An apartment owner in Bengaluru is being trolled online for suggesting a series of increasingly bizarre ways to save money on society maintenance charges. A screenshot circulating online shows the email that the homeowner sent to his housing society, suggesting cuts in essential services like garbage collection and even generators for power backup to reduce costs.
What are maintenance charges?
Society maintenance charges are recurring fees paid by residents to cover the costs of managing, operating and maintaining shared amenities and common areas in an apartment complex. Depending upon the amenities and the location of the housing society, maintenance charges can range from a couple of thousands to even lakhs of rupees.
Bengaluru flat owner’s suggestions
In his email to society members, the Bengaluru flat owner suggested cutting costs on gardening, electricity, security and housekeeping.
The email was shared on Reddit with the caption, “Can’t believe [I] got this email from one of the owners in our apartment”.
The flat owner expounded upon his suggestions in five points. He first suggested setting up an automatic irrigation system to reduce the salaries being given to gardeners. He also said that changing the lights in common areas from white to dim yellow would bring down electricity costs, while also instilling discipline in children.
“Reduce the money spent on common area power by changing lights to dim yellow lights and ensuring kids play only before sunset and good enforcement of discipline by helping them sleep early, wake up early,” the man said.
As his third point, the Bengaluru flat owner claimed that the society could save money on garbage collection by “hiring really good people who would do the job at low cost.”
Can’t believe got this email from one of the owners in our apartment
by u/Prize_Lychee8711 in bangalore
No power backup, no security
His suggestions then got more extreme. As point four, he said that money spent on security could be reduced by having security guards only in the day time.
At night time, he said, residents should lock up their flats by 9 or 10pm. “Night time ensure the apartment is locked by 9pm or 10 pm. It's inhuman to even expect the guards to be awake late at nights. So we can set strict rules on in-time for residents,” he wrote.
As his last point, the apartment owner said that the housing society could do away with diesel generators entirely. “We need not have DG supply when power is out as it's more eco friendly and good to be out of power sometimes.
“Minimize the use of CCTV cameras or remove them completely inside the apartment as its invasion of privacy of the residents. And since we are already paying security guards and trusting them to do their job well, it's better to not invest in powering and maintaining cctv cameras,” he wrote.
Reddit reacts
The suggestions drew amusement on Reddit.
“I am genuinely surprised that the email didn't mention, ‘maybe someone with a robotics background can build a good robot that can do these tasks. We can just waive one month's maintenance charges for them, or they can do it out of the goodness of their heart or for the good of the society’,” joked one user.
“These are ridiculous suggestions. Completely controlling the lives of people. This is bad and I hope no one even considers this,” another said.
“He must be manager in some IT company brainwashed into cost cutting everything,” a Reddit user opined.
“This guy seems like a retired Govt Babu. They have prepared their whole life to degrade the quality of life of general public,” another said.