How to monitor individual home maintenance

We're a condo high rise HOA. We have a mandatory annual personal heat pump (individual AC/heat) inspection. The tech writes a report to each Owner telling hem the condition of their heat pumps. The tech changes filters at that time and places anti-fugue tables in the pan that's built-in under the unit. The purpose is to help avoid clogs that might cause floods

We have a mandatory annual dryer vent inspection/booster pump inspection. These were evaluated as defective at their terminations pints part of our construction defect lawsuit. But the fix would've been very expensive so an expert in the filled wrote a report saying an annual inspection would suffice to keep the ducts free of lint thus avoiding consideration build-up, which causes water intrusion. There is no fire danger.

We offered a voluntary inspection by plumbers of everything in individual units of about $150 apiece, I think. About half of our owners participated and paid for any valve replacements, etc.

These all are board approved, David, but with your rogue board, do you think any of these ideas might fly???????

I live in a townhouse community (and recently had my dryer vent cleaned!) Like your community, homeowners in mine are responsible for maintenance within their units, so the only way I think formal monitoring would work is if the homeowners were willing to pay for it. Unfortunately, there are people who think stuff never breaks down, no matter how much they ignore, misuse or abuse it.

If you push horror stories of what can happen when stuff like dryer vents aren't maintained properly, that could motivate some people, but you may have to use that as well as see if you can make it cost effective. Perhaps you can contract with a dryer vent company that will do the work for homeowners at a discounted price - make it available for a month or two (like those deals on Angie's list) and people can get it done at that time. If you have a newsletter, publish maintenance tips on the regular - no guarantee everyone will read it or follow the suggestions, but you can try.

You might also be able to negotiate similar arrangement with contractors like plumbers For example, our community has had a terrible problem with sewer blockage from tree roots and we tried encouraging people to make sure their sewer cleanouts were visible and accessible, and then maintain it by dumping root kill down the cleanout once a year or so. If you show the people how maintenance makes the home more efficient, safer and save money, that could be a nice motivator.