Jun 26 2003
Surreal Estate
Before we went on vacation, we had one of those delightful condo owner meetings which are always planned for the most inconvenient time possible (for us, anyway), and which always seem to end up costing money. I realize that this is one of the cons of living in a 6 unit building instead of a 60 unit building, since there are fewer of us to pay for things, but being hit with a 25% increase in monthly maintenance dues plus a “one time” fee of $1,000 to repair the building’s roof pretty much ruined my day. Everyone else seemed to take this news with equanimity, since they are all inexplicably wealthy, whereas we were horrified, being the poor white trash of the building and all. At least we have a couple of months to come up with the $1,000. God.
As if that weren’t enough building-related bad news, the neighbor in the apartment above ours announced that she had bought a house (how?! how?!) and would be renting out her place for the princely sum of $2,600 a month. I immediately began to fear the new neighbors being from hell, in the way so many neighbors are. God.
Came back from vacation to find that she had actually sold the place for more than half a million dollars, which suggests that the new owner(s) will have no problem with the $1,000 fee or the monthly fee and that we remain the undisputed PWT of the building.
It’s so weird when you think about owning an apartment. I mean, what do you actually own? We don’t own the building, or the land it stands on. I guess we own air. How surreal is that?