June 30, 2026

Small victories are often considered the best kind…

And actually… I’m wondering if the above truism is actually true or simply one I made up just now on the spot…

In any case, we should never disregard these little victories whenever they miraculously fall into our laps.

So let me tell you about my latest one…

I’m sure I’ve blogged about the hazards of being a co-op board president many times before.  I’ve now led the team for over 18 years, with the first ten seemingly consisting of nothing less than constant forward progress.  But a disgruntled former president has been suing us since 2018.  He used a small leak from the bathroom one floor above as an excuse to claim his apartment had been “destroyed” and proceeded to remove every appliance, fixture, exposed sheet rock - and even the bathroom tub.  He’s used every trick in the book to bring about financial disaster, including inviting government agencies - such as the Department of Buildings - into his home to fine us for such ridiculous things as missing appliances (that he himself removed) and work done without permits (for jobs he had completed long before any of this started).

We’ve had at least 30 citations from the DOB, HPD, ECB and OATH (I’ll save you all the headache of deciphering those anagrams).  We’ve been forced to pay fines - many on the exorbitant side - and hire plumbers, electricians and carpenters to make this small first-floor studio apartment free and clear of any government issue whatsoever.  And finally, we managed to reduce this litany of offenses down to two.

The most serious deals with a pipe located behind the former tenant’s gas stove (and this is a former tenant because we finally we’re forced to purchase his empty apartment in December of 2024).  This old pipe has two valves on it, which is against a city code that appeared well after the pipe had ever been installed.  The ramifications of updating this situation could prove calamitous for an old co-op such as ours.

We had believed as recently as two months ago this one had gone away; the powers-that-be seemed to recognize the obvious fact that we had never touched the old pipe, we had simply reattached the stove when forced to re-outfit his entire apartment.  After paying a fine (for reasons that continue to baffle me) of $1,263.68 on February 28, 2023, the original violation was considered “resolved” and dismissed.  The disgruntled tenant continued to invite members of the DOB into his apartment, re-litigating the same case.  We received many more violations, which eventually went the same route - with thankfully lower fines.

But somehow one violation survived.  And here we are, three years later.  A plumber was called in to give us his best advice on how to get past this thing once and for all.  And, well…

Though he considered the situation perfectly safe, that one gas pipe would never get past a government inspection, he said.  There was no getting around things; an inspector would be compelled to check out the situation for himself.  After getting a permit for the work, we’d be forced to shut off the gas for the entire building.  While doing the work, the plumbers would likely be compelled to re-install a new meter in the cellar for our outdated one - which has been working fine.  And chances are they’d cross the basement floor into our second building and force us to replace that meter as well.  The tests to ensure everything was done correctly would almost certainly cause leeks into the old gas lines leading into all twenty apartments.

The cost would be outrageous.  If any one of those expected leaks occurred, delays into having working gas service return would likely last well past six months.  This extremely knowledgeable plumber assured me there was no getting around any of this.  He eventually sent us a bid for his company’s service when we finally got around to acknowledging our fate.

We’re a small, two-building brownstone co-op on the Upper West Side.  We’ve already been hammered practically bankrupt by this vengeful lawsuit from a guy simply upset at being voted out of the Board of Directors back in 2008.  There HAD to be a way to avoid going down this path.

Years ago I took it upon myself to travel downtown for a “Tuesday Homeowner’s Night at the DOB” event held twice a month.  I made some progress on the myriad of issues facing us at that time.  I considered trying my luck again.

The plan was simple.  I’d print out a copy of the original citation that had “VIOLATION RESOLVED” clearly marked on the front page.  I’d have the active violation I was seeking to have dismissed right next to it.  And in a last-second move that proved to be way more valuable than expected, I printed out three pages of collected screenshots of all the other violations we’d received for the same offense that ended with the same absolution.

My point was clear: If all these other violations - for the same alleged offense! - had been dismissed, why can’t this one be as well?!

This was going to be a “Hail Mary” pass, one that no-one had insinuated was possible.  But what did I have to lose - except more of the free time I’d already given up over these last 18 years?

Unlike my first time around, I got to the DOB building early a couple of Tuesdays ago.  There were only four people in the room and the top half of the chair I pulled up beside me immediately broke off.  There seemed to be some kind of irony everyone enjoyed at having such faulty workmanship present in an old building that hands out fines for less offenses left and right.  There was no sign-in sheet for people, so my co-op president tendencies came in handy when I pulled out a pen and blank piece of paper to get one started.  The room was beginning to fill up.  And then some person came into the room and asked for the first four people to move forward.

The area they eventually sent me to was strangely quiet…

At first someone told me my story needed to be told in court.  And then a different person acted like there would be no one around to help me.  But then, almost on a whim, the first person asked if I was hoping for a violation dismissal.

“YES!”

He kind of rolled his eyes but then made a call.  I patiently waited for a good amount of time till a friendly-enough looking young man in uniform approached.  He sat me down somewhere in the inner sanctum.  My notes almost made it seem like I knew what I was talking about…

And I had the good sense to make some kind of appreciative comment about the New York Knicks.  They had just won the NBA Championship and the parade was scheduled to pass by this very neighborhood the following morning.  My new friend from the DOB seemed to be a sports fan himself.

Eventually this man led me to a different area, and I knew my chances weren’t nil when this desk actually had a computer.  Strangely enough, it was the photo-copied screenshots of those related dismissals - not the original one - that garnered most of his attention.  He made a phone call and I didn’t dare utter another word…

It was almost astounding to hear a DOB official encapsulate my story to a person on the other end of the phone using words that could have come out of my own mouth.  My confidence was starting to build, I must admit.  But I didn’t want this growing confidence to jinx anything…  I mean, the ramifications of this Hail Mary pass not working were almost too bleak to consider…

And then he said yes a couple of times, hung up the phone and looked at me.

“You’re all set,” he announced with extreme courtesy.  “The violation has been dismissed.  When you check out the website this time tomorrow, the offense will be removed from the records.”

This small victory was HUGE!!  I was not going to prevent an abundance of self-congratulating praise from dominating my brain, at least not for the next several hours.  These events are too rare to allow passing by without a second thought.

For me, I’m still thinking about things now!

Of course, my day-to-day tribulations of being the co-op president in the days since have not really ebbed at all.  Just this past week: we’re getting a new exterminator, we’re searching for a change of management, we have three apartments that need to be sublet, two of them need to be sold (one of which has resulted in endless back-and-forth emails with a prospective buyer), we’ve had to saw off a lock in the basement cellar that had prevented a Shareholder from entering her storage area, we’re searching for ways to remove paint dropped on our front sidewalk, I hired a guy to come in this past Sunday to weld a new chain onto one of our courtyard garbage bins, we voted yes on a bid to upgrade our building-wide sprinkler system, and just now I learned that we can expect to hear from an agency within the next few years concerning outdoor brick inspections for small buildings like ours that may necessitate extensive renovations.

Oh, and we still have that lone remaining violation to deal with.  This one - for failing to obtain a permit for a job we never did - is problematic as well.  We’ve been given an estimate of well over ten thousand dollars before the process of being corrected can even begin.

But I stumbled upon another “Hail Mary” idea to move forward on this one as well.

Chat GPT is actually helping me out this time around…

“Hope Springs Eternal” is another truism I find myself admiring these days.  And I’m hoping to post a much-shorter “Small Victory” story someday soon!