Category: Community Living

To date, 2016 has been a slightly-mixed-but-recovering bag for sales of residential co-ops and condos in Brooklyn. While most indicators are up year-to-year and over the third quarter of 2015, there was a downward blip in sales overall dur…

Everyone’s always trying to build a better mouse trap, to find a better way of disposing of pests without poisoning non-pest critters (or people) or adding unnecessary chemicals to the environment. For example, New York City has been using …

With its plethora of major cultural and educational institutions like Lincoln Center, the American Museum of Natural History, the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, General Grant National Memorial (a.k.a. Grant’s Tomb), Barnard College, Un…

Everyone loves to own things—sometimes even many things. But occasionally, ownership of things can go too far and accumulation can grow problematic. In the modern parlance, a too-many-thing-haver is often referred to as a “hoarder,” an indi…

Every month you break out the checkbook to pay your maintenance fees for your co-op. Naturally you expect that those fees go toward maintaining the upkeep of your residence. But for whatever reason, something goes wrong. It can be an infe…

While the residents of a condominium, cooperative or homeowner's association may stay fixed for years happily coexisting in a communal environment, there remains a revolving door of staffers, contractors and vendors servicing the property i…

It's safe to say that the camel cricket is definitely not like the beloved and famous Disney character Jiminy Cricket from the animated classic film Pinocchio . Rather, this somewhat scary-looking invasive species from Asia is more of an…

Co-op and condo communities tend to cover all their bases when it comes to allowing someone new into their community. In most instances, applications and interviews are the norms. But you can’t exactly predict what someone will do in the fu…

Halloween is the time of the year when both costumed children and adults partake in some ghoulish and devilish fun. To trick-or-treaters going door to door inside a multifamily building, it's like a one-stop candy-shopping bonanza without e…

As times change and we encounter life’s transitions, many of the things we once desired take on new forms and shapes. None of those transitions is quite as profound as starting—and raising—a family, and for co-op and condo owners who are al…