CDT: We're in Manhattan but we also have an apt in a high-rise NJ condo. Every apt has a terrace and we've had trouble with pigeons landing on and messing up the terraces for years. We finally solved the problem!

We hired a company that put a dish of corn kernels injected with a chemical on every terrace. It doesn't kill or poison pigeons and it wears off. It disorients them so they decide (however they do that!) not to return to where they got the corn kernels. That was in spring 2008. We haven't had one pigeon on or even flying anywhere near any terrace in the building since then.

The company is Bird Doctor, Inc. (subsidiary of a large company called Bug Doctor, Inc.) They're in NJ but they work in the entire tri-state area. Their number is 201-599-1007 and their website is www.birddoctorinc.com. We tried many things but this is the only one that worked, and 100% effectively.

BP, thanks for the enthusiastic response. Unfortunately, your description sounds like the bird-disorienting drug called Avitrol, which is no longer legal in New York, though it's fine in many other states.

Any other ideas? I'm very interested in hearing real-life war stories about how pigeon problems were handled, whether or not the results were successful. We'd love to banish pigeons from our building, but we don't want to throw away money on ineffective techniques.

CDT:I don't know if Bird Doctor uses a product containing Avitrol. I was told they use various chemical and other things - mechanical systems, audio-visual devices, wire mesh, etc.

One coop installed small spikes 3" apart along the top of their terrace railings. It seems pigeons usually go on the railings before they go onto the terrace floor, and when their feet land on the spikes they don't like it and fly away. The coop told me this works much of the time but not all the time.

Another coop used "bird netting." It's taut and attached at the top of a terrace railing and at the edge of the terrace ceiling. It's sort of a screened-in porch effect. It's flexi-fiberglass and not a tight weave like wire mesh. The weave is wider but not enough for pigeons to squeeze in. It's clear color so it doesn't interfere with visibility or the look of the terrace, and it allows air to circulate freely.

This coop installed the netting from terrace floor to ceiling. I know people who live there. One has a dog and the other has two cats. They like the full-length netting because it creates an invisible blanket on all the railing posts as well as from the railing top up. They can let their dog and cats out onto their terraces without fear that they'd fall or jump off!

We tried scarecrows that look like hawks which go after pigeons. We tried a glue-y substance you squeeze along the top of the railing like toothpaste so pigeon feet stick to it. That worked briefly until the birds stopped landing there and went straight to the terrace floor. We tried windsocks, hanging plants. Someone suggested painting the railings a weird color to scare the pigeons. He owns 4 apts and tried lime green paint on his railings (without coop permission) which looked awful! The coop made him remove it. I don't even know if pigeons see colors, and if so maybe they like lime green because it seemed to attract even more of them.

As I said, I don't know if Bird Doctor uses Avitrol but if you have pigeon problems it may be worth contacting them for info. It's a large well-known company. "Bird netting" sounds like it might be worth checking to and I would think Bird Doctor would be familiar with it.

Hope something I wrote here is of some help. You should also tell residents not to throw any food/seed out windows or put it on window sills for pigeons or any birds. Some people like to feed the "dear little things" but once they territorialize your place it's very ifficult to get rid of them, and they can carry diseases.

BP, thanks for all the additional details. In particular, the bird netting sounds less odious than anticipated. I'll talk with the rest of our Board about investigating this possibility. (And I promise we won't paint it lime green.)

By the way, although I've had no reports of our residents feeding the pigeons, we live next door to a hotel where pigeon feeding has been a problem in the past. Someone over there may be doing it again.

Thanks again.

Steve, if you have the available cash, there is really no downside to paying early as long as you do not need to liquidate an investment paying a higher rate in order to do so. There is actually a sliding scale of savings - 1.5% if you pay in full by July 1, 1% if you pay the remaining due on October 1, and so on.

In our case we have not been able to take advantage of this discount because our quarterly taxes are over $600k and prepayment would require too large a cash outlay.

Go for it!

This is a great question, and I'll be interested in the replies. It's a tough one!

I know a solid contractor, I work as a resident manager and this contractor does everything by the book. he may take a little longer then your normal g/c, but this guys does it right the first time around he does it all contracting to woodworking. he's not the cheapest but by far not the most expensive.A true gem...

Nick (646) 315-4446

Does this guy named Nick have a construction company name? Sure don't look to good for the Resident manager to recommend a contractor?

Nick's Contracting is the name. Doesn't look good for a resident manager? That's pretty insinuating.

Thanks for the input hopefully I can get a few more contractors to contact

If the seller is paying the buyer's closing costs, the seller may be trying to reduce the net gain for the purposes of calculating capital gains taxes.

If the seller thinks that by paying the buyer's closing costs that he will be able to deduct those costs, he will likely find out the hard way that he was wrong...they are only deductible by the buyer.

There are universal bracket of at least two sizes, depending on how large and deep is your AC that may be used. However, I would say that drilling may be essential to maintain the bracket in place. For your info, it would be best to anchor the AC to a window than having an A/C fall on someone's head.

AdC

There is a universal bracket for A/C's. It come in two sizes for use with different sizes of A/C's. However, I would say that drilling to the structure or the the frame may be essential to maintain the bracket in place.

AdC

There is no other way to mount the Universal Bracket unless you drill into the window sill, if you have aluminum windows heres a tip, apply some caulk around the screws threads and then screw into the sill to make a tight weatherproof seal.

We use the standard agreement but one thing that we do put into place is a rider to the sublease which states:

This rider dated __________________ attached to and part of lease dated ______________ between ________________________ as landlord and __________________________ as subtenant in bldg # ____and Apt. # ______ at Cooperative or Condominium name in City, NY.

This agreement made part of lease dated _________________________ as follows;

In the event of bank foreclosure or if maintenance charges, etc. become delinquent on the unit _____ at Address, City , NY ZIP upon written notice from The Board of Directors or Managing Agent to subtenant, subtenant shall make all future monthly rental payments to The Board of Directors. Payments shall be payable in the following manner:

Cooperative or Condominium Name
C/O Excel Bradshaw Management Group, LLC
393 Old Country Road, Suite 204
Carle Place, NY 11514

The payment of the monthly rent to the Board and the acceptance of the rent by the Board shall not constitute a landlord/tenant relationship between the parties.

Upon resolution of all delinquent charges subtenant shall resume paying landlord, upon notice by The Board of Directors or Managing Agent.


___________________________________
OWNER:

___________________________________
TENANT:

The Blumburg apartment sublease?

Look at our sublease documents at:
http://www.thepinehurst.org/residents.htm

Scroll down to "Application forms" and then under "Sublet" you can download both the applicant's cover sheet and other forms.

The previous commenter's rider about the subtenant paying directly to the co-op in the case of delinquency or foreclosure is very interesting, but I wonder if it would hold up in court. Doesn't the mortgage holder have first dibs on being repayed?

It has held up in court on the Condominium side, and we have luckily only used it on the Cooperative side thus far for delinquent Maintenance payments for the Cooperative. We have not had to deal with the Shareholder's mortgagor.

Thanks -- the rider is certainly worth considering!

All it does is protect the building. Nothing damaging in that. Good luck.

No, the coop's claim to maintenance is senior to that of the lender. This is why often times a share loan for a coop has a higher rate of interest than a loan on real estate

I am planning on addressing this on my blog here on Habitat (I'm Mr. Manager). I have two separate cases of bed bugs in different Cooperatives now and they are handling the situation differently. In speaking with a colleague last night about this, he attended a NYC Bed Bugs seminar and the way that they spun it was that the Shareholder and the Cooperative Corporation should be splitting it. I'll tell you how we are handling it.

Building 1: Having inspected roughly half of the units in the building, we have found that approximately 35% or so of the building was infected and needed to be exterminated. Even though this may be considered a Shareholder issue (you can take legal action for payment against the person who brought them into the building if you can prove it), this Board decided that they would cover the cost of the exterminations because they needed 100% of the infected apartments to be treated. They would not take the chance of having 1 Shareholder refusing service and then continuing the spread to new and previously infected apartments. This building will be doing an assessment back to the Shareholders to cover the out of pocket expense for the Cooperative. So in essence, the individual Shareholders are paying for it, although a slightly lower percentage than if only those who were infected paid.

Building 2: We received reports of 2 apartments out of 130 or so that were infected in the apst few weeks. The building felt that it was prudent to get an inspection done ASAP and to cover the cost for that inspection. In both buildings we have used a trained dog, which is the only sure way to ensure 100% accuracy for infestations. The infestations are only approximately 10-15% of the building and because of this low number, the Board has decided that they will initially cover the cost of the exterminations to ensure that all of the work is taken care of and they will be this back to the individual Shareholders who are treated, and will not do it through a building-wide assessment.

I would check with your attorney to see if either of these methods will work for your building. The important thing is to make sure that you contain the spread as quickly as possible. Shoot them first and ask questions later.

Hope that helps.

thank very much for the useful reply. but not how I heard it - the coop pays - it is in the lease- the lessor must be responsible for vermin . no grey area. no assessment - it is not a capitol improvement. sponsor-owned apartment = sponsor pays. if sponsor does not effectively treat the problem , then he pays for all effected apartments.

For one, this encouraged a coop - or a sponsor - not to be cheap and ti hire a high end extemrination company. you must have a very very bad situation if you have 35% of apt effected in a building. how is that possible??

you are right about the dog - it should also inspect laundry rooms, mailrooms and other public areas.

It's certainly never a good time to bring an assessment onto the Shareholders, no matter the state of the economy. I think that your answer depends on the amount in reserves that you currently have, the need for the work to be done (is it city or mortgage holder directed or is it a cosmetic facelift, etc.?) and also the time frame with which you have to work.

Does your building have a line of credit that it can tap into for work that needs to be done? This could ease the burden depending on the payoff schedule for the loan. Is this work that you can pass off as receiving a J-51 abatement so that you will see some of it again on the back end? Is it work that is needed to secure the safety of the residents?

I think that you'll have to make a choice of what work to do in the next 2 years as even if you contract for all of the work to be done, no contractor is going to wait two years to receive payment, which is the problem when you are depleting your reserves up front. If you have nothing left (and no line of credit to fall back on) your building is setting itself up for disaster in the case of an emergency down the line. Can you pass this along in a 6-month payout or so in order to ease the burden on the Shareholders and also get it in before heating season starts and the major bills begin piling in again?

It seems that there are too many variables in this equation to completely give you a good answer, but if you weigh all of the benefits to doing the work today versus putting some off and saving up with an assessment, the Board may come up with their answer.

I agree with Mark's suggestions - while you cannot ignore work that must be done, if the work is considered discretionary you may want to postpone until you have an opportunity to put a line of credit in place.

Depending on the size of your building, another option is to leverage the co-op real estate tax rebate. We have no mortgage but we have funded some very large projects over the past several years entirely through reserves that are funded by a flip tax. After many years of faithfully returning the rebate to the shareholders, we recently decided to assess back an equivalent amount to the rebate in the same month so as to minimize impact to the shareholders. This money will be directed to our reserves and will provide us with the funds that we need for the next several years.

My personal opinion is that if the work is a necessity, while tapping the line of credit is not optimal, it has to be done. However, it appears that you should also take a look at how to move your finances into a sustainable mode. I agree with Mark that there are many variables here to consider.

One thing I would recommend is taking a look at your finances not from the perspective of the individual shareholder but from the perspective of the corporation. If you take a look at the finances from the point of view of the individual shareholder, there will always be one shareholder (one special case) that limits what you can do in some way. However if you take a look at it from the perspective of the corporation, the best answer usually is more self evident. Yes, you might negatively impact a shareholder to whom emotional ties might otherwise prevent an action that is good for the whole corporation. This is life and can't be helped. In short, you can't run a successful corporation based on the lowest common element.

Your corporation simply needs more cash. It can either come from a maintenance increase (my favorite), assessments (my least favorite) or adjustments of debt/mortgage balances. You might want to consider a mid year increase.

Finally, the forum could offer more advice if you share your most recent audited financial statements.

We needed to do some work. Rather than an assessment, we arranged a Line of Credit with National Cooperative Bank.
You ought to look into it.

Wouldn't we have to raise maintenance to pay back a line of credit? Or is the tax deduction benefit so great that it would somewhat offset? thanks for any advice, of course I will also check with our accountant.

Sometimes it can depend on the terms of your first mortgage. Perhaps you'd be able to only pay off interest on the line in the near future (which is minimal) and you'll be able to refinance your first mortgage while rolling both loans into the refinance. It really depends on the situation.

I manage a building in Forest Hills that is roughly 40% sponsor owned and the remaining 60% consists of Shareholders and sublets. They also have a waiting list for the garage that is pretty lengthy, so when this came up in discussion with the Board of Directors, the decision was made to amend the availability and wait list of parking spots to Shareholders who live there only and no longer to tenants (of Shareholders of of the Sponsor). Of course, those tenants who already had spots in the garage were grandfathered in, and any rent stabilized tenants were keeping their spots as well.

The Board can amend the waiting list rules as part of the House Rules to include only primary residence residents access to the garage. You can also include in this that all renters of the garage show proof of a NYS drivers license, insurance, registration, etc.

If they are living out of state and have another license this will be easy, although it sounds as though that even though they are there most of the time, they will be able to show "proof" that this is still their primary residence. Although my options are pretty sound, I would suggest a quick call to your building's attorney just to make sure that you're not disregarding the Offering Plan or bylaws of the Cooperative.

If you need any more info, please shoot me an e-mail!

Thank you, Mark, for all of your good suggestions. The board thought we had everything covered in our parking rules, but once in a while new circumstances arise and we have to amend them. The trick is to amend them before it happens.

As you say, the establishment of proof of her primary residence might be difficult in case she still has her NYS material. Checking with our attorney to make sure we're "legal" is a good idea. I'll keep you posted.

My sister owns a coop in Queens NY and is handicapped. She has been denied a handicapped parking spot as she has another residence in Florida and has Florida plates. Most of her time is spent in NY Is this legal?

I would have to argue that regardless of where a shareholder is domiciled, a parking spot can add considerable value to a Co-op or Condo unit, so every shareholder must be treated equally as long as they are in good standing (maintenance paid on time and no infractions of the lease or house rules). If the snowbird fulfills these requirements, then she/he is entitled to acquire the spot when their time comes.

This being said, I also feel that if a shareholder does not physically occupy a garage parking spot for a defined period of time without good cause, that the board be given the power to allow the next person on the list to use the spot until the owner either decides to use it for themselves or gives it up. This would be considered a courtesy to the person being allowed to use the spot in the absence of the owner, so no rights are being conferred or revoked. The board would have to work out the details of the arrangement, but it maintains the value of the existing owner while providing a benefit to the person actually making use of the spot.