To many, Elizabeth, New Jersey is a pleasant, quiet town of about 130,000 between the Passaic and Raritan Rivers, just across the Arthur Kill from Staten Island, home to hundreds of commuter families and the ever-popular IKEA home furnis…
When it comes to questions of home and hearth, even the best of friends may argue. So it should come as no shock when co-op and condo associations, boards and residents fall into disagreements. It's what's done to settle or hopefully pre…
Ask anyone to draw a picture of a light bulb, and odds are the sketches are all going to look quite similar—a circular incandescent bulb with the threaded end and tungsten filament that most lamps have always used. You know the ones: whe…
In our highly disposable society, how people and communities deal with their trash is of vital importance to both individuals and their communities as a whole. The tri-state area produces a staggering amount of garbage every day, and rec…
Jena Ball couldn't sleep—the noise was deafening and keeping her awake night after night. The racket wasn't coming from the next door neighbors, but instead was emanating from inside her condo wall. "It was bizarre," says Ball. But …
Winterizing a condo or co-op is important every year, but with energy prices soaring, it's going to be especially important to keep your buildings protected from the elements—and your equipment running at its best—as the cold months appr…
Sixteen years ago, Wayde Scheffer was a vice-president with United National Bank in Califon, New Jersey. He was also president of his condo association board, and he wasn't particularly impressed with the parade of management companies t…
While panic and alarm are not warranted, the time is now for real estate owners, developers, lenders and borrowers to begin to pay attention to toxic mold and their potential liability for property damage or personal injury. Though the n…
When the weather is warm and the days are long, nothing says Summer like the sounds of neighborhood kids at play. There's safety to consider along with all the fun, however. While all fifty states have statutes on the books spelling…
Life, wrote the British playwright Tom Stoppard, is a gamble at terrible odds—if it was a bet, you wouldn't take it. And thus was born the insurance business, an entire industry devoted to placing carefully calculated wagers on the …