This manual was created so maintenance managers can hand down information specific to the Hillegass-Parker Co-Op. As of 7/8/09, it has also been published on the house wiki, and therefore is (mostly) public to anyone who wants to read it. Certain sensitive information has been redacted. Contact the maintenance manager if you want to see the full copy.

For more detailed information on what it means to be a maintenance manager in general, see the documentation given to you by Central Maintenance. Some of that material will be covered here, but not in nearly as much detail. Some of the central level material won't be covered here at all.

You should read this manual as soon as you can. It will answer a whole lot of your questions, and quicken the time it takes you to get up to speed as a new MM. Note the Definitions section, which has all the acronyms and definitions you will use on a regular basis.

Probably the most important thing you will use in this manual are the appendices. These give routine data that you are going to need day-to-day in order to make sure the house runs well. It includes important phone numbers, item lists, etc. You also need to check two other sections of the wiki: House Idiosyncrasies and Projects before you start; this will save you a lot of time and problems.

Please update this manual! This document, and all the time spent preparing it, won't work if you don't update it, and I mean electronically.

Keep track of your edits and updates however you want — keep a notepad with updates, write it on a dry-erase board, print it out and add changes to the margins — but at the end of the day, the thing that will remain is the digital copy.

Andy Salazar is our CM crew member. Each house has one of five, and ours is Andy. His roles in your life are the following:

• He's the guy you will meet with or call when you don't know something, or you need some help.
  1. He determines which budget a purchase of yours comes out of,
  2. He does big projects for you.

He's a new hire as of Fall 2016, so I don't know much about him yet. [RAW]

Andy's boss is Dan Holm, the Maintenance Supervisor for the BSC. You'll see him at MaintComm meetings, interact with him on special projects and call him after hours in an emergency (see the list of phone numbers in the appendix). He's the one who approves BAPs and HLBAPs requests as well as HAPs. He oversees the maintenance budget of the BSC, keeps a large-scale vision of the BSC's maintenance priorities (e.g. earthquake preparedness and retrofits) and enacts and determines (along with MaintCom) the maintenance policies. He's a curt, reserved, kind of nervous guy.

The AMC is Dan's assistant. They are a student, and they basically do the routine work for Dan. The only time you'll probably interact with them is during safety walk-throughs, when they and Dan will walk through the house with you and tell you what needs to be taken care of in order for you to be up to code. The AMC also sends out preventative maintenance forms. When you complete a preventative maintenance form, scan/photograph it and email it to the AMC.

The VPSM, or vice president of safety and maintenance, is another student who works on the bureaucratic issues involving safety and maintenance. He/she sits on board, and probably goes to a lot of meetings, one of which is MaintCom, which you will become painfully familiar with.

The garden manager, in the eyes of the BSC, is under your supervision. Through the hard work of many garden managers, it has come to be looked at (rightfully so), as a management position equal to any other. In this case (where you have a enthusiastic and hard-working GM), use it to your advantage — this can lessen your burden quite a bit (especially in finding HI hours for people), and can make the house look a whole lot better. In the case of a deadbeat GM, you'll have a lot more work to do, but this is something I cannot comment on, since it is out of my ken.

Your crew will make your life so much easier. Pick them wisely. Stay on top of them. Treat them well.

Various BSC-trusted contractors — Dan has a good relationship with many contractors in the bay area. You should definitely go with his people before you go on your own. They are usually much more ethical, friendly, and cheap than any old contractor. Their information can be found (first) in the appendix here, (second) in the sourcebook, and if you don't find it in any of those places, ask Dan. In some cases, however, this is a bit of an old boys club in the sense that Dan or somebody at CM found a good contractor and has never re-opened the position for competing contractors. This is the case, for example, with the current BSC window contractor - UC Glass. I found another contractor that would do the same thing for half the price. Of course finding these guys takes a lot of time, and may blow up in your face if they suck (Dan has told me that's why he doesn't look for anyone anymore, since he found quality ones, and apparently good contractors are hard to find). So, you decide if your time is well spent negotiating better deals with contractors, especially for projects that come out of the house account (see Budgets).

As is the case in much of life, you should spend most of your time doing that which you were elected for — physically fixing things. Of course there are so many other things that go into your job, but I guess they are necessary. Here's some of them:

• Fix things — this is self-explanatory. The only tips are, to stay on top of things, use your crew wisely, and ask for help early and often. It's way better to ask Dan a stupid little question than to tell him about a big mistake.
• Keep the maintenance manual (the document you are reading) updated!!
• If you have a maintenance issue that you can't fix, bump it up to CM by filling out the Work Request Form, which you should have a link to in your email (new as of Jan 2017). I don't know if Dan reads it thoroughly but I try to be as detailed as possible in the description of the problem, including any investigation that I might have done that might yield useful information for them and save them time. [RAW]
• Meet with Jose/be the house-CM connection — technically, you are supposed to meet with Jose weekly. He doesn't mind an “as needed” basis (his words). You'll probably need to meet with him more than he'll need to meet with you (and you should — remember, he is your best resource) anyway.
  • Frequent communication with CM is important — not only does it let them know what's going on with your house (and thus keeps the overall vision in sight), but it lets you know what their plans for your house are and the status of big projects.
• Organize HI — this is your biggest bureaucratic task, and a major pain in the ass. As of the time of this writing, the house has set the total number of HI hours at 4. This means you need to encourage everyone in the house to do their HI, and you need to find projects for those that respond. It's really important to get people to do HI — fines are a regrettable part of living in a co-op, and the utmost effort should be made to avoid them.
  • The best idea here is to get organized and to begin early. In the beginning of the semester, get a list of everyone in the house from the house manager, and put it in the HIspreadsheet. On that same spreadsheet, keep a running list of HI ideas, and send out periodic emails informing people of HI opportunities. You can count on almost no one responding to your emails in the beginning of the semester, but it's still important to give people opportunities early and often, for if you don't, you'll surely hear about it later. I also put the exact quote from What is HI? as my signature for every email I send to the house. Gmail allows you to do such thing as a “canned response.” That way, no one can tell you they didn't know about it (they will anyway, though).
  • Good HI ideas are sometimes hard to come by, but feel free to be liberal and free with assigning it. Garden parties are a great way to get people HI. Research for things, such as getting data for an upcoming HAPs, BAPs, or HLBAPs proposal is another good option.
  • Try to keep projects easy — you'd be amazed at how people can mess up even the most simple projects. See HI as an opportunity to get some work off of your hands (although helping people and showing them how to do stuff can often take longer than you doing it yourself), and for a way for your housemates to learn some valuable skills.
  • Set a deadline for HI projects to be completed — usually the same as the workshift deadline — and stick to it. Send email warnings about it often and let people know that after that date, you won't remove any fines — they'll have to go to council in the following semester to get their money back. This will get people's attention.
  • Be sure to let people know in the beginning of the semester that all HI projects need to be approved by you before they are started, and that HI projects that are in a person's room are subject to the following regulations: (a) they are only worth half-credit, and (b) they must a permanent change to the person's room. For example, if someone installs curtains in their room, and it took them three hours, they (a) get 1.5 hours of HI credit for it, and (b) the curtains and all the supplies purchased for installing them must remain with the house after the person vacates the room.
• Attend MaintCom meetings — this is where the overall maintenance policy for the BSC is determined. In the fall there is the BAPs request cycle (see Budgets below), however, which is pain in the butt, and takes a while. Once that's over, though, meetings are much shorter. Unfortunately, MaintCom was disbanded around 2014.
  • Keep good records — you need to keep records of what's going wrong in the house, the status of each issue, what actions are going to be taken (including who will be addressing the issue), etc. Use the HiP Maintenance Spreadsheet to foster collaboration with you and your crew, and to be transparent.
• Oversee your crew — I tend to take a very laid back approach to the crew. Then again, I've had awesome, self-motivated crews. I usually let people sign out their full hours, even if they don't do all of them for that week, so that when big weeks come along (big HAPs projects, for example), they'll feel obligated to help you out. Again, keeping good records of what has been fixed, who fixed it, what needs to be fixed, and who will fix it, is invaluable with regards to making sure you use your crew to its full potential.
• Keep tabs on your budgets — three times a semester you'll get a decentralization report by email. The part you should be concerned about is the “decentralized maintenance account.” More detail on this is in the budget section. Keep an eye on it.
• Purchase things/keep the maintenance room well stocked — this is self-explanatory. Keep a shopping list handy, so you can consolidate your trips to Home Depot (or wherever — the Sourcebook is invaluable for finding places to shop). Consumables, such as light bulbs and furnace filters, are added as an appendix to this manual. Please update it. This may take a few minutes of your time now, but it will save hours (for you and your successor) in the future.
  • The easiest way to buy things is with a PO card. The house president needs to authorize CO to give you one. Once you have it, you can go to any participating store and buy things with that card. This means no money comes out of your pocket, and if there is something wrong with the accounting, you don't have to worry about losing money. Otherwise, you need to submit your receipts to the house manager and await reimbursement.
  • Home Depot does not accept PO cards. Instead, go up to the contractor desk (at the HD in Emeryville, it's to the left of all of the regular checkout lines) and state that you're from the Berkeley Student Cooperative. They should have a list of authorized people who can purchase from that account, so they'll ask for your ID and then ring up your items and give you a receipt and you can go.
  • One thing I cannot emphasize enough: try Urban Ore first. Urban Ore is a salvage warehouse on Ashby and 7th (near the Ashby exit of I-80). It is a maintenance person's dream. They have everything from toilets to furniture to lumber to electronics. The advantages of buying from there are: (1) it is much cheaper than buying new (sometimes 90%), (2) Dan is more apt to centralize such purchases (he's an environmentalist too), (3) you are helping save the environment by re-using materials that would otherwise go into a landfill, and (4) you are fighting the paradigm of consumerism that plagues western society. The disadvantages of going there are: (1) you need to search for things, so shopping there can be more time consuming, and (2) they may not have what you need. Still, it should be your first stop.
• Submit/approve receipts — if someone (say, one of your crew) buys something for maintenance, they need to have it authorized by you. You need to sign the receipt before it is submitted to the house manager for reimbursement.
  • Dan does not like getting receipts months after the purchase date. Thus you need to get on people to give you receipts immediately. That way, you can sign them, get them to the house manager, the house manager can submit them to CO, and CO can send them to CM. I recommend give one week (max) for each of these steps. Of course, using your PO card eliminates most of these steps, and is the preferred method, but only a few people can have PO cards. Make sure you describe what each item is on the receipt, and recommend a budget it should come out of.
• Keep the house informed of what's going on — the biggest complaint on your VOCs may be that people don't know what's going on in terms of house maintenance. There's a fine balance between sending too many emails (and letting your important announcements get lost in the noise) and not sending enough. You'll have to find that balance.
• Go to council — this is another time sink. Set an example: come prepared, be respectful. If you have a project proposal, discuss it with people in the days prior, come with a budget, etc.
  • Council is where HAPs and BAPs get approved, as well as other maintenance issues you may want to bring to the house. It's better to have a five minute discussion on a possibly controversial decision you have to make, than an hour long one later.
• Be responsible in an emergency — as a manager, you have a higher level of responsibility and liability than non-managers. You bear some responsibility even for things that don't fall under maintenance — keeping people safe during parties, for example. In addition, you have some very important responsibilities that other managers don't have — it is you who deals with the fire alarm company when the alarms go off, you are in charge of evacuating the house in an emergency, you shut off the gas and/or electric if it is warranted, etc. You need to make your cell phone number public to everyone in the house, and you need to be willing to rush to the house in the middle of the night if need be. (Note: If the fire alarm was set off by accident, you can reset the hand alarm by unscrewing the hex key. If >100% sure the alarm was an accident, call the fire alarm company (not BFD) immediately. BMS).
• Make keys — when people lose their keys, the house manager gives them one of the copies he/she has. Once his/her copies run low, it's your turn to make copies. You'll learn how to punch keys during training.
• Electrical work — use a voltmeter every time you do electrical work! (The house is old & was “modernized” by questionably competent electricians). If you need to shut down a breaker, be sure to email the house first (in case they are working on their computers). [BMS]
• Tool borrowing — check with CM or the Berkeley Tool Library if you need to use a specialized/expensive piece of equipment for a project. [BMS]
• Keep master keys — one of four sets of house master keys lives in the gray lock box in the maintenance room. You and your crew should have the combination to this box and be able to open it at any time to access the set of master keys. This set should always live in the lock box so anyone on the maintenance crew can access it. Needless to say, losing this key ring is a catastrophe. Re-keying the house will surely take up your entire decentralized budget, and probably will run into HAPs territory. The point — don't lose them.
• Take care of lockouts — since you have access to one set of master keys, you will need to be on call in case someone locks themselves out. Sweet dreams!
• Habitability inspections — you and the HM are responsible, each semester, to go into everyone's room and check that they have all the required furniture, have nothing at all hanging from their sprinkler pipes, and that they have two methods of egress (if they have window guard, you have to check that it can be opened). You also need to test each smoke detector, change the batteries of those that are dead, and replace those that are faulty. The smoke detectors start to chirp when they are about to die, and you'd be surprised how many people just pull out the battery, unnecessarily risking lives instead of spending five minutes emailing you. This is your chance to find those rascals. It's also a good idea to check the condition of furniture and whatnot.
  • The fines for not doing your habitability inspections are severe, and are levied against you and the house manager personally. Just do it.
• Fire drills — supposed to have one fire drill per semester, but this requirement seems to be very loosely enforced.
• Work with other managers — whether or not you like it, your job is linked with the rest of the management of the house. Not only will you have to attend manager meetings every once and a while, and participate in further discussions on house policy (further, that is, than what happens at council), but each manager will also have specific tasks that you'll have to work with them on.
  • GM — as was discussed in “The main players,” the garden manager has a lot to do with the upkeep of the house, at least the outside grounds.
  • HM — the HM is the one who will take receipts and cut you reimbursement checks for the receipts (if you didn't buy them with a PO card). He/she will also have to do habitability inspections with you. Finally, the HM and MM are usually of the most proactive people in the house, so working together will surely improve the running of the house.
  • President — the president will run council (where you'll most definitely have proposals) and management meetings.
  • WM — work with the WM in allocating HI and workshift hours toward the end of the semester. Many people will be over workshift and not have done HI, and vice versa. Giving someone HI credit for their extra workshift hours (or vice versa) has no effect on the house finances, and reduces paperwork, so work with them on this. Also, they (not you!) are responsible for making sure the house is clean, and that the daily chores are done. A bad WM will result in a lot more busywork for you, so be careful who you support for this position!
  • WRM — you and the WRM will probably work on some projects together, e.g. fixing the recycling chute, making the house more friendly to recycling, etc.

Not including the house account (we'll get into that in a second), there are seven budgets that you have to know about. Keep in mind that the definitions of all these budgets, and what falls into them, are largely open to interpretation (specifically, Wes and Dan's interpretations).

The most common account you'll use is the centralized account. This is effectively limitless for you (I'm sure Wes would be happy to hear that), but the catch is that each item has to be approved by CM (usually Dan) in order for it to be charged to that account. This account is for the day-to-day running of our or any house. Things like light bulbs, and batteries fall into this category, as well as medium-sized work that anyone (including you, Dan, a contractor, etc.) does that's necessary for upkeep of the house.

A subsection of the centralized budget is the tool budget. You get $5/person/semester to buy tools, and the money does not roll over. This is really nice, because this basically means you have $300/semester to keep the maintenance room well stocked with tools, and/or to buy some of the more fancy stuff. Keep in mind, though, that any money you don't spend does go to help the BSC as a whole, so don't feel to pressured to spend it all.

BAPs funds are meant for really big projects (over $10K). Popular BAPs projects have been: adding double-paned windows, retrofitting kitchens and bathrooms, re-piping, etc. The good things about BAPs projects are: (1) they are big, (2) you don't usually do any of the work — CM and contractors usually take care of it, and (3) they usually happen over the summer. The bad thing about BAPs is the BAPs process, which is as follows:

1. During the first MaintComm meeting in the fall, Dan will tell you to come up with BAPs proposals, and to fill out forms for them.
2. You go home and think (this is a good time to send out an email asking for suggestions, and to consult others).
3. You make a list of BAPs projects you would like to see done.
4. You bring said list to a council meeting, and have the house prioritize it.
5. You fill out the BAPs forms for the projects, and submit them at a MaintComm meeting.
6. Some Saturday You go on the BAPs tour with MaintComm. There you see all the different BAPs proposals from all the houses, and start thinking about how to prioritize them.
7. At the next MaintComm meeting, Wes distributes a list ranking, in his and his crew's opinion, the BAPs projects. You all discuss the list, add things, take things away, and change priority.
8. Wes goes and gets estimates for things on the list.
9. The next MaintComm meeting, you get the updated list, and discuss it some more. By the end, you approve it.
10. That list gets sent to board, and board either approves it, trims it, or sends it back to MaintComm.

This whole process should be over in the beginning of the spring semester.

There is also a smaller BAPs budget (a few grand for the whole BSC) called HLBAPs. These are BAPs in which the house does most of the labor. Specifically, the cost saved in labor must be more than that of materials (estimated number of hours x workshift rate > estimated cost of materials). The HLBAPs process is similar to that of the HAPs process (easy — see below), except that MaintComm has to approve it (instead of just CM). Because this is a small budget, most MM's don't bother applying for it. As you may see, people usually don't want to be in MaintComm meetings, so almost anything you propose (that fits the criteria) has a good chance of getting funded. This is a great place to pay for the garden's budget — instead of dipping into HAPs, you can get free money from this.

If you have a project that is smaller than BAPs, and more specific to your house, you should consider a HAPs proposal. HAPs are subject to the following criteria:

1. It must be over $500 (although sometimes $250 is enough)
2. It must be a project, not just an item, i.e. it requires some actual work to be done.
3. It must be a permanent part of the house — it must be bolted or fixed to the house somehow.
4. It requires house (council) approval.
5. You need to fill out at HAPs form after it is approved at council. A bunch of people need to sign it, and you need to submit it to CM.
6. CM has the final say in approving it, but usually will if the above criteria are met.

HAPs funds roll over, up to two years worth of funds. This may seem like a small point, but that basically means you have to, on average, use all of your HAPs funds or you lose them. This is a bit of a burden, because it is quite a big account — big accounts require big projects to use them, and big projects mean a lot of time on your part. That's why you get comped, I guess.

We get $3600/semester + $63/member/year for HAPs, but these figures have been getting slashed by board recently.

The most unrestricted of all your account is the decentralized account. You can charge whatever you want (within reason) to this account — you don't need permission from anyone. Of course if you are in doubt about whether a purchase is really necessary or needed by the house, you probably should ask. Two great ways to get people riled are to waste their money and to act like a despot.

The decentralized account is quite small, though ($10/person/semester, rolls over), and so discretion is definitely crucial. You really need to be a miser with this account in order for it to last. Try to get as many purchases into the other accounts before you dip into this one. In other words, you should only buy things that don't fit the criteria of the other accounts with this money. That means the item: (a) is not a tool, (b) doesn't require a lot of work, or if it does, the whole project is under $500, © it is not an item related to the safety or general maintenance of the house, or (d) it is one of these things, but the budgets for them are out. Examples of decentralized projects are adding shelving, lock changes, cutting keys, etc.

If you do run out of money in this account and there is something you really want to buy that CM won't let you use other funds for, you can get money from the house account and put it into the decentralized account, or you can just buy things from the house account. Both of these actions require a two-thirds majority council vote.

There is also an emergency budget for the BSC. This is several million dollars, and goes to pay for catastrophic damage. You have nothing to do with this money — it is Dan's and Dan's only.

This section under construction (even more than the others)

Environmental projects

• Can we put solar panels on the roof?

By far the biggest bang for your buck is improving the building envelope and duct sealing. Much of this work has been done, but you should still discourage people from pursuing a solar project. While indeed very sexy, you will save way more dollars and carbon by doing the more basic efficiency repairs. Remember - 6/7ths of all energy is lost in translation from the source to the end user. Thus saving one BTU of heat lost from your envelope results in 7 less BTUs that your heater has to provide. Likewise, unplugging one 1.5kW space heater is the same as saving 10.5kW of energy production.

• What about rainwater harvesting?

A good idea at first glance - we get literally tons of water on the surface of our roof each rain. However, our roofs have tar shingles, and thus leach carcinogens into the water. Harvesting anything from the roofs for irrigation use would require renovating the roofs - you don't have enough money for that.

Experts also note that rainwater harvesting for irrigation is misguided. California has only a few months of rain per year. To collect enough water to offset your irrigation usage, you'd need a tremendous tank. Better is to use collected rainwater for toilet flushes. That way, in the rainy season you can be emptying the collection tank while at the same time filling it. This will increase your total offset water usage for a given storage capacity. Unfortunately, this is a much bigger project, requiring drilling into walls and such. It is probably out of any budget range, and seeing as 3000 gal of water is about $4 as of the time of this writing, you probably will never recover your costs.

We have also done calculations on our water usage, which I hope to post sooner or later. Less than 1% of our water usage is from irrigation. The vast majority of the water usage is from showers and toilet flushes. So, again, rainwater harvesting for irrigation usage is misplaced effort.

• What about greywater?

Greywater, in which used shower or washing machine water is diverted into toilet flushes and/or irrigation, would drastically reduce our water consumption. The first non-starter to this project at the time that Brad was Maintenance Manager, was that it was illegal for commercial, multi-familiy buildings. It seems that the law has been amended such that it is legal now (link). From that link:

• No permit needed for a washing machine system, if the system follows health and safety guidelines outlined in the code.
  1. No permit for a single fixture (one shower), if guidelines are followed.
  2. Mulch or soil basins are allowed for covering release points (instead of gravel).
  3. Systems are separated into simple and complex depending on the quantity of water. There are fewer requirements for simple systems.
  4. Depth of discharge is 2” under mulch (previously 9“ underground).
  5. Systems must minimize contact with humans and pets.
  6. Water containing hazardous chemicals or used to wash diapers or infectious garments cannot be used.
  7. Water cannot come from kitchen sinks or toilets.

• This is quite encouraging. I would just note a few things:
  • Again, the water we use for irrigation is a tiny fraction of our total water usage, so diverting greywater into the irrigation system would not be the best way to do it.
  • Diverting washing water to irrigation would result in the addition of bleach, soap, and any contaminants on clothing to the crops. This may be in a low enough dosage that it doesn't matter, but it is something to keep in mind.
  • Using washing machine water in a greywater system “would” put lint into the system. We currently have to filter out the lint using lint socks just so the basement sinks don't clog every week. Continued use of the socks is essential, but even then, some amount of lint would get into the system and may increase clogs, hopefully not in some interior portion of the system.
  • The most important one: Installing a greywater system will be massively expensive. This will require knocking down walls and adding an entirely new, second set of plumbing to the areas in question. Again, since water is still incredibly cheap, it may be better advised to use your money for projects that will have a bigger environmental and/or economic impact per dollar used. This certainly includes further thermal shell/heating retrofits. Solar hot water or PV are also probably cheaper, and will continue to get more competitive in years to come.

• AMC — Assistant Maintenance Coordinator (see The main players).
  1. BAPs — Board Approved Projects (see Budgets).
  2. CM — Central Maintenance (Dan, the five crew members (Tom, Dan C., Elisandro, Andy and Jose) and the AMC)
  3. DM — Decentralized Maintenance (on decentralization reports, it will be abbreviated this way)
  4. GM — Garden Manager
  5. HAPs — House Approved Projects (see Budgets).
  6. HI — House Improvement. A certain number of hours per semester (at the time of this writing, 4), that each house member must spend in improving the house (see Your responsibilities and how to fulfill them).
  7. HiP — Hillegass Parker Co-op, where you live!
  8. HLBAPs — House Labor Board Approved Projects (see Budgets).
  9. HM — House Manager
  10. MaintComm — Maintenance Committee. A committee you are an obligatory member of (see Your responsibilities and how to fulfill them). Unfortunately, MaintComm was disbanded around 2014.
  11. VOCs — Votes of Confidence. These are anonymous surveys sent out by the president twice per semester, in which all managers are evaluated. People can vote to add or deduct from your compensation in the last one of the semester.
  12. VPSM — Vice President of Safety and Maintenance (see The main players).
  13. WM — Workshift Manager
  14. WRM — Waste Reduction Manager

The emergency generator should be taken out and maintained once a year. Here is an instructional video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-kR1v_uAzk.

(Redacted)

The evacuation procedure for residents is pretty simple:

• At the sound of any alarm, residents should leave the house immediately. Everyone except you needs to leave. That includes other managers. Of course, you should leave too if it is dangerous to be by the house, but otherwise you should wait for the fire department at the steps of the house that is in alarm.
  1. Everyone should meet at our emergency staging area — on the sidewalk directly across MaHo on Hillegass. People should not wander away unless they have been accounted for!
  2. A manager or other responsible person should take the clipboard from beside the front door of MaHo. It has the names and room numbers of everyone in the house. They should try to locate as many people on the list as possible. This is not your responsibility, because you'll be doing other things during this time.
  3. Do not shut off the gas or electricity unless it is absolutely necessary, but feel free to do so if the situation warrants. The previous MM should show you how to do those things before the reigns are passed.
  4. When the fire department comes, follow their instructions. Usually you'll be walking through the house with them. Otherwise stay clear.
  5. In a really big emergency (e.g. an earthquake), you may be at your staging area for a while (hours!). Wait there. This is a designated area, that officials will come to. They may bring you to a larger staging area.

It's worth it to check out the following link, so that you can be an authority on emergency preparedness:

http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/fire/

(redacted)

(redacted)

White Paint is a centralized expense. This encourages the houses to keep the paint fresh. When in need of “White Paint” for bedrooms and other generic white walls, use Sherwin Williams ProMar® 200 Zero VOC Interior Latex Paint satin finish, “Marshmallow” white. This is a good contractor-grade interior paint, and the color is a fairly bright, warm-ish white that is a good compromise between brightness and not showing every mark.

This will really help you save time. Keeping the maintenance room stocked with the following will save you trips. * Lightbulbs * Floodlights: Use type par38 90W 130V Halogens. This gives the best balance of brightness and lifetime. Use Sylvania or GE unless you like changing lightbulbs.

• Buy by the case (of 15) to save money. when we have 3-4 left, buy a new case. Expect to buy about one case a year.
• Here's where Sean likes to buy
• DO NOT USE florescent floodlights! They take several minutes to reach full brightness, and rapid cycling kills them quickly. This makes them doubly unsuited for security lighting.

* LEDs. For living spaces, people like 2700K or 3000K (warm light). - U-tube fluorescents what size or model #? there are “thick” and “thin” ones - Circline fluorescents three different sizes! 8”, , - Linear fluorescents what sizes? what models? (ditto with the “thick” and “thin”) - All the bulbs in the living room are dimmed, so they require incandescent. The chandelier takes a normal base and a shaped bulb, while the wall fixtures take a smaller base and a shaped bulb. - NOTE: fluorescent lights come in a variety of color temperatures, and it's important to get the right ones. The following are general guidelines, but if there's already lighting in a certain area, matching the existing lights generally looks best.

• “Daylight” - Extremely blue light that most people find harsh and distasteful.
• “Cool” - Neutral light (not blue or yellow) recommended for work spaces like desks and kitchens.
• “Soft” - Same as “cool”, but a bit warmer.
• “Warm” - Closest to incandescent light, which most people like for living spaces.

* Filters for furnaces * Buy only highest quality filters! A full set of premium filters costs about $3 per person per year- well worth the cost. I (Sean) prefer “3M Filtrete Ultra Allergen.” * Replace the filters at the end of spring, whenever you disable the furnaces. At this time you are already thinking about it, and you won't be caught without fresh filters when that first cold-snap hits in the winter. (This way there is no need to store bulky filters, and they are always ready when needed!) Note that the NoHo 1 furnace and the MaHo 3 furnace each have a reusable filter. You just need to wash it and then put it back in, so the end of spring is a good time to do this too. * Replace the Carriage house filter again when you enable the heat in the winter; since we leave that furnace enabled all year, the filter probably needs it then. This is one filter you will have to store, but it fits easily in the furnace closet. * It can be difficult and frustrating to find our variety of sizes at the local store, so here is a convenient web vendor who has had historically good prices.

Annual Shopping list:

• 12x24x1 — (1) NoHo 2nd floor return (Ceiling by room 6)
• 14x24x1 — (3) SoHo 3rd floor; Carriage house x 2
• 14x25x1 — (1) MaHo 2nd floor (dining room floor return grate by S. wall. Non-standard size, must be cut by hand)
• 16x25x1 — (2) Twinned MaHo main furnaces
• 20x25x1 — (1) SoHo 1st floor
• As noted above, the NoHo 1 furnace and MaHo 3 furnace each have a reusable filter. Just wash it once a year when you replace the other filters.

Many maintenance items are highly brand-specific, so you'll need to make sure you're purchasing exactly the right part. Here's some info about brands and model numbers for various things around the house.

• MaHo 3 west bathroom has a Moen faucet and a Moen shower fixture. The mechanism just behind the handle is Moen part # 101310 (google it). [RAW]

Future maintenance mangers may encounter a rat problem. They are common in Berkeley, and a recurring blight on the coops and Humanity.

Eliminating rats, especially an established population, is hard work, but it can be done if you are willing to attack the problem with ruthless efficiency.

A few traps and a weekend clean-up won't be sufficient. You are trying to destroy the only home and only way of life they have ever known. They will not go easily.

We (Sean and others) have done much work removing the rat population from SoHo in 2012. These tips draw mainly from that experience.

There are 4 major fronts in committing genocide on rats:

1) Remove their access

2) Remove their means of support

3) Terror

4) Death

All four are critical. Though any one on it's own might in principle be effective, rats are tenacious, and don't go quietly into the night when you attempt to wipe them out. Despite your best efforts, some rats are sure to evade your measures on each front so it is important to put full effort into all four.

1) Means plugging holes/gaps (often in unexpected places) and removing trees&vegetation from the walls and roof. Foundations and wall penetrations are especially important. This takes practice in thinking like a rat. Removing rat nests is important, where possible. I've gone through several iterations and different techniques on this one, and found some things that don't work (like stuffing gaps with steel wool, or expanding foam) and some that do (like steel wool/expanding foam combination, or stainless steel netting attached every 3“ or less)

2) Means removing food and water sources.

Kitchen food storage: all food must be stored in solid closed container. No spills left on the floor, and no “almost got the can” garbage on the floor, especially over night. Discourage anyone from keeping food in their rooms. Rats don't know the difference between a kitchen and a bedroom.

Waste areas: Keep clean and clear. Spilled garbage and food waste is mana from heaven to rats. A messy garbage area gives the rats everything they need and want. This takes constant vigilance, because people are often sloppy with waste transfer, but if you don't address this, you don't have a chance.

Compost: This is a huge problem for rat control! Compost should be in enclosed, vented containers. They can be bought commercially or constructed to resemble a raised garden bed with a lid. An “open pile” compost heap in proximity to your house is a good way to attract a nice “starter population” of rats, should you find your house currently lacks them.

Water: Garden water features, automatic irrigation that leaves nice reliable puddles and leaky pluming must all be addressed to render your house a barren wasteland from the rat perspective. This is pretty much irrelevant during the rainy season, but you are far less likely to have overwintering rats if you had no Summer rats.

In all cases, what is forgotten by you is easily exploited by a rat.

3) Means ultrasonic deterrents, chemical deterrents (like cat urine, or just a cat), and removal of cover. I prefer the last one only: ultrasonic deterrents make me jumpy/agitated, even though I can't consciously hear them, and some people are allergic to cats, so they aren't allowed in the coops. Garden stores sell bobcat urine to repel deer- I haven't tried this one, but I'd like to. Rats are scared of wide open spaces. Don't give them any comforting brush, weeds, vines or bushes they can hide under anywhere near your houses. Leave a cleared area with either no vegetation or low creeping ground cover that doesn't grow over 2” tall along a 3' to 5' perimeter of all your buildings.

4) Means traps, poison, cats again, and all that. This is the *last* measure, not the first. If you apply instruments of death before you have rendered your house an inaccessible, terrifying, barren wasteland for rats, you are merely running a rat ranch, raising new generations for the sole purpose of bringing untimely deaths to a portion of them. That would be both ineffective and inhumane. That said, this is also a critical step in concert with the others. With all other measures in place the downward pressure on the rat population cannot be resisted.

(most redacted)

• CM — 510-549-5965
  1. CO — 510-848-1936

RAW = Rebecca Wernis

Sean = Sean O'Kelley