As the co-op turns...

I have always had a real estate fear of commitment. That's why for the last 27 years I have rented apartments instead of being a Responsible Adult and investing my money wisely by buying a co-op.

In November--November as in five months ago--I went into contract on an apartment in Queens. Getting into M.I.T. must be easier than getting board approval, I swear  But after months of gathering all the paperwork together and dealing with lawyers and my closing date moving three times I finally closed.

I'm a homeowner!

So, Wednesday night I went out to my new building so the painter could give me an estimate on the apartment. It  just so happened that the co-op board had called a shareholders meeting that night.

After I finished with the painter, I went downstairs to the basement "conference room" where the meeting was taking place.  Ever the outgoing social butterfly, I was really excited about the meeting because I thought it would be a fun way to introduce myself to my new neighbors.

I walked into the meeting room--which looked more like a storage room to me--to find a crowd of tenants standing on one side of the room and what appeared to be members of the board standing on the other side. There were also lawyers and representatives from the current management company and the new management company which the board hired, apparently without the full consent of the tenants. 

So, it was like the WWE in there--the loudmouthed rep from the current management company yelling at the board members, the boardmembers yelling at the lawyers, the tenants trying to get answers, and the woman from the new management company trying very hard to be reasonable (her I liked.)

It was like channel surfing and landing on a soap opera scene that looks interesting, but you don't really know who the good guys are yet.

I stuck around for about twenty minutes and then left since I still had work to finish at home. All I could think was, "girl, what have you gotten yourself into this time?"

I'm just going to have to look at this as yet another chapter in my already adventurous life. Eventually I'll figure out who the good guys are.