Walk down any street in Chicago and you’re likely to go under or around one of the ubiquitous steel-and-plywood structures that shade the city’s sidewalks, more often than not festooned with wheat-pasted posters for everything from the hot…

Remember the old jingle, ‘it takes a licking and keeps on ticking’? It was the famous tagline from the Timex watch advertisements. The gist of the ad is that no matter what you threw at it, a Timex watch kept working. If you think ab…

Living in a dense urban area like Chicagoland can be something of a dirty job. And the task of cleaning off months (or years) of accumulated grime and dirt from the exterior of a building takes much more than a scrub-brush and a bottle of …

Chicagoans are a tough crowd. After all, it takes a hardened crew to be able to weather a Chicago winter that rivals its nickname as the Windy City. But while many neighborhoods are starting to bounce back after the recession, some a…

We send violation notices and the owners just throw it in the trash. We would prefer to threaten fines rather than legal proceedings. Specifically, leasing units without board approval or notice, barbecue grills on patios, and animals in un…

A group of unit owners in my building formed a committee in reaction to some rules the board made. We’re worried we might get into a lawsuit with the board, and we want to know if the association’s insurance would cover us against this kind…

My condo association has a bylaw that limits the size and number of pets. About a year ago, a person moved in with a large puppy that has grown to be a very large dog. I reported it to the management and they did some investigating—then iss…

Even before the economic meltdown and the media storm swirling around the thievery of money men like Bernie Madoff, financial mismanagement and fraud were destructive problems for many co-op and condo owners. A co-op or condo is a ma…

While keeping the records of the association is not the most fascinating part of serving on a board, it is in some ways the most important. In fact, the flow of paperwork is the lifeblood of the community. The association’s declarati…

It only takes a few minutes of a web search to uncover the traits that make a successful person or business owner. For example, Entrepreneur magazine’s Steven Key wrote the article, “5 Qualities of Successful Persons,” which included such …