in January 2014 alone, reported dengue cases in Penang is 166 cases, which is almost 3 times of the cases reported last year same period of the time, out of these 166 cases, 2 persons have passed away due to this sickness, too bad one of them is in Relau (not vista), a foreigner worker...
Penang has classified as high risk area since last year, especially surrounding Taman Sri Nibong, the area opposite Pesta site, last year also some death cases reported over there.
It seems this year the situation has got worse, and we should not take it lightly, especially last month there's one case reported in Vista, few cases in the neighborhood as well....
we have to make sure the common area have no chance for mosquito to breed, so these are the steps to be implemented with immediate effect,
1) Cleaners need to make sure all the common drains would not clog, they need to clear all the rubbish found inside the drain, and each day before they go back to their hostel, they will need to make one more round to the drain, for this, the building supervisor will do his round too, before sign off from work at 5pm.
2) Cleaners will make sure nothing left in the rubbish room of every floor every time they clear the rubbish, supervisor will check their work on this matter every day, we also need residents to feedback to us if they have found over night rubbish have not been cleared by the worker & we will take against them!
3) We have fixed the day of every week for cleaners to check & clear if rubbish found in the semicircle structure (also called pottery area) next to the staircase of every floor, in fact this is a most likely place where mosquito lives! Due to the bad workmanship when they built these apartments, the rain water can't flow out completely & most of the floor will have stagnant water inside these structure every time it rains, some irresponsible residents have bad habit of throwing rubbish inside have made this problem more complicated. In the past we have paid contractors to clear sand, mud, papers, plants, pots, clothes, etc from these structure, but before long new rubbish found there again! So beside asking cleaners to check the structure, we also hope the said residents will come to their right senses & stop throwing things there.
4) Supervisor will check & clear empty pots/container from common areas regularly, especially corridors, we hope that our residents will do their part not to keep any empty pots or containers because these have high chance for mosquito to build their nest.
do share with us if you have good idea on this.
thanks.
Friday, January 24, 2014
Friday, January 17, 2014
more money in, less money out.
2 years ago, when JMB started to implement the T&G barrier system, few residents angrily said we are all "money face"!!! now i must say, maybe they are right :)
why? because all these while we have been thinking abt MONEY, how to get more money to maintain & improve the facilities in vista condo, and at the same time to cut down unnecessary expenses so to make the finance look better....
in fact, after Najib gave a bombshell of GST announcement & TNB increase the tariff, day & night we are thinking, checking around with residents & vendor, of how to do the "more money in, less money out" stuff, so that our residents do not need to pay more in the Service Charge (SC), but remain as RM100 in this year & hopefully years to come too.
(yesterday read from news portal that, the MP of Komtar YB Ng Wei Aik even predicts that this year most of the apartments will increase their SC in order to cope with the hikes in their expenses, especially TNB bills).
so for the "more money in, less money out", we are planning few projects, and rest assured that we would not compromise the safety even if need to cut cost in certain area...
we have mentioned much on T5 which is in the progress, so not need to repeat again here, but also exploring LED bulb for the car park compound lighting (abt 50 in total), wattage drop from abt 29w to 9w but equal brightness (LUX) according to vendor, the best is the cost of LED bulb is not much different from the conventional one, most likely will go ahead after first phase of T5 project completed.
thanks to the resident who suggested the recycle project, if we do it well, then should have few hundred ringgit extra income per month, now we are talking to few recycling vendors for the price (metal, aluminium, paper, etc), once the term is right & get the suitable location for the recycle the we will announce it to our beloved residents, hope can get all our residents' support to work together to generate more income thru this project so no need to increase SC in the coming years.
we are also checking all the corridors/staircase light timing, even the pumps as well, so that by setting the optima timing for ON/OFF the lighting, pump, etc, will save another few hundred, but we must stress here, we would not compromise the safety of residents just for the sake of money.
in fact another good way of save money is equipments upgrade, for info, after one of blk k lift upgraded, we see the TNB bill for blk k drop few hundred ringgit, so we expect another few hundred ringgit drop after 2nd lift be upgraded, we hope can do the same thing for blk j lift, get gov't fund to upgrade the lifts & harvest the benefits on the TNB bill, but we also plan to talk to the supplier for the lift control system to have minima upgrade (less cost) but big drop in TNB bill in blk j, if the cost is not high, then may want to give it a shot.
other equipment which also in consideration like monitor screen mentioned by KK in last post, pumps, T&G barrier, etc, we are checking with all these vendors to see worth keeping the existing system, or upgrade them to get long term benefits, especially in term of finance....
welcome you guys' suggestion...
thanks.
why? because all these while we have been thinking abt MONEY, how to get more money to maintain & improve the facilities in vista condo, and at the same time to cut down unnecessary expenses so to make the finance look better....
in fact, after Najib gave a bombshell of GST announcement & TNB increase the tariff, day & night we are thinking, checking around with residents & vendor, of how to do the "more money in, less money out" stuff, so that our residents do not need to pay more in the Service Charge (SC), but remain as RM100 in this year & hopefully years to come too.
(yesterday read from news portal that, the MP of Komtar YB Ng Wei Aik even predicts that this year most of the apartments will increase their SC in order to cope with the hikes in their expenses, especially TNB bills).
so for the "more money in, less money out", we are planning few projects, and rest assured that we would not compromise the safety even if need to cut cost in certain area...
we have mentioned much on T5 which is in the progress, so not need to repeat again here, but also exploring LED bulb for the car park compound lighting (abt 50 in total), wattage drop from abt 29w to 9w but equal brightness (LUX) according to vendor, the best is the cost of LED bulb is not much different from the conventional one, most likely will go ahead after first phase of T5 project completed.
thanks to the resident who suggested the recycle project, if we do it well, then should have few hundred ringgit extra income per month, now we are talking to few recycling vendors for the price (metal, aluminium, paper, etc), once the term is right & get the suitable location for the recycle the we will announce it to our beloved residents, hope can get all our residents' support to work together to generate more income thru this project so no need to increase SC in the coming years.
we are also checking all the corridors/staircase light timing, even the pumps as well, so that by setting the optima timing for ON/OFF the lighting, pump, etc, will save another few hundred, but we must stress here, we would not compromise the safety of residents just for the sake of money.
in fact another good way of save money is equipments upgrade, for info, after one of blk k lift upgraded, we see the TNB bill for blk k drop few hundred ringgit, so we expect another few hundred ringgit drop after 2nd lift be upgraded, we hope can do the same thing for blk j lift, get gov't fund to upgrade the lifts & harvest the benefits on the TNB bill, but we also plan to talk to the supplier for the lift control system to have minima upgrade (less cost) but big drop in TNB bill in blk j, if the cost is not high, then may want to give it a shot.
other equipment which also in consideration like monitor screen mentioned by KK in last post, pumps, T&G barrier, etc, we are checking with all these vendors to see worth keeping the existing system, or upgrade them to get long term benefits, especially in term of finance....
welcome you guys' suggestion...
thanks.
Friday, January 10, 2014
facilities upgrading projects started....
committee have a regular meeting last Wednesday, after much discussion & consideration, we decide to go ahead with 3 upgrading project which will be mentioned below, but anyway the other 2 projects which have been discussed much in the past got to put on hold at the moment as the cost involved are too high, the 2 projects to be put on hold are gym (need abt 20K to convert the toilet to be gym room, haven't include the equipment yet) & multipurpose half basketball court (also need more than 20k).
the 3 upgrading projects are given a go ahead mainly because of the safety concern, property value & also it's long lasting effect such as cost saving...
1) we will change 150 sets of T5 tube soon, in fact some of the faulty light already been replaced by T5 lights, we expect longer (abt twice) life span of T5 compare to the existing T8 tube, and save 25% to 30% of energy consumption, another reason we replacing the light now is we manage to get the good offer from supplier, Malaysia made T5 with SIRIM certification only cost RM20 per set plus installation, one year warranty, so at the moment we go ahead with 150 set, and expecting ROI (return of investment) in 14 months' time.
For residents' information, the total T8 fluorescent tube we have is abt 400 set, but we would like to repalce it phase by phase so that it won't create too huge burden on the finance.
2) swimming pool grates (drain cover) - this is for the safety of pool users (especially kids) & also for beautification, which may help to boost Vista Condo's property value. Again, we would not change all the grates, but to replemish the missing one, even so, it's abt 200 ft of grates needed, which as now the best price we get from vendor is RM29 with reasonable quality, but as one Vista resident willing to sponsor part of the cost, RM1000 as he promised, so from the management account may just need to contribute less than 4K.
We understand that the pool has became one of the selling point for vista, especially both our neighbors (villa & desa relau 2) are without this pool facility at the moment, so perhaps to beautify it may add a few thousand in Vista's property value :)
3) high resolution camera, our vendor is kind enough to upgrade for Vista for free for 8 of our existing 18 cameras, as an token of appreciation for our long term support for their business for past few years on both CCTV & entrance TnG barrier. These 8 high reso cameras will be placed at main entrance (2x), all the lifts (4x), and lobby of both block (2x), we expect they will complete it this coming week, we also negotiating with them now for the remaining 10 cameras, if they willing to give very good discount (we aim at 40%) then we may want to upgrade it as well, budget should be less than 3k in total.
the main reason for this is safety, as now the crime rate still high, and with the price hike due to increase of petrol, TNB, etc, we don't see in anytime soon the crime cases will drop, and we also ask the guard to be more alert when carrying out their duties, recently we heard some complaints from residents & asked their company to change one of the guard as the person too easily to let outsiders to enter our place, hope that our residents will continue to help us to monitor the performance of vendors.
thanks.
the 3 upgrading projects are given a go ahead mainly because of the safety concern, property value & also it's long lasting effect such as cost saving...
1) we will change 150 sets of T5 tube soon, in fact some of the faulty light already been replaced by T5 lights, we expect longer (abt twice) life span of T5 compare to the existing T8 tube, and save 25% to 30% of energy consumption, another reason we replacing the light now is we manage to get the good offer from supplier, Malaysia made T5 with SIRIM certification only cost RM20 per set plus installation, one year warranty, so at the moment we go ahead with 150 set, and expecting ROI (return of investment) in 14 months' time.
For residents' information, the total T8 fluorescent tube we have is abt 400 set, but we would like to repalce it phase by phase so that it won't create too huge burden on the finance.
2) swimming pool grates (drain cover) - this is for the safety of pool users (especially kids) & also for beautification, which may help to boost Vista Condo's property value. Again, we would not change all the grates, but to replemish the missing one, even so, it's abt 200 ft of grates needed, which as now the best price we get from vendor is RM29 with reasonable quality, but as one Vista resident willing to sponsor part of the cost, RM1000 as he promised, so from the management account may just need to contribute less than 4K.
We understand that the pool has became one of the selling point for vista, especially both our neighbors (villa & desa relau 2) are without this pool facility at the moment, so perhaps to beautify it may add a few thousand in Vista's property value :)
3) high resolution camera, our vendor is kind enough to upgrade for Vista for free for 8 of our existing 18 cameras, as an token of appreciation for our long term support for their business for past few years on both CCTV & entrance TnG barrier. These 8 high reso cameras will be placed at main entrance (2x), all the lifts (4x), and lobby of both block (2x), we expect they will complete it this coming week, we also negotiating with them now for the remaining 10 cameras, if they willing to give very good discount (we aim at 40%) then we may want to upgrade it as well, budget should be less than 3k in total.
the main reason for this is safety, as now the crime rate still high, and with the price hike due to increase of petrol, TNB, etc, we don't see in anytime soon the crime cases will drop, and we also ask the guard to be more alert when carrying out their duties, recently we heard some complaints from residents & asked their company to change one of the guard as the person too easily to let outsiders to enter our place, hope that our residents will continue to help us to monitor the performance of vendors.
thanks.
Friday, January 3, 2014
service charge no increase at the moment
last weeks some committee members attended a residents' gathering at one of the neighboring project, their committee chairman was grateful for our help in the past, there was abt 2 years ago when their developer just sent them a short notice asking them to take over the management, as those days they were inexperience & they approached us to give them some advice, so we went to meet them, gave them some encouragements & recommended few trusted contractors to them, time gone by so fast, and they do so much better than us now, so perhaps we got to learn a few tricks from them :)
in the gathering we also meet friends & contractors from some other nearby apartment projects, so exchanged ideas, experiences & info with them, and to our surprise, some apartments have already increased their service charge (SC), as we know, one from 110 to 130, another one from 100 to 120 (but residents reacted because swimming pool & other facilities have been shut down by developer).
check with them the reasons why increased the SC, the former one said operation cost had gone up so have no choice but to increase it, and as most of their residents are from high income group, so they OK with 130. But for the latter case which increased from 100 to 120, the reason is due to both higher operation cost & poor collection as well, at the moment they still need to deal with their residents over this matter....
so now the question throw to us is, are we going to keep it at 100, or increase it? well, if we can maintain the good collection rate with the cooperative attitude by our beloved residents like what's happening now, and also if our vendors don't increase their service fee, then we should be able to maintain at 100 in year 2014, for this we would like say "thank you" to the Vista Condo residents for have been very cooperative in many areas.
we also feel very fortunate for the rental parking lots built by first batch of JMB, for that facility have been consistently bringing in abt RM1500 to RM2000 income every month, and at the moment we have few plans in mind to cut cost further which can amounting to another abt RM500 per month, hopefully we can think abt some idea to generate extra regular income so that Vista Condo can still keep the SC at 100 even beyond yr2014 :P
hopefully our vendors will be kind enough to maintain the same rate in ry2014 :):):)
in the gathering we also meet friends & contractors from some other nearby apartment projects, so exchanged ideas, experiences & info with them, and to our surprise, some apartments have already increased their service charge (SC), as we know, one from 110 to 130, another one from 100 to 120 (but residents reacted because swimming pool & other facilities have been shut down by developer).
check with them the reasons why increased the SC, the former one said operation cost had gone up so have no choice but to increase it, and as most of their residents are from high income group, so they OK with 130. But for the latter case which increased from 100 to 120, the reason is due to both higher operation cost & poor collection as well, at the moment they still need to deal with their residents over this matter....
so now the question throw to us is, are we going to keep it at 100, or increase it? well, if we can maintain the good collection rate with the cooperative attitude by our beloved residents like what's happening now, and also if our vendors don't increase their service fee, then we should be able to maintain at 100 in year 2014, for this we would like say "thank you" to the Vista Condo residents for have been very cooperative in many areas.
we also feel very fortunate for the rental parking lots built by first batch of JMB, for that facility have been consistently bringing in abt RM1500 to RM2000 income every month, and at the moment we have few plans in mind to cut cost further which can amounting to another abt RM500 per month, hopefully we can think abt some idea to generate extra regular income so that Vista Condo can still keep the SC at 100 even beyond yr2014 :P
hopefully our vendors will be kind enough to maintain the same rate in ry2014 :):):)
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