Living in a condominium is not for the faint-hearted. I should know; I’ve been residing in one together with my husband and young daughter for six years now.
This article is from herword see link at end of article
My unit—like most dwellings of this type—does not have a lot of space. The floor area barely covers sixty square meters. Even so, I am proud to own this bi-level place that has two bedrooms and two bathrooms, and is part of an elegant, gated community along the outskirts of Quezon City and San Juan. I call it home notwithstanding the inherent headaches and problems that come with the residence.
Rude, insensitive neighbors top my list of grievances. My condo complex has nine high rise buildings (a.k.a. clusters) that collectively house more than 700 units. Hence, there is never a shortage of people around, especially the insufferable sort.
Take the tenants from the unit diagonally across mine. These inconsiderate folks own a scruffy and manic mutt that pees with unfailing regularity and precision on the service stairway and the hallway. Displaying the same keenness and consistency, the dog’s owners ignore the stinky mess created by their pet each and every day. Not once have I seen them clean up after their canine companion. They leave this “dirty” job to the janitors and service staff tasked to spruce up the common areas. Residents like me, meanwhile, have to put up with the foul-smelling walkways and be vigilant lest we step on waste matter and pollute nearby spots further.
There’s also my chain-smoking upstairs neighbor who is unaware that trash cans have already been invented and thinks the world outside his unit is one big garbage dump. I say this because he delights in flinging cigarette butts and candy wrappers out his window. Of course, these pieces of trash unerringly land on one or all of the following: my windows’ ledges, my air conditioner’s casing, and my laundry area.
Many times in the past, this flying and deadly debris has made my living room and bedroom, as well as my newly washed clothes, reek of cigarette. It has likewise made me and my family sufferers of second-hand smoke. Once, nasty neighbor’s still-smoldering cigarette settled on my air conditioner’s exterior and actually started a fire! Alerted by fumes on a supposedly relaxing Sunday afternoon, a handful of the condo’s security personnel, fire extinguishers in hand, breathlessly barged into my unit, rushed to the bedroom and sprayed my hapless aircon with the fervor of firemen.
That debacle, needless to say, rendered me and my husband several hundreds of pesos poorer and left us exhausted since we had to attend to the chaos in our bedroom straight away and hire a technician to check on our aircon.
Cigarette-hurling neighbor, by the way, is a renter, not a homeowner. Before he came along, the unit above mine was occupied by an American family with one daughter who fancied herself as a singer extraordinaire. Accordingly, this trendy teenage girl would wage marathon karaoke sessions whenever she was in the mood to warble and exercise her vocal chords; it did not matter whether it was in the daytime, late at night, or in the wee hours of the morning. She, at least, had a great voice, and her family sure wasn’t a fire-starter.
But I do not miss the singing, however tolerable it was, and I’m positive none of the other neighbors do, too.
Like the litterbugs and noisemakers, the local vandals and gossips similarly detract from the wholesome appeal of my lodgings. The first group defaces walls (freshly painted ones are a favorite), elevator doors, railings, posters, and memos with their lewd sketches and scribbles. The second group is composed mainly of helpers/maids or yayas whose primary preoccupation is talking about their employers, the latest telenovela, and their love interests. These gossips congregate at the playground or near the swimming pool midmorning or mid-afternoon to swap stories and other inanities, as well as text away on their cell phones. Some months ago, a little boy was almost run over by a car inside our compound because his remiss, loquacious nanny was too busy socializing with her yaya-pals to bother with her ward.
Besides cohabitation, another necessary evil in condo living are the dues and taxes that have to be paid ad nauseam. Where I live, dues are billed monthly. How much a resident pays is proportionate to the size of his unit (the bigger the floor area, the higher the amount). If you pay in advance—six months or a year’s worth of dues—you get a whopping four per cent discount from the total fee.
Exactly where this mandatory charge goes I have no idea. The property management team deems it unnecessary to enlighten the residents of the fund’s purpose and destination. But my guess is that most of it is allotted for the salaries of the security and maintenance staff, and for prettifying the complex’s façade. Anyhow, there are conspicuous, bright yellow posters in each cluster lobby reminding residents that “Dues are the life blood of the condominium so pay your dues on time.” How edifying.
The taxes imposed on condominium owners continue to befuddle me. I pay a tax for my condo unit, another for the building that houses my unit, and still an additional tax for the lot where the building stands! That’s not all. There are separate charges, too, for the common area and the machinery in my complex, conveniently classified as “real property tax,” quite apt as the multiple charges for owning a home are inescapable and undeniably real.
I can only wish the benefits of paying one’s dues and taxes promptly—something my husband and I always do—are just as tangible.
Parking can also be a pain if you, like me, own a unit and a vehicle but cannot afford to purchase or lease parking space. Not that I would want to buy or rent here anyway if I had the money. The nine-level parking building where I have to plunk down Php700,000 to be entitled to permanent parking or shell out two to three thousand pesos a month (paid in advance biannually or yearly) to be a renter is the only covered parking edifice I know that has indoor showers and flash floods—thanks to substandard building materials and leaky overhead pipes. It is also a good distance away from my cluster, situated at the rear of the complex, at an area farthest from the gate. All non-owners and non-renters who park in this bizarre building are charged by the hour.
Car-driving or car-riding guests of homeowners are not exempt from paying since the brilliant, award-winning developers of my condo complex have never heard of free parking, and intentionally did not include a communal parking area for residents and visitors in their spacious and precious property.
To save on expenses, my husband and I utilize the indoor parking sparingly and only when needed, and just leave our car in the streets most of the time. We are aware of the hazards of parking outside, so we choose our spots well. Nevertheless, our vehicle still got towed once and ticketed on a separate occasion. Luckily, kind, well-meaning relatives came to the rescue, but that’s another story.
Six years of living in a condo has also yielded encounters with incompetent guards, invisible thieves, a raging inferno, playground bullies and brats, and scurrying rats as big as cats. It’s enough to drive one insane or to make one hate his residence with passion.
Only, I don’t hate my home. In fact, I’ve come to like it even more for the lessons I’ve gained on forbearance, simplicity, humility, and gratitude. My residence may not be the most ideal of dwelling places but it has character and is definitely not boring.
I am thankful as well to be a homeowner at a time when many are losing their jobs, their houses, and their families, and may never have a chance to own property. At least my condo has excellent location—it’s right smack in the middle of the metropolis, and a mere five minutes away by car from my husband’s office and my daughter’s school. Beat that. Read the complete orginal article here
http://www.herword.com/living/main.php?id=condo
