Friday, November 30, 2012

Religion matters in Vista

religion matter is something we try not to interfere, and if possible try not to get involved in vista condo, but yet, could not run away from facing it...:(

must say it here, this article have no attention to offend any resident in Vista, but just merely pointing out some observation, if accidentally causes any hard feeling then would like to apologize first....

religion, as many of us agree, is something personal, is in between the person with his/her God, the belief, the conviction, the practice, & others.

also the way the worship & prayer being carried out are varied from one religion to another religion, some worship/pray in temple, some worship/pray in church, some worship/pray in mosque, also some regularly or periodically worship & pray in their house.

some worship through praying, some through chanting, some through burning incense, some through offering of food, drink & other things....

some worship in quietness, some do produce sound, and here we do not want to comment on how quiet is quiet & how loud is loud, for one person may think the level of loudness is acceptable, but for another person may not think so, then as we have 275 unit in vista condo, and from time to time different kind of worship or prayer will be performed by different residents from different kind of religion background, so how to address this issue...???

again, would like to carefully present this suggestion, perhaps to exercise "golden rule" will be helpful in our apartment..., let's see what Wikipedia talk abt "golden rule"...

The Golden Rule or ethic of reciprocity is a maxim,[1] ethical code, or morality[2] that essentially states either of the following:

(Positive form of Golden Rule): One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself.[1]
(Negative form of Golden Rule): One should not treat others in ways that one would not like to be treated.


hope it helps, thanks.

Friday, November 16, 2012

new sinking fund?

don't be scared by the post title..., don't worry, we are not going to collect extra money from residents, everything still the same, RM100 per month for the service charge :):):)

well, as we mentioned in the last post, we will look into ways to save some money for the future, especially for the lift upgrade, building wall painting & water tank lining replacement, we need to plan for this as we foresee the gov't fund & sinking fund won't be soon available.

at the moment our regular expenses cost abt RM23k per month (TNB 7k, Guard 4k, PBA 1k, cleaner 2k, management 3.3k, lift service 1.4k, pool 800, phone allowance 320, electrical 700, various kind of repairs abt 2500, so total abt 23K), and our average monthly collection is in between 25K to 27K, which is inclusive of car park rental as well.

we plan to deposit the car park rental into new sinking fund account starting January 2013, which means if everything go smoothly then next year whatever amount we collect for the car park rental will go directly into the fixed deposit account of new sinking fund.

for info, we have abt 40 residents' cars renting the lots, RM50 per month per lot, which will bring in average abt RM2000 per month, or RM24K per year, or 240k in 10 years time.

we have to make it clear that this money will only be used for major break down or upgrade for lift, water tank & wall painting, it should not be touched for general items like changing bulb, water tap, changing minor lift parts...

we see this steps is a must or else those money we collected every month will be all spent but left nothing for the above mentioned major project, so, even if we need to wait for 10 years for the sinking fund & gov't aid (just in case), we are still able to upgrade at least 2 lifts if it's needed, especially the blk k lifts.

the challenge now is to make sure the collection rate of the service charge will consistently hit 85% so that we will have abt 23K (monthly) from the service charge collection to be spent for the regular expenses, we are confident this can be achieved with the cooperation from residents, management staffs & guards, but we also can foresee some defaulters will react as their cards will be blocked.... :(

other challenge...??? hahaha...!!! hopefully nobody will say that we are taking the money for our own use :P












Friday, November 9, 2012

waiting is torturing....

waiting is big part of the job in the service as committee members...

waiting for the daily report to be sent to our email, waiting for the monthly account to be updated so that we will see clearer our finance status, waiting for the vendors to get the equipment up in the breakdown cases, waiting in anxiety especially if it involved lifts & water pump, waiting for the phone calls from the bosses if their staffs didn't turn up in vista condo....

but these waitings are the short duration ones, can be ranged from few hour to few weeks, what really torturing are those long term ones, up to months, or even years, it will consume your patience & eventually if your patience is up & the projects will need to be called off.

2 projects now facing testing period are the sinking fund & government fund, as developer has been liquidated & now we can only approach liquidator for the money (although court case still on), it seems this will be a long battle, but can u see if we would just give up then who will be the happiest person???

of course there are many reasons why we should just give up on pursuing the sinking fund, just like many other apartment do..., sometimes thoughts like why should we care as we face accusation on money matter, or why should we be busy body as other residents don't even contribute a bit in this effort of taking back the sinking fund, or other untold-able statements by residents which really make us think that our effort is not worthwhile.

but at the end of the day, we understand that as we have started it, it's only right we finish it well, we still have faith that thru God's divine intervention we will see the money, not just the sinking fund but fund from government too, but we really have no idea when, 2012 is almost end, how abt 2013? or 2014? or beyond it....?

once awhile we also strike by the thought that if the sinking fund won't be back soon then where should we get the money for lift upgrade, building painting or water tank lining replacement...? all these jobs must be done in this coming 5 years due to their conditions....

do have some plan for new sinking fund, especially now as we have settled (or settling) some urgent matter which involve big money like TNB deposit, pump replacement, lift rotor, will share next week.

thanks.



Monday, November 5, 2012

vista condo & animals

animals like to visit Vista Condo, and most of them are not really welcome...

we have dealt with dogs, cats, monkeys...., not sure did anyone see monitor lizard, but the latest one is definitely scary...a snake, small cobra.

so far the most headache one is monkey, because they tend to bring damages, particular the number plate & side mirrors of cars, this animals come & go, still remember abt half a year ago abt 6 of them hung around at the rental parking area happily playing with residents' cars, & eventually at least 3 of them shot dead by jabatan haiwan officer, the others ran away, but once awhile we received report that residents do see them at the fencing area.

dogs, also for a period of time 3 dogs appeared at the end of blk k area, like to make a lot of noise at midnight hour, have concert or party? for that animals, we got our cleaner to thank for, as they managed to entice them (with food) & locked them in the toilet, then authority were called in to bring them away.

the problem of cat not completely solved yet, coz this animal very hard to catch, few stubborn residents still insist to feed them, despite many times we urged them not to, to make the problem worse, some of the cats actually are belong to residents, so what can we do jz advice their masters to make sure their pets don't cause problem to others, well, so far still ok lah.....

now got to deal with snake pulak...., in fact this is 3rd time snakes were sighted & caught, remember 2 years ago found one abt 2 ft long near the foyer, guard killed it on the spot, 2nd time if not mistaken was last year, at the same place, and 2 days ago, a small cobra, less than 1 ft was sighted near swimming pool fencing near blk k & the day guard came catch it, he keep it in the mineral bottle & still thinking what should be done on it...

most likely the snakes were from the jungle area along the main road, there's no way we can go there to kill all the snake, so we only can try to prevent them from coming in, we have arranged with staffs to buy a lot of sulphur & put it along the fencing area along the boundary, the problem of this is the rain water will flush it away, if any resident have experience to deal this kind of situation pls do share with us.

our advice is, when you are walking in the common area at ground floor, pls be more watchful of the floor, especially if with little kids.

thanks.