I believe in common sense, and it’s not that common in the way our HOA is managed.
Here’s an actual case study on how our HOA dues are being wasted because of a Board of Directors that doesn’t have a clue of what they are doing.
Earlier this year, the crew spent 10 working days “repairing” the fascias in our breezeway. 7 out of the 10 days were spent stripping paint and using some kind of plastic paste to fill-in termite damage. The rest was prep and paint. To be honest, it ended up looking like crap, not because the workers screwed up or slacked off, but because they are expected to accomplish the impossible. I’m sick and tired of seeing these poor fellows asked to polish turds, day in, day out, instead of doing productive work for our community!
More importantly, this is costing us money, lots of it. The job took a considerable amount of labor for very little improvement and during all this time, our crew was not available for any other important jobs.
Let’s look at some numbers. We probably pay our workers anywhere from $15 to $25/hour, let’s average at $20/hour. So, 7 working days times 8 hours/day times 2 workers equals $2,240.
The total footage of wood “repaired” was about 70 feet, so we paid $32 for every foot of “repaired” wood!
If instead we had purchased brand-new, termite-proof 2 x 16 studs from Lowe’s (or Home Depot), cost would have been about $237, TOTAL!
Removing old then installing new fascias would have taken a couple days for a crew of 2, at a labor cost of $640, for a total (time & materials) of $877.
The cost would have been $12 a foot instead of $32, almost THREE TIME less, and for brand-new stuff, not old rotten wood held together by plastic filler and teeming with yet-unseen armies of termites!
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the job should have cost about EIGHT HUNDRED SEVENTY DOLLARS but we ended up paying over TWO THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS for it! And I’m not even including the cost of the filler, which is at least another $150! Worse still, this cost will have to be incurred again in just a few years, instead of having 50 years worth of brand-new, maintenance-free, termite-resistant, beautiful fascias installed.
Penny-wise, pound-foolish!
And this is just a small example of a pervasive failure in management. Just think about the number of times this scenario is repeated over a year. Literally tens of thousands of dollars are going up in smoke because of sheer incompetence and failed management. But the current Board persists in “painting over rust”, and our dues keep going up while the quality of service keeps going down, and it’s not getting any better!
This is one of the many reasons I’m running for the Board this year, it’s time to stop the waste and bring back efficient management in our complex. If you need further proof, look at the Lowe’s ad below.
