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The increase in infestations in the U.S. may be due to more travel.

As summer unfolds and the travel season kicks into high gear, there’s an increased risk that your household members may encounter bedbugs and bring them back to your site as unwanted guests. With their peak activity in the warmer months, it’s crucial to be prepared. These resilient pests hitch rides on travelers’ belongings and find new homes in unsuspecting apartments.

Hiring the wrong remediator can make the problem worse—and more costly.

It's no surprise that many sites spend a big portion of their operating budgets on professional landscape services. And it’s a major expense that managers can substantially impact to reduce a site’s operating costs. Here are seven steps you should take when bidding out landscaping maintenance. By taking these steps, you'll maximize bargaining leverage, fine-tune financial planning, and acquire critical information about the technical competence of bidders.

Mold at your site can cause you big problems. The problems can range from remediation costs to loss of rent, and, perhaps most critically, long-term health effects. Mold-related health effects cause households to sue owners and managers claiming that they were injured by the presence of mold in their units. Even residents who themselves may be responsible for the mold growth might still sue you if they’ve been injured by mold.

You can keep emergency repair costs to a minimum by reducing the number of these repairs your site needs, and by planning ahead to keep their costs and the damage they cause under control. Here are four tips that will help you avoid having to make emergency repairs and control the costs of those emergency repairs you can’t avoid.

Nonresident loitering is a safety issue and a common complaint of tax credit managers—especially those in urban areas. Loiterers, who can range from skateboarding teenagers to homeless people to criminals to ex-spouses involved in domestic disputes, can create lots of problems for managers. For example, they can diminish the site's curb appeal, pose security problems, and increase the maintenance and cleaning staff's workload. Here are seven steps you can take to reduce loitering at your site

If a staff member or resident reports that a door or lock at a building or unit entrance is broken, you may think you can wait until morning or even a few days to repair this condition. But that would be a mistake. Any delay leaves residents at risk and increases the likelihood of your being held liable if a crime occurs. If an intruder breaks into a building or unit at your site and attacks a resident, the resident could blame you.

If your site needs non-routine maintenance and repair work, you must decide between either using your own staff or hiring outside contractors. Some managers think that it’s always cheaper to use their site staff, but that’s not necessarily so. There are costs associated with using your staff just as there are with hiring outside contractors. If you do a comparative analysis of these costs, you may find that it’s more efficient to hire an outside contractor for a particular job.

Extreme weather frequently knocks over electrical lines. Such power outages are common during disasters, and they can last for several days. With this year’s record-breaking hurricane season along with record wildfires on the West Coast, it may be a good idea to review basic safety measures when relying on a backup generator to bring a site back up and running.

While the country is still dealing with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Atlantic hurricane season will be here soon. Hurricane season begins on June 1, just as many South and East Coast states are set to enter a delicate re-opening process. Hurricane season brings extreme events and creates conditions that spread disease and viruses.