How does management co. communicate with you?

No, the M.A. is avoiding you. Who knows what they are hiding in your building?

Communicate by E-mail and request a reply by same.

I suppose there are management companies that communicate by email, but I have yet to run across one in a sizable building. I've dealt with a number of significant companies over the last 2 decades and am quite happy with Charles Greenthal which runs my current coop. None send emails. They communicate in the manner you describe yours does (but no handwritten notes). I think it would be pretty easy to assemble a group email list for a building, but few companies seem to have done this to date.

Suggest that the building get BuildingLink.

I think many of the new construction buildings extensive electronic communication capabilities, not only do you get e-mails of service interruptions and other messages but they will notify you when you have a package waiting for you and you can request maintenance support through the building website.

If you happen to live in building built in the 20th century or before, chances are you get the news from posting on the elevator or a note under your door. I'm not sure how long it would take to pull together an e-mail distribution list of the buildings residents (and its a one time job) but its obviously not something most management companies have chosen to invest in. Why not? Well for one thing, in most buildings it would eliminate the need for under door and elevator notification. Believe it or not, there are some people, mostly seniors, who don't use e-mail. And if you are dependent on a home health care worker, s/he is not going to check the e-mail but will know when it says in the elevator that the hot water isn't working.

Liz: Good point, well - taken.

The managing agent can do both.

We're in a big prewar building (for now) and get all communications via e-mail or Building Link. Only the people who haven't registered get the paper notices for most things, though for major items like the April 20 potential strike everyone gets paper in addition to e-mail.

"I'm not sure how long it would take to pull together an e-mail distribution list of the buildings residents (and its a one time job) but its obviously not something most management companies have chosen to invest in. Why not?"

Because it's not *really* a "one-time job". People change emails these days like they change their underwear. Maintaining an up-to-date email database takes more work than you realize. It's much easier to communicate with 200 tenants via non-resident-specific Xeroxed memo that's distributed by hand and/or posted in the common areas.

if there's an even moderate turnaround in the building, keeping the emails up to date in an Outlook group would be difficult. most of the management agents are understaffed and lots of the people who work there are not computer literate enough to do things like this. it's always easier to post some notes at the main walkway (ie elevators) or distribute important notices via "under the door" copies. the later is done by the building staff, so there is not much that the management company has to do.

Greenthal sends messages in my current investment condo via email, and Midboro sends them in our current residential co-op by slipping notes under our doors; both work for me. (Although, honestly, it means I have to be home, and to forward every notice of outage to my tenant, who I'm sure finds out about them much faster by stepping into the elevator.)

So you are in a special situation of really wanting to know about outages "in advance," why don't you just ask the super?

Also, you know we're nearing a strike, right?

In my building they do notices several ways - notice posted at concierge desk, in front of elevators, in elevators, and via building e-mail. Super told me that they have tried to get all residents to sign up for building e-mail, but that only about 60% have done so, even after repeated requests.

Guess you can't please all of the peaople all of the time.

Maintaining e-mail lists these days isn't that hard, largely to due to Gmail addresses becoming standard versus ISP addresses, which do change over time. I've stuck to Yahoo (I'm a dinosaur!) and have had the same e-mail for 13 years now.

The one thing I do notice about BuildingLink is that certain people, *cough*mysignificantother*cough*, seem to delete the notices unread because they don't feel like logging on to the site, and then seem to have no idea what's going on.

Yeah, the "maintaining lists" aregument is bs. Create the list, allow folks to sign up, and they can be responsible for updating their list. There are free services that do this.

And its 1/10th the work of paper.

My building uses buildinglink. Not just messaging, but you give them instructions through it, schedule stuff, maintenance requests, building info. Pretty cool system. For big stuff, they still do paper notices.

under the door and posted in the elevator. building is easily 50 yrs old. lots o' olds in the building and tho most of them are hip and paying next to nada for their rent and i know they have puters "...what do you think should i get an Apple or HP desktop..." building rolls old school.

Romary...when you say "olds" are you talking about Baby Boomer and a maybe little older old, like maybe 60-75 (or for all I know you consider 45 old) or do you mean truly old? No doubt computer penetration and usage among the former group is very significant if not close to universal. But the fastest growing demographic today is people 85+ and while some of them are computer literate (thanks mostly to children and grandchildren with a lot of patience) many are not. Also, many are reliant on outside care, home aides, meals on wheels, visiting nurses for whom knowledge of a limitation in building services would be helpful.

By the way, I wish we had building link or similar system in my building. I think the more technology can be leveraged...great. We just have to be sensitive and cognizant of the building population (I doubt there are too many 90 year olds in new construction) and provide an old school alternative for those who need it.

Hey everyone, Zach from BuildingLink here. I frequently get asked "What about our older residents who don't use computers/email?" The answer has a few parts.

First, as several of you have mentioned, a large portion of the older population is beginning to use email (my grandmother loves getting emails with baby pictures!). But there will always be people who do not use email.

Second, BuildingLink has other ways to communicate with residents, outside of email. One way is through the Emergency Broadcast, which lets management record a message over the phone (or type it in), and we automatically dial every resident phone number in the building (or in the "B" line, for example) and play the message back. We recommend using this only for emergencies or urgent announcements, but any resident with a phone number would receive this notification.

Another method is the scrolling announcement on the package screen. Management can set an announcement to appear on the bottom of your building's package screen(s), so any resident passing by will see it.

But sometimes you need to deliver a document, and in those cases, you are all correct. The best route is to add a document to the BuildingLink Library, AND to distribute hard copies. That way you can be sure you're reaching everyone.

If you'd like to learn more, feel free to email me at zachary at buildinglink.com. Or you can submit a request for information at http://buildinglink.com/Public/takethenextstep.aspx.

Or reply here and I'll answer.

Enjoy the weekend!