It’s a different world for amenities, these days. Just a decade ago, if you were fortunate enough to live in a building with a gated entrance or a nicely-landscaped swimming pool, you thought you hit the jackpot. It was easy for the bu…

You’ve all seen the ads—whether you’re over 55 or not. They’re called “active adult” communities, “retirement” communities, “over-55” communities, “active-lifestyle” communities or any number of other names. Popular locations fo…

According to a recent poll of 1,000 consumers conducted by telecommunications company Frontier, p rivacy concerns around smart home tech devices are on the rise. Sixty percent of respondents to the poll reported being “very” or “extremel…

Q I live in a three-floor, four-room,30-unit condo, mostly 50-plus, with the only family with children (ages two and three) living on the third floor above me. For the past year there has been an excessive amount of constant running;…

Q I live in a 72-unit condo. We have major leaks in our building mostly around windows and air conditioner sleeves. The board hired an engineer that some unit owners heard from other buildings in the area to stay away from. The engi…

Q May the unit owner provide a written delegation to the resident of his or her unit to act on his or her behalf with respect to the association, including serving on committees or being elected to office? —Concerned Unit …

Q I hired a contractor to do repairs in my condo and my building is accusing my contractor of damaging the door. My contractor is not aware of the damage and they have not told him anything. They told me when I hired the contractor …

 The American Society of Landscape Architects—ASLA, for short—was founded in 1899 by eleven prominent landscape architects, among them John  Charles Olmstead, Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., and Downing Vaux,  second-generation landscape archi…

Finding a new management company for your co-op community can be a daunting task—every building has its own personality, needs, and expectations, and the management field is crowded with prospective providers. In the search for the righ…

 Coming in second is often derided as being, well, second-best, but when your  town is voted the No. 2 best place to live in the entire nation by Money  magazine—as Naperville was in 2006—second place is something to be extremely proud of.…