It simply amazes me the risks that people take in their lives and their assets. How little regard they have for the items of most value and what high regard they have for their items of least value. Here are two stories that support my point.
Story 1 - What were garages designed to hold?
A little over a year ago my condominium complex decided to build garages on the property in an effort to help increase values and utilize more of our property to generate revenue. At the time we received all sorts of feedback both positive and negative. Most of the negative feed back would simply make you want to say HUH?
The most notable comment against the structures was that the rules would include that the bay could not be used for storage. It made absolutely no sense to this person that we would not erect a garage that could be used for storage. After about 30 seconds of holding back my "What in gods name are you thinking comment?" I asked "Where do you plan to park your vehicle?" and he said "Outside in the lot" like it was so matter of fact I must be an idiot. I simply responded "Only in America do we park our $20,000 vehicle outside and fill our garage with junk. We are constructing garages not public storage and the last thing we wish to happen is to loose a number of vehicles because someones junk pile caught fire." I still shake my head when I recall this conversation.
Story 2 - Is it ok for me to live with my trash?
Last night I was called to assist one of our units with an issue they are having. They live in one of our ranch buildings which are flats with 6 living units with a common hallway. The problem is the people own a third floor unit clearly have a different view of how to live share space and they have been stacking trash in the hallway and from the smell outside their door it appears they must be stacking trash inside as well. This has resulted in one unit owner moving out and another not being able to effectively show their unit which is for sale. Again this neighbor has little regard for what has to be one of the largest investments they made or for what effect their unkempt habits will hold when and if they decide to sell this asset.
Educating our residents about the importance of valuing what they own and the importance of valuing what their neighbors own on our properties has to be our greatest battle. For some reason many of our residents do not understand that our complex functions as whole and not as individual complexes on the same piece of dirt.
Background on this post:
It has always amazed me how much risk people take with themselves and their vehicle. They race around to save five minutes, cutting off traffic and running red lights with the most important and expensive tool they own. Without this they probably can't easily get to work to pay their bills and worse the automobile has been shown to be the leading cause of death in this country. I was heading back home this afternoon and as my light turned green I watched as that one last car ran the red light crossing traffic so not to have to wait a couple of minutes for the next light change. The irony is his vehicle already had front end damage where he had appeared to have performed this time saving stunt one too many times before. This picture says it all...
I am guessing they were late.
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