After Hours, What Do I
Do?
Contacting Your Association Manager
Your community
association management office has after-hours availability for good reason and
depends on residents to be its eyes and ears at night. But what constitutes an
emergency, how dire that emergency is, and which agency is best qualified to
handle it can often be murky.
A general rule of
thumb is to rate your potential after-hours call on a common sense scale of 1
to 3. "1" being a life-threatening emergency or violent crime,
"2" a threat to property, and "3" a "Can it
wait?" issue.
1. Is someone's life or health in danger because
of a fire, accident or crime in progress? Call 911. You know
when you need immediate police, fire department or medical services. Don't
delay with an interim call to your community manager.
2. The severity of property damage is a judgment
call. Essentially, however, if the property damage
is in progress and threatens additional significant damage, then yes call and
rally the troops. A burst pipe washing away a home foundation, for example,
can't wait until the next morning after tens of thousands of gallons of water
has continued to flow all night. A landscape professional, on the other hand,
is unlikely to dispatch late at night to take care of a fallen tree in a
neighbor's yard. Which brings us to No. 3:
3. "Can it wait?" issues are best
described as issues about which 9 of 10 ordinary people would agree. A barking dog keeping you awake, for example, is a nuisance and
perhaps even a crime to some degree. And if you're the one lying awake with an
early schedule slated for the next morning, it might even seem at the time like
a dire emergency. But chances are not one of those 9 ordinary people would
mobilize in order to intervene on your behalf. Can it wait? It not only CAN
wait, but it's very likely that no one will respond at that time anyhow. Save
yourself the aggravation and address the issue the following day.
