So if you have no change you get locked out of your home?
America is becoming comedicly distopia with its pay to win.
I’m pretty sure the Tbilisi, Naples, and Shangdong being mentioned here aren’t in the US
Also the article points out that it’s illegal in the US because of disability accommodation laws
America is not featured in this article.
I’m sure you can see how people would get confused since condominium is an American term and nobody likes to read articles
O. O wow I’m shocked, for once America isn’t respocible for one of these micro toll ideas, this is still comedicly distopian in my eyes tho.
Disability tax, more like it
There’s always the complaint box:
Edit: Maybe not the best picture. It’s a box with a coin slot.
That will be 2 slips of Latinum please.
In an ideal world I can see this being a deterrent for an able bodied person from using an elevator meant to be used for maintenance workers, disabled persons, and people moving in/out, and that they’d get a code for free use. But we all know that’s not the case.
Enshittification soaring to new heights.
Crapification reaches the new levels.
En-Defication approaches new floors above and below us-
worse yet app operated.
My apartment building has app operated entrances, and I was completely reliant on someone else with a working phone to let me in multiple times. They said they got rid of standard fobs because of people apparently lose them often, but it have never once lost mine, yet I’ve had two phones kick the bucket on me, multiple times where my battery died, and a few times where it got softbricked after a failed update. Just this week I had the app reset itself after an overhaul, making me go through the setup process again while standing outside in a heatwave. Given that I’m especially heat sensitive, I’m surprised I didn’t pass out.
You can also do NFC cards where you have the option to put them into your phone. The cards are super cheap, less than 50 cents per.
I actually brought it up, and they said that people would just lose those too. Then they said that the only way going forwards was still an ios or android app. They said if it dies then it’s my fault and that I’ll just be locked out.
ugh. I think the scariest part of our dystopia is how as dystompic as it is at any point you find out a new dystopic thing (this is new for me). I mean even with the keyfob/card its recording every time you enter and leave.
Examples already within reach include:
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Per-use package lockers
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Metered stairwell lighting ಠ_ಠ
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Tiered heating access
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Vandalizing an elevator that you aren’t allowed to use doesn’t take anything away from you.
It’s a condo, not a rental. You own that elevator and will pay part of the cost of repairing it. This is cutting off your nose to spite your face.
If this is added to an existing building this is a violation of tenant laws. The facility that was free when you moved in is now not available and that isn’t allowed.
Okay and what if the apartment owners all voted on it at the board meeting?
Outside of the US it’s very common for apartment buildings to have shared ownership. In my country there are basically none where the building is owned by an entity.
That’s dozens of people you need to get to agree on how to fund lift maintenance and you bet the first and second floor folks would rather it be usage based.
Not saying I’m a fan of this but the ol’ murican “landlord should take care of the building” falls apart when you have a two or three digit number of people with a stake and say in what happens.
That’s common in the US too, we just call them condominiums instead of apartments
It’s still morally wrong even in condo situations. In fact, it’s even more unethical, as it’s a lot harder to walk away from an owned condo than an apartment lease.
Democracy is not a substitute for morality. If a slight majority votes to murder everyone in a minority, that does not make it ethical.
Imagine a 5 story condo building. Everyone bought units expecting elevators to be free to use. The agreement from the beginning was that maintenance would be shared among all owners. Every condo owner bought their unit agreeing to this deal.
Then after some time some dingbat proposes making the elevator pay-to-use. The people on the ground floor don’t need elevators, so they vote in favor of the change. Each higher floor has fewer people vote in favor of it. Those on the top two floors vote near-unanimously against the proposal, but it passes anyway. Those on the upper floors, dependent on the elevator, have to shoulder all the cost.
Think of the situation those people on the upper floors are in. They might be retirees living on fixed incomes. They bought their condo knowing they could afford the maintenance fees. They bought knowing the agreement was that all maintenance would be shared by all. But now the folks on the lower floors have gone back on their word and decided they don’t want to pay for the maintenance on the elevators they have little use for.
This is a way for the residents of the lower floors to take advantage of the folks on the upper floors. The upper floor units would have very low market value without a working elevator. When the building was built, those upper units sold at the same or higher prices than the lower units. If the upper units had to be sold for half the cost of the lower units, then the cost of the lower units would have had to have been much higher to make the project viable to construct.
We’re used to upper floors of tall buildings selling for more because of views. But historically this didn’t happen. Historically, ground floors commanded the highest rents. The elevators in a condo building allow the ground floor owners to purchase units much more cheaply than they otherwise would be able to. And now those ground floor owners are trying to both benefit from the reduced purchase price AND offload the elevator maintenance costs to the upper floors.
Holy crap, you’re an expert on tenant rights in Georgia, Italy, and China? That’s impressive!
Property managers argue that heavy users should pay more. Direct fees create a funding stream for electricity and repairs that flat condo fees never quite cover.
So they’re saying that they’re incompetent managers who don’t have a sufficient rainy day fund for unexpected expenses, and can’t even plan ahead for obvious, anticipated maintenance and repair expenses.
Yeah we have condo fees, part of that goes into preventative maintenance and contingency fund for breakdowns. Land Lord should manage it the same way
The problem is that most condo boards can’t actually charge enough in dues to cover the long-term maintenance costs. People just don’t want to pay the real costs. This is a problem in Florida. After that tower collapse, Florida reformed their regulations on condo finances, requiring condos to charge realistic dues to actually cover long-term maintenance. People are now losing their condos because they can’t afford the massively increased dues, which have to both pay the real expense of dues and make up for decades of underpayments.
It might be a bit different here. Owners can vote down the fee increase, which is stupid short term minded, but then if work needs doing it comes in the form of special levies that require payment per unit or it is a lein on the property.
We’ve had some residents just stop paying fees thinking they can just refuse to contribute to building maintenance and operating costs, ignore legal notices, until they get the final “look, you owe this much in back fees, pay by x, or there will be a forced sale of property”…and by a miracle they suddenly pay
After the Florida collapse, New Jersey passed a similar law. Fortunately, my condo has reasonable management, so we were at 90% of the money we needed in our fund, and got by with a relatively small increase - I think maybe $20 a month or something? Which is still an increase, but other condo boards are in real trouble.
The consequences of acting like wealth is in indicator of virtue or competence:
Most elevators are legally required to have a fire key for fire service to be able to take over use of the elevator.
Also completely unrelated, did you know most standard keys that are legally required are often public information. You can often just find the keyring in legal documents.
They tried it in Naples.
5 minutes later the coin box was jemmied open.
Ethical Vandalism
Naples
Why am i not surprised?
Now do that with pay-to-use bathrooms.
We had those in the UK in the 50-60s and earlier, you would have to spend a penny for the public toilet. Which coined the term “I have to go spend a penny” as a polite way of saying you had to use the toilet
They tried those in the states too and they got widely vandalized. It was a short lived experiment. Meanwhile parts of Europe still seem to like them.
And worse, there are DEFENDERS!
As they fucking should.
I really hope our boy Netanyahu strikes again in destroying these things.
What the fuck are you talking about jesse
what a nice AI generated article that I’ll definitely read
Italy checks out. Their entire economy is based around creating problems that no other country has, and charging for solutions.
Meh, italians will find a way to circumvent that
Fascists doing fascist things
The fuck?
Hope they like slugs.
