Most residents are good about reporting maintenance problems. Some owners and managers may say that they’re too good. But there are residents who don’t report maintenance problems. Perhaps these residents are too busy or don’t want members of your maintenance staff in their units. But residents’ failure to report maintenance problems could result in severe damage to your site and harm to residents.

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.

If your site needs non-routine maintenance and repair work, you must decide between either using your own staff or hiring outside contractors. Some managers think that it’s always cheaper to use their site staff, but that’s not necessarily so. There are costs associated with using your staff just as there are with hiring outside contractors. If you do a comparative analysis of these costs, you may find that it’s more efficient to hire an outside contractor for a particular job.