Your Disappearing Services at the Elizabeth

 

The General Manager (GM) at the Elizabeth has decreed that the Association WILL NOT

 

—recycle batteries & light bulbs

—dispose of small, broken household items like rollerbags, lamps, mops, etc. that can’t be sent down the trash chutes.

 

Instead, residents are being told to get rid of these items by themselves. This means the residents are supposed to drive these items to the Montgomery County dump which is about 40 minutes away or hire a company to haul the unwanted stuff away for them.

 

Initially, our GM said to throw the batteries in the trash, which is both an environmental hazard and, worse, a way to ignite a fire. I am the one who immediately advised our GM that this advice was a bad judgment call.

 

If we lived in a house instead of a condominium, we could call for a pick up of unwanted items. The county doesn’t do that for individuals who live in big buildings like ours.

 

How many of us are going to make runs to the Montgomery County Dump? Not me and think about how inefficient that would be for over 350 units having to drive their small number of batteries and broken items to the dump. We would be adding a ridiculous amount of vehicular pollution to our environment.

 

What can be done about this?

 

It’s time for residents to come to the board meeting and voice preferences for keeping services we have always had. OR write to the full Board now. You can do this through BuildingLink.

 

And by the way, move the batteries/bulbs recycle bins so the bins don’t sit next to the stairway. Put a trashcan there.

 

Also,  the following services have been discontinued by our GM. These are services that should immediately be reinstated. 

 

1.        Residents are now being told that the Elizabeth will no longer snake stopped up drains/toilets. Instead, residents are being told that they must hire a plumber to do this.  Another was told that the snake was not long enough to snake her pipes, yet I am told that the Elizabeth purchased a new longer snake when Barry was here.

 

2.        Since the building has existed, staff has always been willing to boost cars with dead batteries.  When Richard  Springer was here, he even purchased a new, improved hand-held battery charger. Sadly, people are being told that we are no longer providing this service.  This service has always been provided to our residents and guests, and only takes a few minutes to perform. 

 

3.        If people are putting the wrong things into the composting bins, then post a list of what is allowed in the bins AND put a memo under the doors to educate people. One board member told me that some people have been putting dog waste in the composting bins.

 

4.        Breaking down boxes is something management can ask people to do voluntarily, but there are plenty of people living in the building who just don’t have the hand strength to do it. This is a service we should continue. Our cleaning people are here to work for us.

 

Finally, our GM should NOT be making unilateral decisions about our services. It affects the quality life here in the Elizabeth and eventually it will affect our real estate values. This should be a Board decision in consultation with Association members, just like any other changes to House Rules. We pay high condo fees, and we should get the kind of services that make the Elizabeth a good place to live.

 

More on Mosquitoes

 One of our Elizabeth neighbors sent this comment:

Thank you for the note and the alert. 

 

My second professional career is as language interpreter. In this capacity, soon after I arrived with my family in the US from Australia in 1998, I went to work for a local DC language services company. One of the first jobs I was assigned to was the family of an 8 year old boy who had contracted West Nile virus as a result of a mosquito bite in their family yard. 

 

The boy was paralyzed though fortunately intellectually intact. He spent months at the (then) Hospital for Sick Children after spending weeks at Children's Hospital. A team of medical experts, nurses, social workers, hospital administrators, and health professionals, in addition to his agonizing parents met regularly for diagnostic purposes,  and held special meetings to organize the return of the child back home in DC. This required building a door to street ramp, re-arranging the inside living space of his parent's home, and getting special equipment (bed, hospital style monitors, etc.) and training the parents to clean and change regularly the artificial feeding tube he had on his tracheotomised throat. 

 

This is an extremely serious condition for adults. For children it can be crippling and life threatening. 

No-one should dismiss this and anyone seeing a mosquito should immediately alert those able to spray and control the pest. 

 

Kind regards,

Montserrat 

 

Mosquitoes

 

Some of you know that the Nation’s most prominent infectious disease doctor Anthony Fauci was hospitalized recently for six days with the West Nile virus. Dr. Fauci lives in Bethesda and he thinks the only plausible explanation for how he came to be infected by a mosquito carrying that incurable disease with no vaccine for prevention is that the mosquito bit him in his backyard.

 

How does this apply to us living here at the Elizabeth?

 

Perhaps you have noticed that we have mosquitoes flying around in our building, particularly the lobby. Just ask the concierge on duty if he or she has been bothered by these insects. Maybe you have seen them waving around a device that looks like a tennis racket—it’s supposed to help kill these insects or at least chase them away.

 

How are they getting into our lobby?

 

They come through our front doors which have significant spaces between those glass doors and because we have an electric door opening option which keeps the doors open longer than if a person opened the door manually. Furthermore, the mosquitoes breed in the flower pots  and garden areas that are outside our doors.

 

What is management doing about this problem?

 

If you ask our General Manager, she will tell you she has asked our contracted exterminator to treat the area outside the doors. Obviously, this isn’t working. AND this problem happened last year too. I wrote about this last year.

https://theelizabethcondo.blogspot.com/2023/08/mosquitoesare-you-getting-bitten.html

 

 

What else can be done?

 

Other condominiums have hired a contractor who specializes in this problem and comes more frequently during the mosquito period to ensure that the problem doesn’t persist.

 

Discuss this problem which will persist until the first frost with your neighbors to make sure everyone understands that this is a serious health problem that can be solved easily.

Highlights of ECA Board Meeting June 26, 2024

 

 Board Present: Joe Bucherer (president), Francine Klein, Bob LaRossa, Tony Ortiz, Carmine Spellane

 

Board Absent: Karen Bues, Jeremy Siegfried

 

Others Present: Lee Ann Weir, General Manager; Jeremy Tucker (ECA Legal Counsel, Lerch Early & Brewer), Two Elcon Contractors (associated with elevator renovation)

 

Elevator Renovation

 

Contractors provided a tutorial on why the garage elevator renovation came to a grinding stop and another expert contractor must be used to dig the hole required to set up the new hydraulic system required. Joe Bucherer authorized a large payment associated with this work without first calling a special meeting to get approval. The approval was accomplished in this meeting after the fact.

 

Comments from Attendees:

 

Regarding the frequent fire alarms, Al Muller suggested strongly that a $100 fine be levied against residents who cause the fire alarm to go off unnecessarily.

 

Kathryn Avdrizzone made a plea for better security in The Elizabeth after an intruder entered her unit late Saturday evening June 22. Concern was also expressed that the concierge did not act on two requests that the police be called. (Discussion ensued later in the meeting relative to the Arcade door needing to be locked at 9 pm and reopened at 5 am.) This intruder also exposed himself to a woman using the lobby level restroom.

 

Other comments included problems of birds nesting on balconies and the request to tell residents not to feed the birds. A request for board meetings to resume in person. A query about why there is only one bin for composting on each side of the building. (The GM said bins were not full and she thought it would save some money by using one bin.)

 

Legal Report

 

Jeremy Tucker discussed properties in The Elizabeth involving two units that were combined into one apartment. To sell or transfer that particular property it required approval from The Elizabeth Board. This was granted to Charles Bressler. His son Marc will gain legal ownership as his father can now transfer the property to his son. Another person asked about getting that legal designation for his joined apartments and whether Jeremy Tucker can help facilitate that for him and others who might share some of the expenses.

 

A pending issue concerns the plumber who was accused of causing the last massive water damage to many apartments in the East Tower several months ago. If a deal isn’t agreed upon, then The Elizabeth might file suit.

 

Pool Renovation

 

Without Association-wide discussion, the Board approved renovations to The Elizabeth pool that would include converting it to a salt water pool, updating the steps, and renovating the chair lift for disabled users of the pool. Three bids were reviewed. Specialty Pools was selected. Renovation is estimated to take one month and be completed before Labor Day. One question lingers and that is, why was this a priority given the worry over additional costs of our new master insurance policy?

 

Community News

The next three months expect long backups on River Road due to utility work involving Washington Gas.

 

 

This Board Meeting was attended by 72 people. It helped that the GM re-sent the link just prior to meeting time.