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Re pet owners: What are their responsibilities? Such as faeces deposits on Common Property?
I had returned to my building, entered, and was instantly approached by the temping young female cleaner. “Did you step on the dog poo”. What! I said. Whereupon she pointed to it right in the middle of the doorway entrance. I checked my shoes.
I told her to complain to the B.C. as I did not feel she should have to do the removal of the poo. I left her in her quandary. Next day she told me she contacted her cleaning company who told she had to clean the disgusting mess. What are cleaners’ rights?
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If Esmeralda is in NSW and her building allows pets, the relevant by-law most likely requires that a pet owner must “take any action that is necessary to clean all areas of the lot or the common property that are soiled by the animal”.
If the perpetrator can’t be identified, then the unfortunate cleaner is probably stuck with the problem, which is a sad reflection on her employer’s lack of respect for its staff. She has rights, but they are not being respected, possibly because she is young, female, and perhaps also a visa holder with plenty of potential replacements available if she quits.
She deserves support from the Owners’ Corporation.
Whilst it is disappointing thst pet owners leave the fouling of their pets, the job of the cleaner is to clean.
No one likes picking up animal droppings, but it’s not the OC job to “protect” the cleaner. And you don’t know – the cleaning company may be a very good employer. I’m sure that this is not the first poo the cleaner has encountered and won’t be the last.
Your energies are best spent to fund the culprit. Have you tried CCTV tapes?
She is a cleaner. If she can’t handle a bit of dog/cat poo, perhaps she should be looking at a less stressful job. Her rights? Well perhaps her employer should be providing the correct equipment to handle the task.
As pointed out, by-laws permitting pets generally have provisions regarding the pet owner’s responsibility regarding any mess that the pet may make on common property. Our by-laws provide that the owner must clean it up, but it may be that the owner cannot be identified (in our building it is pretty easy).
In relation to the cleaner – the cleaner is employed by the cleaning company. The OC has a contract with the cleaning company. Cleaners are engaged by the OC to clean the property, and that may include unpleasant messes of various kinds. It is not a matter for the OC to deal with a cleaning contractor’s “rights”. If you feel that the cleaner should not be dealing with it, then who should?
My strata has has a long term overbearing committee member that sends their dog unaccompanied to defecate on common property and the rest of the committee is not willing to take on this 6ft 4 ex rugby player.
Dog/cat poo is an annoying issue, but hardly a big one
If a cleaner, regardless of age or gender is traumatised by a small amount of waste matter, perhaps they should not be doing cleaning work.
As for “supporting” the cleaner, the employer should be providing them with suitable tools, and PPE, to carry out such work.
The OC should have some sort of agreement/contract with the cleaning company stipulating what level of work is to be carried out on a regular basis, with possible provision for “extras” at agreed rates.
I don’t live in strata, and made a decision some years ago not to do so because of similar matters such as these. So perhaps I should mind my own business; anyway here is my six pence worth.
Technically I agree with scotlandx, but on a more personal/individual note though there is the societal matter of personal<->communal responsibility.
(Normally) outside the confines of the strata it is the responsibility of the owner to pick up. Why should inside the ”communal strata zone” be any different? This applies to general littering as well I think.
If you own a dog that’s your job (to pick up). If you don’t want to do that job, hire someone to do your dirty work or just don’t own/walk a dog.
What about a Bylaw requiring Pet owners to register the animals DNA with the body corporate. Then the committee and cleaners could collect and send for analysis any uncollected droppings left on common property. If that then matches back to registered pet, the owner is responsible for the cost of analysis, and cleaning, and can be issued a NTC for not cleaning up after their animal .
Might be a bit of a “sledgehammer to crack a nut” solution though.
Jimmy, I have not yet read the Act but if you are talking about amendments, then surely there should be something about requiring owners to clean up their pet’s mess. This is not really damage, and the smell may not penetrate, but it can be an issue if an owner continually lets there dog out to defecate and it goes on the common property and no one picks up after it.
This becomes an even greater horror when it comes to human blood dripped across a hallway after someone jammed their thumb in their door. If that person won’t, as you would hope they might, it unfortunately comes down to and within your cleaner’s general duties.
I would imagine the thumb-jammer would be preoccupied with the pain. That’s an accident. Someone supervising their dog taking dump on common property is an insult to everyone else in the strata scheme, cleaners included.
As for amendments to the laws, this should already exist in the by-laws, in some form or another.
Both options A and B of the current model pet by-laws contain the provision than pet owners must “take any action that is necessary to clean all areas of the lot or the common property that are soiled by the animal.”
Update your by-laws then enforce them. It’s really as simple as that.
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Thanks very much Jimmy. I had forgotten the provisions at the end of the model pet bylaws. These should cover this problem.
Even if the pet owner cleans up the ‘deposit’ there will still be germs and maybe even skid marks or smears that require cleaning.
A resident may step in such an item outside the building and walk through leaving possibly unseen traces on the walkway. The cleaner will still need to clean this despite the pet owner not being a resident.
All in all a round about way of saying that cleaners will always be exposed to hazardous materials that may or may not have emanated from a resident animal.
Regardless of any animus the cleaner may have to animal faecal matter they will in the normal course of duty encounter it either knowingly or unknowingly.
Therefore, prepare for the foreseeable and make it clean whilst wearing PPE. It is an inherent part of their role.