When you live in an apartment house there can
be some problems of coexistence that might undermine good neighbour relations.
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Among the commonest reasons of dispute among
joint-owners there are bothersome noises or smells, and the failure to perform or to deal
with some common obligations, like cleaning stairs and other common spaces, the
renovation and restoration of common spaces and the distribution of the
expenses for the garden care.
Sooner or later all
those who live in an apartment house have to face noisy neighbours, who might
watch TV loud until late at night, or fight often not skimping on yells and
outbursts, and getting their neighbours acquainted with their problems. In
these cases, if you are lucky enough, a little common sense and polite manners
might work: knocking on the “accused” neighbour’s door and, with a smile on
your face, kindly asking to turn down the TV, at least at night, or
highlighting that your child has a light sleep and wakes up if s/he hears too
loud noises, might be enough if you are speaking to an easygoing and
understanding person. On the contrary, if our neighbours are quite touchy or
not collaborative at all, we might even affect our relations to them, going
nowhere. What to do in such cases? Explaining the problem during a tenants’
meeting, for example, (although it is not sure that this is really going to
solve the problem, especially if the other joint-owners are not affected by
this situation) or, at worst, take legal action.
Another source of
arguments among joint-owners can concern the cleaning of common spaces. People
usually decide to charge a specialised company, and this occurs in all the
Italian cities (as far as cleaning companies is concerned, cities like Milan and Rome
are spoiled for choice): in this way you get a constant and effective service,
and costs are then divided among all the joint-owners. Charging a specialised
company, which issues an invoice and works in a serious way, each joint-owner
can verify costs, deducing the part that s/he has to pay. In other cases people
decide to charge a joint-owner with the cleaning of the common spaces: the
remuneration is usually lower than the one asked by a specialised company, as
the joint-owner is paid under the table. This is what happens also in the case
of garden care: if a retired gardener lives in the house, for example, the
other joint-owners might charge him with the care of the garden, instead of
hiring another gardener. On the one hand the joint-owners can prefer such
solutions, which make them spare a bit, on the other hand in this way you are
more likely to incur problems and incomprehension. Just to make some examples,
the joint-owner-gardener or cleaning lady is not insured, and this might be a
problem in case of accident; secondly, as there are neither invoices nor bills,
some joint-owners might object to the costs of the works, without being able to
discuss the problem during a tenants’ meeting, as the work is paid under the
table and the manager does not know anything about. For these reasons it is
always better to spend a bit more, but to have fewer problems, charging a
company specialised in houses and apartments cleaning or a professional
gardener.
