[melmike]

My nephew has apparently been causing much distress to his neighbours with loud music, pot and cigarette smoking etc. He lives in an apartment his mother bequeathed to him. There have been so so many complaints. His (estranged) sister is a property manager and coincidentally manages a few places in his building. She has assured strata that he will be moving out (seems he wants a bigger place) but no one knows when. Meanwhile, all they can do is complain and strata sends notices to him. Must be awful for them.

[melmike]

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE! It seems the people in the building next door hear the poor dog crying all day now that it’s left in the side passage. We don’t hear it. They have left very polite notes in our mailboxes, so we will see what happens now.

[melmike]

UPDATE TO ORIGINAL POST:
It seems our persistence has paid off. Perhaps our new neighbours consulted their own strata experts re leaving their dog alone on common property beside the pool, or perhaps they listened to my husband’s alternative option.
Running down the side of the building from the fire exit door is an outdoor passageway: said dog is now ensconced there on days the neighbours are out (one floor below their apt). There is no exit to the street (except by locked door). At first the neighbour complained that it had no shade, so my husband suggested a kennel. And that’s what they have done (alongside a spade and food bowls). I’m perfectly happy with this solution. (The spade is a big giveaway as to what I could have expected on my daily swim!). So glad it’s been resolved so quickly and easily.

[melmike]

The trouble is we are the committee. Two apartments, 2 couples (four people). So who investigates whom?

[melmike]

So, the situation is difficult because there were originally 3 apartments, but previous owners bought two and turned it into one. This means our new neighbours (who bought that lot) have voting rights of 60% while we have 40%.  I’m ASSUMING they cannot just use their larger percentage to vote for a benefit for themselves.

I’m pretty sure our by-laws say no pets without agreement, and we verbally agreed to them bringing the dog when they were looking at buying the place. But there’s certainly nothing about pets being allowed on common property.

We really hope to come to some agreement. But we returned from holidays this morning to find that they moved the dog bed down there. When I told her again today that we did not agree to the dog being there she said, “We’ll have to talk about it.”  They are used to getting  their own way but while we don’t want to get adversarial, we have consulted a lawyer to establish our rights. Sigh.

 

[melmike]

We moved into a 2 lot strata building 7 years ago: our downstairs neighbours have 60% and we have 40% . We have AGMs every year with the strata manager and all common costs are split as per the percentage. We are not “friends” with our neighbours but are friendly. We are lucky that everyone is reasonable and understands that the building needs to be maintained to a certain standard if we are to protect our individual investments. We all want to live in a lovely, clean, well run building. It’s more work, I presume, than a building with more apartments: we have to be home to let the fire inspections in, to get the pool serviced etc etc. Also we take on a lot of that type of organisation rather than going through the strata manager only because it’s faster and more efficient. If the garage gate is broken, one of us will call to have it repaired, pay for it, and get reimbursed by strata. It works if everyone is on the same page.

[melmike]

How do you stay sane! I’m glad you do, though, thanks

[melmike]

?! This is confusing, isn’t it?

especially as it’s an empty apartment but in a strata building!

[melmike]

Good suggestions. Thank you for following this up for me.

[melmike]

This is interesting, thank you. They are starting major renovations in an empty apartment (obviously sharing our lift) so I can’t imagine there will only be 2 tradies in there at one time. I suppose, do I care? The faster their work goes the better for us…as long as they keep the common areas clean and wipe the elevators etc every day.

 

[melmike]

Hi, what do you mean you will go with a telco? Is that an option for lifts? We have one lift and last year were quoted over $4K to “upgrade” wiring etc to get NBN ready. 

Now the building is finally NBN ready and I suspect that $4K will have increased. 

Are you saying we have other options, besides the lift company?

 

thanks

[melmike]

It’s now a year later and only now can our building get the NBN (we were told it would be mid-2017).

We were given a quote from the lift company last year of over $4k to make the lift NBN ready.
This seems high!
Has anyone in the past 12 months had any more experience with this issue? Emergency phones in lifts?

This is from the lift company and I barely understand a word! “At your request, we have put together the below quotation to upgrade from the NBN to a GSM Unit. We wish to inform you of the option to bypass the landlines and upgrade the lift phone to connect to the mobile network, which will also prepare the building for the NBN.

Following the National Broadband Network (NBN) rollout, the building’s existing emergency phone lines will stop working. Our proposed solution involves upgrading to a Cellular Gateway (CGW) unit, which provides a new phone line on the GSM (Global System for Mobile) network to bypass the existing copper wiring landlines.”

Their “proposed solution”. Is that the best? Is that the only one? I am SO confused. Anyone able to advise please? Thanks

[melmike]

Oh, we would never consider it without discussing with them. I was just wondering about the legality of it all. Thanks

[melmike]

thank you

[melmike]

So we are responsible re the lifts etc then?

There are only 2 apartments in the building, so my husband and I are one half of the OC.

Thanks for the link

[Author]

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