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National Preparedness Month is recognized each September to promote family and community disaster and emergency planning now and throughout the year. Preparing for natural disasters can greatly reduce the risks to health and the environment. Hurricanes or floods can contaminate drinking water sources. Forest fires or volcanoes harm air quality. Tornadoes or earthquakes, by damaging factories or storage facilities, can release contaminants where people live or into the environment.

Each season of the year presents a different set of maintenance challenges for apartment building management. Winter represents the harshest season of wear and tear on your building. Some fall maintenance tasks are obvious—such as closing the swimming pool and draining the in-ground sprinkler system. But other tasks—such as roof and building inspections—are less obvious and require more scrutiny and care.

A recent lawsuit filed on behalf of 400,000 residents against the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), the nation’s largest public housing authority, asked the judge to appoint an independent monitor to oversee operations because the agency failed to provide tenants with heat and hot water and keep residents safe from lead. This lawsuit was the most recent blow to the housing authority, which was already under pressure to improve living conditions for its residents.

IRS Section 42 requires that LIHTC units be maintained in a habitable condition and in a rent-ready state. One issue that repeatedly comes up in many physical inspections of LIHTC sites is the presence of mold and mildew in units. Many sites implement a preventative maintenance program to stop mold before it starts. But if mold has already been found at your site or if tenants are complaining of illnesses that may be mold-related, you need to get rid of the mold as quickly and effectively as possible.

If your site has an elevator, it’s important that your staff know the proper steps to take when a passenger-filled elevator breaks down. Elevators can and do malfunction, more often than most people may like to think, sometimes resulting in injuries. An owner is subject to premises liability law, meaning the owner can be held responsible for certain injuries suffered by persons on the premises, including injuries sustained while using an elevator. If your staff doesn’t take the proper steps and passengers get injured during an elevator breakdown, you are likely to get sued.

Although you may not be able to prevent many resident-caused fires, other types of apartment community fires are easily preventable. Owners or their maintenance staff should conduct monthly fire inspections of areas and items that are potential fire hazards. If your maintenance staff conducts such inspections, they will be able to detect and remedy any fire hazards before it’s too late.

We’ll give you a checklist of potential fire hazards, which you can photocopy and distribute to your maintenance staff to help them conduct monthly fire inspections at your site.

Clean, safe water is a precious resource that we all need to survive and often take for granted. But as droughts and water-rationing measures in states like California affect water supplies and usage for millions of people, responsible owners and managers everywhere are starting to take steps to voluntarily conserve water usage at their sites. Another reason to conserve water: Water takes considerable energy to use and heat. The water company uses energy to purify and pump water to your site and to treat the water that leaves your site through drains and as sewage.

As a tax credit owner or manager, you must stay on top of your site’s painting needs. The tax credit law requires sites to be suitable for occupancy and free from health, safety, and building code violations. If your state utilizes HUD’s uniform physical condition standards for your site’s inspections, state housing agency or REAC inspectors may look at the condition of paint on almost every surface at your site.

If your site utilizes heating oil as a fuel for furnaces or boilers at its buildings, you should take steps to ensure that you aren’t paying for more oil than is being delivered to your site. Unscrupulous oil companies can trick owners about the amount of fuel that’s delivered to a building. Recently, in New York City, a commission found widespread heating oil fraud, with nine companies and 44 individuals indicted on multiple felony counts. According to authorities, the defendants shorted oil deliveries for nine years but charged customers full price.

You and your maintenance staff have different issues to tackle during each season of the year. In the fall, most sites need to prepare for winter. But because some of the things that should be on your “to do” list for fall haven’t been done in an entire year, it’s easy to forget all the things you need to do.

Here’s a checklist that you can use to remind yourself of all the things you and your maintenance staff need to do this fall to get your site ready for winter.