landlords and tenants that show you the benefits of hiring an experienced property manager.

Lack of Quality Property Management Lets the Bed Bugs Bite

Bed bugs can make your home uninhabitable.

We all know the adage, "Sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite."

If you have ever figured that they are not in your bed, you may be gravely mistaken.

And if you don't have a quality property manager who can send for an exterminator or their crew to curb this problem right away, you may be in for many "bite-mares" from bed bugs.

These creatures can seem invisible can reproduce their larvae in your sheets, walls, couches, and wooden table. The life cycle of a bed bug is fairly short, but they can feed every 10 minutes.

Once they band together, they can make your belongings looks ultimately scary, causing you, tenants and their guests, and potential condo buyers to not want to return to your building or apartment complex. 

These are ghoulish creatures have the ability to invisibly seep their way into your skin! Also, the Board of Inspections could potentially shut down your apartment or condominium complex, which lead to an underwater mortgage.

You don't want these to show up in neither you nor your tenant's dreams. Imagine waking up to hearing the phone calls from tenant's screaming in your ear about the crawling dirty mite-sized bugs everywhere. Then, noticing once you get in bed, those bed bugs have destroyed your mattress.

Here is a shocking and gruesome video of what happens if you don’t attack bed bugs quickly enough:

Burning Down The House

You may have tenants or neighbors who have Halloween parties every year. You should learn how to manage large parties in Boston for your property. If you don't, it's safe to assume there will be some damage done that could not only cost you more than you budgeted for, but could also put lives in danger.

Here is an instance in which the tenant was hosting a party where guests were smoking inside their condo unit.

Home infernos can spark simply from a neglected cigarette butt.

One of the party guests flicked their cigarette out the window, but it was a windy night. Mysteriously, the wind blew the still lit cigarette butt back into the room and landed on dry plant.

The party made it's way into another room for about a half hour, and the cigarette sent the plant up into flames. It resulted in a major fire with flames engulfing the entire apartment.  

Evacuation due to fire.

There are two missteps that happened: 

1. There was no established and effective communication system with the landlord for tenants to can contact them during emergencies.

2. All condo owners did not have a condo insurance policy in place.

Landlords and fellow tenants should know that investing in a condo or renter's insurance plan and good lawyers to make sure that items are replaceable, and not get a lawsuit from tenants in case their stuff gets stolen.

Pumpkin statue: "These pranksters killed our 'boo-tiful' setup!"

Pranks For The Memories

Halloween night pranks such as setting a lawn on fire, burning poop bags on front porches, and smashing pumpkins will really make you think twice before putting out other ornaments for your home in the future.

It is safe to assume there will be kids in the neighborhood looking for a good laugh at your property's expense.  

Another story comes during the night before Halloween, also known as "Mischief Night" or "Cabbage Night." 

Some pesky vandalizers who loved to trash other people's yards, front steps, or scare residents just to add to the Halloween spirit are just that— mean spirited. 

In one neighborhood on the Day of the Dead, which begins Halloween Night and ends on November 2nd, these violators decided that they wanted to place a dead deer carcass hanging from the tree in someone's front lawn.

Tenants may be complacent and not report these types of vandalism cases because they simply don't care. But you cannot take the same stance of complacency and need to act quickly to curtail these types of scenarios. 

If you are a landlord living outside of the town or city that your property is located, and do not have a high quality property management team hat can check the premises in the days leading up to Halloween, you will lose home value and risk a bad reputation as a landlord. 

The best way to protect your property on Cabbage Night is to have the budget for a property management team to check your property grounds daily during the month of October when you put out Fall and Halloween decorations. 

If you have ever had issues in the past with this, make sure that you have your communication methods in place with your tenants to email, text, contact you via your most active social media channels, or call you immediately if they see anything that has been vandalized on the property.

Final Thoughts

Halloween is supposed to be fun for all. But it's not so fun when your tenants have to come home to these types of situations. Having the means to help maintain your property's value and reliable services can make a huge difference with managing your tenants.

Have you ever dealt with vandalism on your property, pranks in your apartment building, or dead animals that tenants and real estate agents have been scared out of their wits by? Share with us some of your horrible experiences so we can help you come up with future solutions.

Reflection on the Back Bay Fire Tragedy with an Important Message from the PPS Front Office

You Just Never Know: Fire Safety & Insurance Coverage to Top Your Checklist

Sometimes in our daily routines, we may lack deductive reasoning for possible causes of destruction in our homes. Or It could be natural disaster, totally out of our control from the start of the demolition. The Back Bay area of Boston received just that on Wednesday,  March 26th, with an inferno that blazed its path from the basement through the apex of the brownstone at 298 Beacon Street.

We previously reviewed “what-if” scenarios in our previous article Need For Fire Safety listed on the Premier Property Solutions blog, and where to start for fire prevention awareness. The causes for the fire in the Back Bay are still being investigated by authorities, but the what-if’s that became into a reality in this case also stem from that day's high winds  and the burnt building without a sprinkler system. According to the Boston Globe report, the attorney for the executor of the estate that owns the building stated the building was in good repair. But apparently, the building was old in its age and type that it did not require to have a sprinkler system installed.

When it comes to fires, always make sure you are covered and know the terms of your  insurance policy for your property if you are a tenant or owner of the building.  If you survive the ordeal, it is a privilege to be able to see your belongings again after a fire occurs. Please refer to our article Condo Insurance Explained

Premier Property Solutions Fire Prevention Message Alert

Make sure to review the Boston Fire Department's fire prevention safety guide, and the Premier Property Solutions Home Safety Checklist. Here is a message from the Premier Property Solutions front office management in light of the recent tragedy:

Dear Residents,

The fire that occurred at 298 Beacon Street which resulted in the loss of life for two firefighters is a tragic reminder of the importance of fire safety and fire prevention.

Fire prevention is a serious matter that affects all of us. There are time-tested ways to prevent and survive a fire; sometimes planning ahead is your best defense.

Premier Property Solutions urges you to review the attached Fire Prevention Handout and Home Safety Checklist with your family or roommates.

• Boston Fire Department Safety Information here
• Premier Property Solutions Home Safety Checklist here
• Change the batteries in your smoke and CO detectors twice a year.
• Never take a building alarm for granted - always assume there is a real fire and exit immediately.
• In the event of a life threatening emergency Call 9-1-1 first, then management.
• For additional information please contact your local Fire Department.

If you are interested in learning more, please contact your building manager to discuss available fire prevention resources. Premier Property Solutions contracts with numerous fire code engineers and life safety professionals throughout the Greater Boston Area.

Thank you for allowing Premier Property Solutions to continue to serve your community.

Laura M. Cardoos

Vice President | Premier Property Solutions, LLC

Premier Property Solutions Online Resources

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8 Alarm Fire on Summer St. in Boston & Important Fire Safety Info

Eight-alarm Fire Sweeps Through South Boston Building on Summer Street

Earlier this morning there was an Eight-Alarm fire that ran through a South Boston commercial building undergoing renovation, just next door to Premier Property Solution's offices on Summer Street. According to Boston.com, "The fire caused an estimated $2 million in damage, and more than 150 firefighters battled the blaze."

Important Fire Safety Information for Boston Residents

To help prevent future disasters like this, Premier Property Solutions wants to use this opportunity to remind everyone of some important fire safety tips.

• For properties who allow Christmas trees/wreaths/etc., always keep them hydrated and away from heating elements.  Use timers or manual switches to turn off decorative lighting when you are not at home.
• Keep hallways, stairwells and common areas clear of debris. This includes doormats in hallways and potted plants on fire escapes as they are a tripping hazard in the event of evacuation.
• If they are allowed in your property, take extra care with cigarettes, candles, space heaters, heated blankets, traveling appliances (hot plates, etc.). Limit your use of power strips and surge protectors.
• Smoking is prohibited in elevators, common areas, and on roofs. Roof membranes are particularly flammable.
• Fire places, chimneys and flues must be inspected and swept prior to use. Contact your Property Manager to ensure the fireplace is in safe working condition.
• Fire Escape and Fire Balcony certification is required every 5 years by a MA Registered Profession Engineer.

The State and City of Boston's Fire Code:

• Prohibits the use of charcoal grills on or within a building.
• Prohibits the use or storage of liquefied petroleum gas containers used for barbecue cooking inside or on balconies above the first floor of any building or structure used for habitation.
• Cooking and grilling are prohibited on the roof, fire escapes, alleys, and common areas.

Final Recommendations for Fire Alarms & Evacuation Procedures

FIRE ALARMS

1. Learn where fire alarm stations and pull boxes are located.
2. Should you detect a fire, sound the building's fire alarm, evacuate the building, and then call 911 from a phone at another location.
3. Whenever a fire alarm sounds, evacuate the building immediately using the nearest available exit.

EVACUATION PROCEDURES

1. Learn your two nearest exits including fire escapes.
2. When an alarm sounds, dress quickly (for the weather).
3. Before opening your room door, feel it for warmth. If it is hot to the touch do not open it. If not, open the door very slowly.
4. When you leave your room, CLOSE THE DOOR BEHIND YOU.
5. If smoke is present, crawl out low to the floor.
6. Without hindering your own evacuation and on your way out of the building, warn as many of your fellow residents as possible by knocking on doors and shouting.
7. Once outside, stand clear of the building well away from all entrances.
8. Do not reenter the building until specifically instructed to do so by a Fire Department official.
9. If conditions prevent you from leaving your room:
   
• Find the nearest fire escape and see if that route is accessible.
• If not, prevent fumes and smoke from entering your room by blocking all openings (with wet towels, if possible).
• Call 911 and alert telephone operator of your location.
• If smoke is in your room, stay close to the window holding a towel (wet, if possible) to your face.
• Do not break or open windows unless necessary - this source of oxygen may fuel a fire or create a draft that will allow more smoke or fumes to enter your room.
• To alert rescue personnel hang a white towel or other brightly- colored cloth out of your window.

Read this blog for more fire safety tips and don't forget to subscribe, follow us on Twitter @MAcondoMGMT and “like” us on our Facebook page Facebook.com/MAcondoMGMT for more information about property management & maintenance in Massachusetts. 

Property Mangers: Is Your Building Up to Code on Mulch Fire-Safety Regulations?

Mulch is a layer of material that is applied to the surface of a soil and is mainly used for:

• Moisture conservations
• Improve fertility and health of soil
• Reduce weed growth
• Curb appeal

There are quite a few advantages to using mulch on your property but before you start putting mulch in your front lawn or your building, there are regulations for using mulch, mainly for fire-safety. A summary from an article by Boston.com:

According to the Department of Fire Services, you must keep mulch 18 inches away from the building. By taking preventive measures such as placing mulch away from combustible exteriors of building, it hopes to prevent recurring fires caused by landscape materials. This regulation was a response to a fire in 2008 in Peabody that was caused by a cigarette igniting mulch which caused $6.7 million in damages and displacing almost 800 residents. Some recommendations by the Department of Fire Services is to use crushed rocks or stones for the first 18 inches as a barrier. Make sure to respond quickly if your building is not up to code as you can be faced with liability claims from residents.

For related info, visit: http://bostonrealestatelawnews.com/2012/08/heres-the-dirt-on-mas-new-mulch-fire-safety-regulation.html

As always is you have any questions regarding property management, make sure to visit our website and utilize our client resources.

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Attention: Rooftop Grilling is Illegal!

Summer is just about to end and fall is approaching! The weather is great and football season just started. What better way to have some fun and bring everyone together other than...grilling! In a couple of months, winter will be coming and grilling is definitely not an option. So while the weather is warm, grilling is great way to spend some quality time over food. A popular option is grilling at home, either on the porches or the rooftop. Cooking at home is comfortable as you have more access to cookware and do not have to worry about forgetting anything. But did you know rooftop and porch grilling is illegal in Massachusetts? Here's a summary from a blog post explaining the dangers of rooftop and porch grilling and why it is illegal:

• It may seem safe but Steve MacDonald, spokesman for the Boston Fire Department, says not a summer has gone by where there has not been an out-of-control blaze caused by illegal grilling
• Nearly half the fires caused by grilling illegally happens between 5pm to 8pm usually during the summer months
• Massachusetts state laws say no propane or charcoal grills are allowed above ground level at all (especially on rooftops and porches)
• There are exceptions to the rule, but involves professional care and city inspection

Grilling is fun and delicious but safety is always first! Not only for you but also for those around you. So the next time you grill, do it away from the house. 

As always is you have any questions regarding property management, make sure to visit our website and utilize our client resources.

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Need For Fire Safety

What Ifs...?

Normally I do not advocate living your life by the "what ifs". Fire safety, adversely, needs to approached exactly that way. Every possible action and reaction needs to considered and safety of the residents made a top priority. Advocating fire safety expenditures to condominiums should be the easiest part of our job as managers. They save lives! Unfortunately, this is often more difficult than it should be as fire is often "out of site, out of mind".
Many owners see quarterly tests, inspections, and panels as costly expenditures, especially in this economy. After all, "it's always that other building that has the fire, not ours"...right? But what happens when it is your building? When outdated horns don't sound and pull stations are inactive? What happens when insurance will not approve your claim because your building negated a yearly inspection. Fire safety becomes much more relevant when it is close to home.

Where to Start

Start by calling your local fire department or alarm service provider. They will almost always provide a free walk through of your home to to determine what you can do to improve your system. Learn the state and Federal Laws. The books are thousands of pages long and constantly changing, but have a general understanding of it: how many smoke detectors/CO detectors you need, how far apart they should be from the bedroom, when systems need to be centrally or locally monitored, how often inspections are required.

Know Your System

Take a look at your fire panel. Call whoever monitors your panel to meet you on site and walk you through what each signal means. When a trouble does go off, you are prepared and direct the appropriate authorities as needed. Knowing the difference between a "ground fault" and a "system trouble" can save you unnecessary trips by service techs.
Always check your system on your own. Make sure smokes have batteries and extinguishers are up to date. Test your panel and perform a quarterly fire drill. These are all important things that could mean the difference between life and death in a high pressure situation. The management company should have the most extensive knowledge on this, but it helps if residents make a conscious effort to educate themselves.

Final Thoughts...