Maintenance

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While balconies are a welcome feature that can add to the appeal of units at your site, they do require extra attention to be sure they are maintained in a safe condition and to limit your liability if an accident occurs. If any of your units have balconies, your maintenance staff should inspect them thoroughly and regularly for problems such as defective railings or unsafe access.

Both HUD and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have taken steps to require the use of practices that minimize lead hazards when you undertake renovation, repair, or painting projects at your site. In general, the requirements work together, but there are some differences.

It's not uncommon for residents to want to use devices such as air conditioners, fans, and space heaters for personal comfort and to better control the temperature in their unit. Some site owners and managers would prefer to prohibit such use, but it's likely that residents would use them in spite of efforts to ban them. It may be more practical to permit the use of these items, but with some limitations and safety guidance.

Mold at your site is more than just a nuisance. It can exacerbate health problems for residents and create a legal liability for you. To reduce these risks, take steps to educate residents and involve them in the fight to keep mold to a minimum.

It is now a lot easier for you and your residents to get federal aid to make units energy-efficient. The economic recovery program enacted earlier this year provided a substantial increase in funding for the residential Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP). In addition, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), which runs the program, has agreed to prequalify units at HUD-subsidized and LIHTC-assisted multifamily sites for participation in the program.

Unless it has been removed by a professional lead abatement contractor or during normal renovation or painting, most housing that was built before 1978 has some painted surfaces with layers of old lead-based paint underneath. Because exposure to even small amounts of lead can be permanently harmful to health, federal, state, and local governments have put in place a number of laws and regulations you must abide by. In a three-part series, the Insider has been trying to keep you up to date on EPA and HUD requirements.

For the first time since the 1940s, bedbugs in the past five years have become a serious problem for housing providers across the United States and Canada.

The costs of dealing with a bedbug problem can easily overwhelm a site's annual budget for pest control. Bedbug control expert Rick Cooper describes the consequences of the resurgence of the tiny creatures for multifamily housing: “strained budgets, broken leases, unhappy tenants, and, in some cases, litigation.”