Like all of you, I have a mailbox.
And like many of yours, this mailbox had been broken for years. I can’t even remember the last time it looked like anything other than “a bent door hanging permanently open and a broken lock.” It never even occurred to me that you could demand that someone fix your mailbox. Everybody knows this: “A deer is an animal. A sparrow is a bird. Russia is our motherland. Mailboxes are always broken.” I mean, sure, you could spend half your life getting the box repaired and the other half figuring out where to pick up the keys. But life is too precious for that. To be honest, I was completely convinced that mailboxes were on the books of Russian Post, and that the only reason they hadn’t all been sent off for scrap metal yet was out of sheer mercy toward us—and that repairing them was definitely never going to happen. As it turned out, none of that was true. Here it is, my mailbox. Still just as ugly, but now repaired. For the first time in many years, it actually closes.
Let me introduce our new project (and give you a useful link you should definitely add to your browser bookmarks). RosZhKH. http://roszkh.ru/
We’ve been working on this project for a very long time, and today we’re launching only its first part—but also the part that will be most useful to ordinary users. The idea is very simple: do you pay for your apartment? Of course you do. Well then, we’ll help you get what you’ve already paid for. We’ve somehow gotten used to the fact that the entrance hall in apartment buildings is always filthy and the light bulbs never work. And it never even crosses anyone’s mind to think, “Why shouldn’t they work? I already paid for this!” Every month, we pay roughly half of our total utility bill under the line item “Maintenance and Repairs” so that the housing stock (our building) is kept in a condition defined by standards from which no deviation is allowed. Everything is supposed to be perfect. Yes, literally. Don’t laugh. Just how perfect is clearly shown in Article 4.7.4 of the Technical Maintenance Rules, which states that “all parts of entrance doors must be cleaned to a shine periodically, as they become dirty.” The phrase “cleaned to a shine” isn’t some old army joke about toothbrushes. It’s about our building entrance. We pay for this. Or take the floor tiles in the entrance hall: Articles 4.4.14–15 say that “when repairing tiles, replacements must be matched by color and pattern. Damaged sections of flooring must be restored in layers of the same thickness and using the same materials as the previously laid floor.” Fancy, huh? Let me repeat: every month we pay roughly half of our entire utility bill under the line item “Maintenance and Repairs” for exactly this. Some people practically die when they see the bill. But the maintenance companies do nothing, forge work completion reports, and steal our money. There is a special State Housing Inspectorate and other government agencies. The Code of Administrative Offenses even has Article 7.22, “Violation of the rules for maintenance and repair of residential buildings.” The fine is up to 50,000 rubles (about $550–$600 at typical recent exchange rates). So dirt in the elevator isn’t just dirt. It’s an administrative offense. The head of the housing office, district maintenance authority, or homeowners’ association can be fined up to 5,000 rubles (about $55–$60), and the maintenance company itself up to 50,000.
We’ve built a service based entirely on current legislation and the endless rules written in tiny print that you can never bring yourself to read. And you don’t have to. We’ve read it all for you. RosZhKH is a service that helps force utility providers and building maintenance companies to do their jobs properly. Our website sends ready-made complaints automatically. Choose a problem from the list Fill in your contact details Click “Send” In other words, you don’t need to print anything out or go to the post office. You don’t need to pick a fight with your local housing office, either. You don’t even need to register on the site (if you send a complaint, that counts as your registration). RosZhKH sends official statements to government officials on its own. After a complaint is submitted, the State Housing Inspectorate, acting under Article 5 of the government resolution “On the State Housing Inspectorate,” carries out an on-site inspection, draws up a report and a protocol, and issues an order requiring everything to be brought into proper condition. RosZhKH works not only in Moscow. We’ve collected the contact details of the relevant authorities in all 83 federal subjects of Russia. And it makes absolutely no difference whether your building is managed by a housing office, a homeowners’ association, a district maintenance authority, or anyone else. It works everywhere. You don’t even have to be officially registered in the apartment. You can also report problems in your grandmother’s building. It all works—we’ve tested it in practice.
Obviously, for utility-sector crooks, our project is a very sharp stick we’re poking them with. Because they’ll have to spend the money they collect for its intended purpose instead of stealing it and writing it off as capital repairs. So of course we don’t expect everything to go smoothly everywhere. But nothing happens unless you make it happen. Together with you, we’ll be conducting “field experiments in housing and utilities” and improving both our service and our “enforcement mechanisms.” This project desperately needs feedback, and we very much hope to get it from you: At our Foundation, the RosZhKH project is coordinated by Dima Levenets. He’s eager to hear your criticism, suggestions, and complaints. Get in touch with him: LiveJournal: http://dimalevenets.livejournal.com/ Facebook: http://facebook.com/dimalevenets Twitter: https://twitter.com/dimalevenets VK: http://vk.com/dimalevenets The RosZhKH site is only the part of that beautiful white iceberg that’s visible above the waterline—the one we’re launching straight into the foul wasps’ nest of housing-and-utilities theft and corruption. I realize an iceberg can’t exactly sail into a wasps’ nest, but what a wonderful metaphor. As part of the project, we’ve launched several cases through which we’ll develop standard ways of fighting housing-and-utilities crooks—methods that everyone will later be able to use. You may have noticed some of our earlier actions in this area: Crooks in Tula carried out mass fabrication of residents’ meeting minutes. A hellish case in Khimki. Our battle with the people shutting off hot water in Voronezh (the article with the best headline in the world) And there’s much more that we’ll be telling you about gradually. As you understand, none of this moves quickly—court proceedings over even the smallest nonsense drag on for months. So, here it is: the best remote service currently available for housing-and-utilities problems. And it will be the first step in our sacred war to make sure our monthly utility payments are used for their intended purpose. Fight for better housing and utility services with us. Fight for better housing and utility services the way we do. Fight for better housing and utility services even better than we do.
P.S. Sharing this post and the link http://roszkh.ru/ is highly encouraged. Update. Almost forgot—here’s RosZhKH on social media. Join us:http://facebook.com/roszkh https://twitter.com/roszkhru http://vk.com/roszkh