The window washing is scheduled to begin on Wednesday, September 5th with an estimated completion date of Saturday, September 8th, weather permitting. The window washing company will be arriving each morning at 8 am and finishing at 4 pm. Please be mindful of workers outside your window in regards to securing your privacy. If you have any questions or concerns please contact me.
Have a wonderful holiday weekend.
Best,
Jane.
Our “honey do” list is starting to pay dividends, possibly helped along by our loyal readers from Horsham. If we put “hire a building manager” in giant font and flashing letters, can we get that one done too?
One of our residents submitted a report on the elevators this morning:
pe3 and 4 appear to be out of service. some guys in work suits around so maybe it is maintenance?
Anyone else experiencing problems this morning? Management hasn’t sent out a notice but they’ve pretty much stopped doing that since July (probably because of the bad PR it causes among residents). Let us know and remember we keep all resident submissions anonymous.
In recognition of the Labor Day holiday we will be closing the office at 3 pm tomorrow, August 31 and on Monday, September 3. The office will be open for normal business hours this weekend.
Wishing everyone a happy and safe holiday weekend.
The WIFI transition to Comcast was completed last week. We did experience some interruptions this week as Comcast was finalizing some work. All is operational and we have added an additional router for the fitness center to ensure consistent service. The network names and passwords remain the same as they were under Verizon with the addition of the Fitness Center:
TheMorgan
Amenities
FitnessCenter
Password for all is still [Redacted].
Because this is a new service you may have to search for the network and log in to it the first time you use it. If you experience any difficulties or need any assistance please let us know.
The cabling work for the outdoor television was completed this week and it is operational.
Wishing everyone a wonderful holiday weekend.
Thank you,
Jane
Wow, a blockbuster update from our favorite corporate paratrooper! A new TV has magically appeared where before there was a sad black bag and Jane successfully flips a red square to green on our management promises scorecard. It took all summer – and some public shaming from your humble proprietors – but what’s a few months between friends? Thank you Jane!
As soon as we heard the news about the WiFi, we dispatched our intrepid technology team to verify management’s claims. After all, Absentee Jane’s description of three weeks of totally non-functional internet as “some interruptions” does strike us as a bit whimsical. Their report is in, and the news is… mostly good.
TheMorgan – unfortunately still doesn’t work, gives a “network disabled” error.
Amenities – works!
FitnessCenter – works!
We really want to flip this one to green, but coverage is spotty without all three APs working, especially since these are consumer routers and not a mesh network. So we will flip this one to yellow, but it’s almost a green if you squint hard enough.
As we go into this holiday weekend at The Morgan, please enjoy some outdoor TV, pour one out for our homies, and raise a glass to Toll Brothers making good on some promises. Jane, this song’s for you:
It is unsafe, according to this resident who writes:
Every contact with apartment employees was wife is wheelchair bound. The staff responded immediately to help her- five stars. We live on the 28th floor and we felt very insecure when 2 elevators were disabled at the same time.That left one elevator to use. I cannot believe that in 2018 neither elevator could be fixed rapidly! We are looking for a different place to live when our lease expires. We need ground floor so we don’t need to depend on elevators.
We have extensively documented on this site that the elevator failures are systemic and have not been adequately addressed by Toll Brothers. A full 32% of Yelp reviews for the building (currently at 2.5 stars out of 5) mention the elevators, with complaints going back for at least two years. Maybe this resident should be looking for an FHA/ADA lawyer in addition to a new apartment?
We earned performance bonuses and management fees, as well as income from the properties we own long-term. [Apartment Living] is a high return on equity business and we are excited about its progress.
Toll Brothers fired the Property Manager and Assistant Property Manager for The Morgan in March 2018 with no replacement plan other than having Absentee Jane parachute in a few days a month to look in on things. Five months later, bothpositions remain open despite repeatedpromises that they would be filled. A conservative estimate of salaries for each role of 100k a year (fully loaded with benefits) means that Toll Brothers has saved over 80k by leaving these roles unfilled. Now we start to see where the high return for the Apartment Living division comes from.
Looking back at 2018, we also see that Toll Brothers is shortchanging residents in other areas. The building infrastructure and amenities continue to fall into disrepair, with little action taken to address the problems. Of the items that have been fixed in the past year, all of them are small budget items like replacing missing attachments in the gym, adding a small weight set, and buying new seat cushions for the outdoor areas. Big ticket items, like fixing the elevators, cleaning the windows, replacing the broken outdoor TV, fixing the grills, and holding resident events are promised but never delivered. But Absentee Jane never misses a chance to complain to residents about how expensive it is to maintain the building.
Toll Brothers, we know you read our blog. You cannot continue to market The Morgan as a luxury building while you save money by understaffing it and letting the infrastructure deteriorate. You cannot collect over 200k a year from residents for amenities that are broken and never repaired. Fire Absentee Jane and fill the full time Property Manager position now. Your residents are fed up with the safety issues, the broken promises, and the general lack of responsiveness.
Good news and bad news today. Mostly bad news. But first the good – the missing gym equipment has been replaced! The rope pull and various attachments are back, and a square on our management promises scorecard flips from red to green. Let’s take turns and not fight over them though.
Bad news is that the building internet is still out after the “upgrade.” Residents who like to work from the Library or Living Room should think about upping their cell data plans, as we have a feeling this outage isn’t going to get fixed for a long time. Even though the gym TV now displays more channels, this item remains soundly in the red due to the loss of Internet that worked fine before.
Running down the (mostly broken) promises list shows little progress from Absentee Jane. In fact, the more cynical among us would speculate that Toll Brothers is only fixing the cheap items while big ticket items continue to deteriorate.
Window cleaning – not done, still filthy. Absentee Jane: “large expense”
Resident events – nothing since May, only one this year. Absentee Jane: I’m sooooo busy.
Heavier weights in the fitness center – nope, just the lighter ones management picked up on clearance from Sears. Absentee Jane: “I hope to have that added shortly“. In June.
Pool passes – is this even still a thing? The lifeguard just has a notebook and the pool is filled with “guests”. And poop.
Replace broken outdoor TV – of course not! Absentee Jane isn’t made of money, you know.
Fix the elevators – the past two weeks have been a good run, but only a fool would think they are fixed.
Hire a building manager – 5 months and counting. Stay tuned for a longer post on this topic tomorrow.
Residents are reporting that a fight broke out in the 8th floor gym yesterday, with JCPD called and responding to the scene. We don’t have many more details, but don’t let the humidity, elevators, or anything else make you lose your cool with your neighbors. We’re all in this together.
Completely predictable, but disappointing nonetheless. The Morgan Internet is still not working and it has been out since Friday. Residents asking on Activebuilding (the building-run message board) when it will be fixed are ignored. Great job on the upgrade Absentee Jane!
Please No Morgan 