How to Be Your Own Super - The New Yorker

Many New Yorkers have a relationship with their building superintendent that could be described as a war of attrition. Chronic leaks, misaligned schedules—resentments can build quickly. Recently, Vladimir Srdoč (pronounced “sir-doch”), a live-in handyman on the Upper West Side, decided to do something about this: he would lead a workshop to teach renters how to fix stuff themselves.

Srdoč, a forty-three-year-old immigrant from the former Yugoslavia, is a quintessential odd-jobber. Fast-talking, with a powerful build and a sloped brow, he’s seen a lot. “I’ve probably done work in eighteen thousand apartments,” he said. “And, once the job was done, there was always a list of more problems: the doorknobs are loose, cabinet doors need to be fixed.”

His girlfriend posted a message in a neighborhood Facebook group advertising “a beginner handy man workshop.” On the appointed evening, six students showed up in the basement of Srdoč’s building, meeting in a space adjoining a bike storage/laundry room.

“Can I get anyone a beer?” Srdoč asked, in greeting, as he gestured to a spread of melon cubes and microwaved popcorn. (One took him up on the offer.) In exchange for two hundred and twenty-five dollars, each student was temporarily issued a stocked plastic toolbox, two power drills, assorted screws, and a bright-red carpenter pencil, which a few instinctively stuck behind their ears.

Srdoč began with a lesson on the art of hanging things up. First point: know your wall. Wood is porous; plaster often crumbles; drywall is soft enough to be punctured with a thumbtack but is a no-go for nails. He brought out an array of hangable homeware. “I just picked some random stuff,” he said, holding up a stabilizing shower bar, designed for elderly bathers. “These things end up being really important later on,” he told the group of mostly thirtysomethings. Then he brandished a metal toilet-paper holder: “This one is a pain in the ass to install.” He had given each student a board of Sheetrock to practice on, and showed them all how to drill.

“I’ve hung one to two thousand televisions in the city,” he said. “And the only one that has ever fallen down was our own.”

One student, a baker, was paying close attention. “I tried to put up a shelf in my kitchen, and I ended up putting the biggest hole in my wall,” she said. “The shelf has been sitting on the floor for two weeks, because I’m too scared to put it back up.” She was hoping that Srdoč’s class could make her more self-reliant. “My building’s maintenance staff is too flirty,” she said. “And they expect tips. I’d rather just do it myself.”

Doorknobs were next. Srdoč had made a series of miniature doors, each with a hole in it, to teach the knob-installation process. As the students wielded their screwdrivers, he said, “Every doorknob works on the same system. Some are just more of a pain.”

A married couple named Matt and Jessica Fondacaro were flummoxed; their knob was missing a piece of hardware. Srdoč improvised a solution: he unscrewed the knob on the only entrance to the room. “We’ll still be able to get out,” he reassured everyone.

The Fondacaros, who were expecting their first child, had signed up for the workshop after struggling to assemble a changing table. “I mean, I work in real estate,” Matt said sheepishly, gripping his drill.

Jessica corrected him: “Well, not real estate. He works in private equity, specializing in real estate.”

Matt added, “For our projects, we hire people to do this stuff.”

As his pupils worked, Srdoč told his story. “I grew up on a farm in Yugoslavia. We were driving tractors by the time we were six,” he said. When he moved to New York to work in maintenance, he felt an awkward distance from his clients. “There’s never a calm feeling about a blue-collar person coming in,” he went on. “You’re invading someone’s apartment for an hour, and I’ve seen horrible experiences of how guys walk in. They come in grumpy. I always came in smiling.”

“My landlord is insane,” the baker said.

It was time for some electrical work. Red, black, and white wires poked menacingly out of several outlet-mounting boxes. “The chance of electricity causing a fire is slim to none,” Srdoč reassured the class, handing around dimmer switches. “The worst-case scenario is you trip a breaker.”

He began stripping wire. His main goal, he stressed, was encouraging people to at least try tackling a problem before calling a pro. “It costs, like, four hundred bucks for an electrician to install a dimmer, and a dimmer costs, like, thirty bucks,” he said.

Matt Fondacaro successfully wired his switch. Jessica grinned. Then she asked Srdoč, “We have an annoying outlet that only works when a light switch is on. Would that be an easy thing to change?”

“Uh, no,” Srdoč said. “For that, you should get an electrician.”♦

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