PRONOUNCEMENTS

'Yup, Yup, you're outta here. You're done! LEAVE!' Meeting over!', the outside Board Member blathered on and on. The Office Co-ordinator jumped up and viciously yelled to my husband, 'I'M FINISHED WITH YOU'. She then reeled her rage on me and lashed out, 'AND I'M FINISHED WITH YOU.' She topped that off with: 'I'M GOING TO TELL THE AGENCY'.

This was in response to my husband telling the outside Board member that since the new Board took over, it has gotten worse in here. At one point in the meeting when we told the Board members that the co-op has a carpenter ant problem, I was astonished to see the Office Co-ordinator make fun of us by pretending to see ants on the floor and childishly stomping on them, then plucking a phantom ant off the clothes of a Board member.

The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the condition of the basement in the unit we were being ordered to transfer to. The Board had previously emailed a science building inspector, who stated that the co-op was situate on a high water table and that there 'may' have been a problem at one time. (Pray tell - when might that have been?) The Board member said that there is nothing wrong with this basement - that it is dry as a bone, but that the co-op will have the building inspector come and do an on site inspection to appease us.

There is a peculiar saying in this co-op. It goes like this: 'That Was Then, This Is Now'. This saying is utilized when one questions the perks that Directors and a favoured few have received in the past. Well - That Was Then, This is Now. Or when questioning long standing corrupt practices in the co-op. The Board member inasmuch called us liars by our assertion that this basement has active leaks. The strategy is simple: By denying that a problem exists, the co-op doesn't have to fix it. When the basement floods again, the co-op will not accept responsibility for not having dealt with this problem previously. After all: That Was Then, This is Now!

When I asked them what their insurance agent would think of all this, they were conspicuously silent.

The outside Board member feigned being insulted, so she could boot us out of the meeting. The co-op had no intention to bring in a building inspector. To quote the Board member: 'Why, bring in an inspector? They'd just want our business.' Her sarcasm, her parroting our words back to us, her refusal to listen to what we had to say, was a tactic - a sadistic game to intimidate us.

The co-op will retract our subsidy. It was a fait accompli right from the start.