Bye, Bye, Beto

[pauper]

Not sure why so many here are doubting my sincerity. I thought my reputation preceded me.

No worries, they are just teasing you. Plus, potero is the last guy you want to get lucky with, after the mail man.

Clearly I was mistaken.

 

[garryl]

Clearly I was mistaken.

You are innocent, and your reputation is safe/untarnished.

 

[pauper]

You are innocent, and your reputation is safe/untarnished.

It is worse than I feared.

 

[pauper]

Hey there. I'm pretty handy with Windex...

What are your knob polishing skills like?

Silence...

It's amazing how many porteros I lose when I get to that question in the interview.

 

[DontMindMe]

I've always had good luck with encargado/as, and I've lived in seven different buildings here. Although I've never had an actual portero, which I've always translated as doorman, as in someone stationed near the door at some sort of desk 24 hours a day. My encargados lived in the buildings and would clean, get the trash depending on the type of building, hose down the sidewalks, etc. At peak hours of people coming and leaving, some (but not all) of them would stand by the door or set up a chair or something, but the rest of the day they were off doing whatever they felt like I suppose.

The only kinda weird story comes from my first apartment here. My roommates and I lived across the hall from the encargada and her family. We'd throw some wild parties and they never complained, which was great. After her daughter had a baby we asked if it was okay to have another one, and she was like, yeah, of course, why would you even ask? I still love that anything goes on the weekends here. But after one party, one of the many bags of bottles that we took to the trash had broken glass in the bottom. Her teenage son, while taking out the trash I guess, cut his finger. How did they let us know? They banged on the door, we opened it and he was standing there holding his hand up, the blood dried all over his finger and hand. All they asked was that we please wrap up broken glass better, but I remember wondering why the hell they hadn't taken care of his hand before coming over. Like, the blood was dry...did he wait for us to come home so he could show us? We felt bad and apologized profusely, but like, dude, clean up your hand. We'll believe you if you say you cut it.

 

[Gringoboy]

I saw a portero sweeping some leaves off the steps near the shop last week.

 

[nikad]

Ok, I am going to show off a little bit here. My current portero is a-ma-zing! I never thought I would find such thing in the city. But to mention a few things: He does not accept tips, he randomly washes my car when he thinks it is dirty - for free -, he would receive my supermarket order if I am not home and put everything in his fridge, on a Saturday night he drove his own car up to Easy store to buy a new switch for my apt power unit as it had stopped working out of the blue and we were left in the dark, came over and replaced it, in summer, he checks my AC u it and if it needs freon, he would recharge it for free! the list goes on, but he is truly amazing!

 

[pitipur]

The apartment owners of my building, hopefully, will be rejoicing soon, as our feared and fearless portero will be leaving. His is taking our offer and will leave in a few months
It is my thinking that our 14 unit building doesn't need a live- in portero. Our current guy does almost nothing. Why should we pay someone to stay in a rent free apartment and watch television all day? Of course he gets a lot of benefits, at our expense.
I spoke with a neighbor, yesterday, who said that all buildings with more than 5 units must have a portero. A portero who comes to the building, everyday, would be fine, but not one who lives here. Perhaps we misunderstood each other?
I'm wondering if anyone lives in building with more than 5 units that doesn't have a live in portero?

My building only has 8 units and there is no portero, but the entrances to all the buildings are outside (aka there is no lobby or anything). There's someone that comes and does maintenance and takes care of the pool once a week or so but the residents handle everything else.

 

[lucha54]

our building has more than 5 units and no portero. there's a cleaning lady that comes 2x/ week, and security cameras everywhere since bikes have been stolen from the garage in the past. I'm happy to not have someone know about my comings and goings (and expenses are incredible cheap, still less than 450/month)