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When a super is retired due to illness

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When a super is retired due to illness

Postby scipio92 » Thu Oct 10, 2002 11:34 am

What's the deal when a super is in her 60's,has a stroke and tries to conceal the illness from the management company?After the illness is discovered, can the company allow her to move back into the same apt.?
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Re: When a super is retired due to illness

Postby Cranky Tenant » Thu Oct 10, 2002 7:46 pm

I think it depends on whether or not it's a rent regulated apartment, and if she was ever a legal tenant. If she was a regulated tenant, prior to her employment, she may retain all of her tenants' rights.

If, on the other hand, she lived there as an employee, the apartment 'benefit" would probably end with her employment.
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Re: When a super is retired due to illness

Postby scipio92 » Fri Oct 11, 2002 8:21 am

Yes, that makes sense- and I have a couple more questions.It is a rent stabilized building with less than 20 units, and as far as I know, she has always been the super-she has been for 30 years until recently when she suffered a stroke and has been out of the building most of this year. Her condition was concealed from some tenants as well as the management company.Too much time went by and somehow, it's all out in the open.In the mean time, the building wasn't cleaned for 2 months and this week a new super appeared out of the blue and prevented the super's friend from entering the basement to remove the super's personal belongings. I wonder if this means that that the mangement company has already acted to remove the super from the job but has not yet made an official announcement to the tenants, possibly waiting for her to fully recover so she can move out. Will she be able to negotiate a new lease for herself and maintain her apt.paying a reduced senior citizens rent or will they want her to leave?While I sympathize with her plight, it's not fair to the tenants to have no one cleaning the building for months, not to mention having us actively conceal what we knew.Even after recovering from the stroke, she would be unable to handle the physical strain of her duties such as cleaning, bagging the garbage, and dealing with plumbers etc.That would lay some liability on the management company wouldn't it?
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Re: When a super is retired due to illness

Postby Phil Cohen » Fri Oct 11, 2002 12:46 pm

I hate to sound callous, but isn't this a labor-management issue? Superintendents have unions, and this is pretty much a matter between the landlord and his employee.
It's all well and good to be friends with the super in a situation like this, but they are there to do a job, which is to clean the building and do maintenance. They should certainly be treated properly, but the main thing that should concern the tenants is whether the building is maintained and not whether the super has a problem or not.
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Re: When a super is retired due to illness

Postby scipio92 » Fri Oct 11, 2002 1:38 pm

It's true that the mattter is something to be settled between the management company and the super but since the super actively covered up her condition and only some tentants were aware of the situation, everyone was on the spot. Months went by and no one was cleaning-how long did she think her deception would last? She is still recovering mobility and that pretty much means she can no longer perform even minimal super's duties-I resent being asked to conceal the situation especially since I knew it was only a matter of time before her condition was discovered and I was right.So all that deception was for nothing!
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Re: When a super is retired due to illness

Postby Cranky Tenant » Fri Oct 11, 2002 1:55 pm

Unfortunately most supers do not belong to any union. Usually they're given apartments, or spaces in the basement, in exchange for their services. They may be paid some cash in addition, but they rarely receive any sort of benefits .
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Re: When a super is retired due to illness

Postby scipio92 » Tue Oct 15, 2002 3:30 pm

Since she is such a long term employee, I am wondering if the owner(not the managment co.) will offer her a lease of some kind-I find it hard to believe she will be left without a place to live in this building after so many years of service-though she can be a pain in the you know where, she has always done what she has done to protect the building. Including not allowing tenants with children to move in and excluding some ethnic groups!However, increasingly, the management co. has overruled her more than once and now that she has suffered a stroke, I can imagine that they are looking for a chance to get rid of her and put someone of their own chosing in the job. To actively conspire to conceal her illness is what is going to work against her-and since no official announcement has been made, I wonder if the company is waiting for her to get well before they replace her officially. In the mean time, a new super has been making the rounds, cleaning the building and making sure everything is in working order. When I got home from work, I met a friend of the super who was trying to enter the basement to retrieve some personal items from the basement-she told me the new super was here and he was not letting her enter the basement. She wanted me to vouch for her so I allowed her to tell him that I have known her for years-which is untrue-I have never seen her before in my life except once during the summer when she was cleaning the building.But when he introduced himself to me he said he was covering for her. You see why I am wondering what is going on! And I can't call the comapny to ask because they will probably ask me what did I know about this and when did I know it-I don't want them to think that I had anything to do with covering this up-I didn't and I was not supposed to find out-some tenants were kept in the dark about this for fear of it getting back to the company but I found out and now it seems so has the comapny and they sent someone right away.
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Re: When a super is retired due to illness

Postby Cranky Tenant » Tue Oct 15, 2002 4:14 pm

Most likely the LL will get rid of her, renovate the apartment, and try to destabilize it. More and more LL's are moving supers into the basement, or having one person tend to several buildings, to cut back on costs and mazimize profits. It may not be "fair" but too often that's the way it works.

Despite the fact that many supers feel like its their building, they actually have less rights than tenants. And as Phil said, this really is more of a labor issue.
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Re: When a super is retired due to illness

Postby Phil Cohen » Wed Oct 16, 2002 2:50 pm

I would add that in general it is bad for a tenant to get too involved with the "problems" of landlords and their employees. It's one thing to be a nice guy. It's another thing to be taken advantage of by people. The best approach is to be sympathetic but to insist that the building be maintained.
I once lived in an apt. with an incompetent super (not sick, just lazy and awful) and the LL successfully contended that he wanted to get rid of her but couldn't, because of the union, etc. etc.
Another time, in another city, the building had a handyman who was lousy. Another sob story from the LL.
In both these instances, I was successfully snowed by the LL and paid rent for an ill-maintained apartment.
I've learned the best approach in such instances is to listen patiently, say "oh how terrible" and then--OK, now what about the repairs ("or cleaning or whatver"). They have to be done. Should I have it done and remove it from the rent?
You'll be amazed how well that works.
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Re: When a super is retired due to illness

Postby MikeW » Fri Oct 18, 2002 10:53 am

Two items I want to bring up:

First, most supers are member of a union, and are covered by a contract. I sure the contract has language that stipulates what happens in this case, and it would be up to the employee and union to enforce this.

Second, any building over a certain number of units (which I have conveniently forgotten, but it's pretty small) is required to have either a live in super or a super living in close proximity. In addition the building has to be maintained up to code. However, if no one complains nothing gets enforced. In this situation (a permanently incapacitated super), the LL would have to take action to remedy the situation. The original poster should contact HPD and/or Buildings and make a complaint.
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