Co-op Shareholders Cope with a Belligerent Superintendent

Aug. 3, 2015 — Life in a co-op is all about community. But sometimes community living can present challenges ranging from personality clashes to more serious matters, such as dealing with a super who's, well, less than super. Take this co-op in the Upper West Side, for example, which is coping with an allegedly belligerent live-in super. "[He] appears to have a drinking problem. He literally passed out, face down on the sidewalk, in front of the building early one morning. He got into a physical altercation with a vagrant in front of the building and had to be hospitalized. He verbally abuses building staff," one of its shareholders writes to Ronda Kaysen in this week's Ask Real Estate column in The New York Times. According to the shareholder, the super doesn't seem to be drinking during business hours. "But shouldn't he be coherent and alert at all times, ready to make an important decision at any time, if needed?" The co-op board doesn't want to make a move "because they think that what he does on his own time is his own business." That's quite a pickle. "A live-in super has a right to a private life," answer Kaysen. "But when he behaves in a worrisome manner in or outside the building, his personal choices become his employer's problem, because management sets the standards for workplace behavior." Furthermore, the super needs to be available in emergency situations, even if they occur in the middle of the night or any time before he starts or after he finishes his shift. The board's "cavalier attitude" is especially alarming, Kaysen points out. "[It] puts the safety of residents and other employees at risk." If the board feels firing the super is too drastic a measure, then it should certainly takes steps to improve the situation. That may mean conducting an evaluation and putting the super on probation to give him a chance to rectify his problematic behavior.