@struggler said:
I too live in a townhouse complex. We have owners who appear to be happy to have a pile of leaves at their front door and a weed or two. They just step over them going in or out of their unit. … It is disappointing when a resident does not want to take enough pride in where they are living to bend over and pick something/sweep something up.The only way to ensure there were not leaves or pieces of paper would be to have someone standing by! Is once a week enough? Not if you live in an area with a lot of trees when the southerlies blow. Twice a week? Probably would do it. But I personally would not like the loss of privacy of having someone regularly at my front door sweeping up a few leaves. So I do this myself.
I live in one of eleven villas in a 40+ year old complex, our garbage bins are our own responsibility and we put them out and bring them in as we would if we were in a Torrens Title property.
(I think some posters just in a big complex imagine everyone has a huge bin room that would get really on the nose.)
Most of the residents here take pride with their surroundings and sweep paths, etc. but we have a clean-up every six months or so and the regular gardener is given a list of things to be done that the Owners submit to the EC.
Getting back to victoria’s original post, we have a 5 year plan that seems to have low estimated costs. At our last AGM the SM put up suggested levies for this year but only three of us were prepared to pay the increased levies. Some of the owners are very elderly and on pensions.
One owner who was on the EC for several years, resigned, but was very vocal about the increase in levies. His comment was “we can always get a Strata loan”.
As I am retiring from full time work next year I do not want to have the additional interest expense of a strata loan.
I am sure it will come up again at the AGM and I will say that as our villas are a perfect place to be in, even very elderly. It would be cheaper in the long run for the families of the elderly owners to help them out with higher levies, so they can stay in their home for as long as possible.
If their elderly parent moves to aged care, I think the children will be losing a lot of their ‘inheritance’ because of the high costs involved getting an aged care bed anywhere. Many people now have to sell the family home to afford the entry fees for aged care.