HOW TO HELP — WHILE PROTECTING YOURSELF

What happens when particular residents get to be too old or impaired to take care of themselves, and the family drops the ball? What must a board do then to protect the building? "We have the responsibility of maintaining the sanctity of everyone's homes," says Jonathan Klein, president of the New York branch of Wentworth Management. "There are times when somebody has to step in."

Steps you can take include:

• Establish helpful policies.

Call it enlightened self-interest: Policies you establish now may end up helping you and yours in a few years. For instance, impaired hearing becomes an issue, "so we have strobe-light fire alarms" in addition to standard aural alarms, says Mel Atkinson, national operations manager of the Michigan-based CSI Support and Development Services, which provides consumer-cooperative housing for low-income seniors in four states. "We avoid plush carpets and heavy carpet-padding," to help minimize trips and falls. "These kinds of things are specific to the housing we do, but people are living longer [in general] and these are the kinds of things we all may have to be thinking about."

Some of what CSI does can translate directly to New York co-ops and condos, particularly those becoming NORCs (Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities). Organizations such as the National Aging in Place Council, the National Academy on an Aging Society and the granddaddy, so to speak, of them all, the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) offer ideas and lists of resources on their websites and elsewhere.

• Vet home-care aides.

An easy-to-overlook issue is that of home-care aides, particularly 24-hour caregivers who move into a shareholder or unit-owner's apartment. When anyone, whether a senior or a chronically ill younger person, needs a home-care aide, there's no question that one must be allowed, attorneys say.

However, cautions Steve Greenbaum, director of property management at Mark Greenberg Real Estate, "You have to be careful, when a person is taking in an aide, to interview that aide and to make it clear that only that aide can reside in the apartment — not their family-members. We had an aide for a very old person in one of our co-ops, a 60-unit building in Cedarhurst, Long Island, and this lady would have her cousin, her cousin's kids, all her extended family staying in the apartment, using the laundry room, playing in the hallways, hanging out at the pool — they used the building like a private club. We finally sent a legal letter to the shareholder's family; they were kind of shocked all this was going on. They ended up terminating that aide and the problem went away."

• Speak with the resident or his/her family and/or Adult Protective Services.

"The first step when there's an issue is to speak with the occupant," says Steven Hyatt, executive vice president of Wentworth New York. "If that doesn't resolve it, we contact APS, which will intervene and try to either locate a family member or provide an unrelated caregiver to do a cleanup."

• Check the person's medical condition.

A more extreme but sometimes necessary step is to invoke Kendra's Law (Statute 9.60 of the Mental Hygiene Law), in which a court can order certain individuals with mental illness to receive and accept outpatient treatment, or involuntary admission to a hospital (Statute 9.37).

But note: Make sure you're not dealing with a case of what's called reversible dementia. "Mental illness isn't necessarily what old folks have," says elder-law attorney Emily Klotz. "They may have dementia from not eating properly, or drinking too much or not enough water, and their electrolytes go out of balance. That's reversible dementia."

• Petition the court.

If APS is unable to resolve the situation, the next step is to take the resident to court under what's called a holdover action for a nuisance. And, usually during court proceedings, parties try to work out a solution to have that resident's affairs handled.

The legal system offers two general options. The most common is for a co-op board or other interested party — a neighbor, even — to petition the state Supreme Court for a guardian to be appointed under the state's Mental Hygiene Law, Article 81. The board itself would not be the guardian. If a guardian is applied for, any eviction proceeding is stayed for a minimum of 30 days until the court determines whether the person in question has the capacity for self-care.

— Frank Lovece