Homeowner's Association Blues

In twelve bars...

Sometimes I feel like the only person on the left coast who didn't buy more house than they could afford. Just the same, even the conservative path has it's pitfalls, and living in an older condominium means that, like as not, previous generations of board members left you holding some portion of the long-term maintenance "bag", so to speak.

In our case, the units were built before window flashing was required, back when aluminum windows were considered a good thing. Fast-forward a couple decades and we are left having to consider replacing them all or at least doing a lot of work to mitigate condensation, leaks, and other associated issues related to the edge of wetness upon which we reside here in the Pacific Northwest.

Thank God for Wayne Booth. Wayne has run a one-man contracting operation in Issaquah and Bellevue since he graduated from bible school at what used to be Lutheran Bible Institite. Wayne is about fifty, single, and easily the straightest arrow you will ever meet. He is frugal, thrifty, and downright close with a penny, even other people's! He is not, however, cheap.

Good thing, because anyone else would be seeing dollar signs and telling us to replace all the siding and the windows before even thinking about the paint job we have scheduled for next summer. And with thirty-six units across four buildings, it could run into some money.

So Wayne is crawling around and scheduling visits to each unit (no small task with everyone working all the time) and is planning out how best to approach a problem he can't really see. Did I mention Wayne has guts. Guts and thirty years of experience are a really good combination.

I wish everyone I work with in my professional life were half the man Wayne Booth is.

At least, that's how I see it.