Let's recover the conserges

The gradual loss of the conserges has made us think about the work that this figure plays in society. In former times, conserges were highly valued, but today they are in danger of extinction and need to be recovered.

What els porters dels residential buildings have been lost is an obvious fact. Over time they have been relegated to office buildings or high-rise estates, but I have long thought that although in these times having a porter may seem like an unnecessary luxury, the reality is that it is a figure that, if well thought out, could bring about a substantial improvement in the quality of urban life and the management of neighbourhood communities.

Let me explain. For a moment let's forget the classic doorman who spends hours at the door of the building reading the newspaper and who, at the most, cleans a bit, delivers the mail and takes down the rubbish. Let's imagine a concierge trained in plumbing, able to deal with the fundamental maintenance tasks of a building and its habitats.

We can also ask him to clean the property a couple of times a week and to collect the purchases we make on the Internet (which are becoming more and more frequent) or those we make at the supermarket, which he will keep in a properly equipped room with a fridge. If we bear in mind that nowadays almost everyone has a basic or intermediate education, perhaps we can ask him to manage certain administrative matters of the building, such as the payment of subcontractors. Perhaps you would just need a bit of support from a management company or software to carry out the tasks that some professional administrators do, which leave a lot to be desired.

It is true that supporting the cost of a caretaker on staff is not possible in buildings with few inhabitants, but perhaps if a couple of neighbouring buildings are brought together, there is enough critical mass of neighbours to make it viable. We would have to analyse the community costs in those buildings without a caretaker who pays for an administrator, a cleaning service, emergency repairs, a lick of paint from time to time... Maybe for a little more they could enjoy more services and better quality.