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Why not do it yourself?? You can put a proposal to the committee that you take on the cleaning and gardening and putting the bins out and get paid for it for the same amount of $$ that is being paid to the contractors. This has been done before in other strata complexes where a resident takes on those chores. All you need is an ABN and then the common property gets done properly and you get paid for it. Any complaints about poor performance then fall back on you. Things can go awry if you go on holidays and no-one else is prepared to cover you in the interim.
As an alternative, you could ask neighboring strata complexes if they recommend anyone and who they use. Our guy does nearly all of the apartments in our street. If anything needs doing, I just email the manager and he attends to it or instructs and supervises his labourer’s.
You really need to furnish the contractors with a written and agreed upon job specification which outlines exactly what their duties are,and the outcomes expected.
I am hoping that this does not actually go to NCAT that mediation alone would sort it out.
Does the OP mean proceeding to a tribunal hearing? To obtain mediation in the first place, doesn’t a complainant have to lodge a complaint with NCAT, where the matter is first sent to mediation to resolve issues between the parties without a formal tribunal hearing? I am assuming that most complaints lodged are resolved at mediation level at NCAT because no-one, including the tribunal adjudicators want to hear and determine conflict matters that tie up court time and can be costly.
I suppose you could record the dog barking for distribution to fellow residents so they can hear for themselves what you have to put up with, as well as the SM. I haven’t been to NCAT, but I assume they need some sort of evidence anyway to substantiate your claim. I am a bit old school with recording since I grew up with cassette tapes and recorders, but I suppose you could do it on your iphone. You may have to agitate and lobby other residents, attend meetings, have your issue put on the agenda to discuss a resolution to your issue. Not easy if you are both unit owners and plan on staying where you are.
Yeah…..but everyone is out to make a buck off everyone else aren’t they? That’s life! How do you know the strata report purchased isn’t biased anyway? The behaviour of crazy neighbours that force the vendor to sell isn’t usually documented anywhere official, and for the purchaser it really is ‘buyer beware’.
JT, what is the position in NSW? A tenant here has made a water ingress complaint which looks like being a costly repair.
Goldie, you are not on your own! Since you live only a few kilometres away from me, I wonder if we are sharing the same appalling strata manager. See my thread on Costly Petty Repairs by doing a search on this forum and you shall see the responses so far. At least your SM sends an email asking you to ‘please pay this invoice’. Mine just issues work orders on the instructions of tenants who are responsible for the problem in the first place.
OMG…life can be a nuisance! It reminds me of the time when the strong winds blew down a power pole in the evening around dinner time. This pole provided power to our entire block of units. The electrical crew turned up the next day to work the entire day making repairs to give us electricity, but in the meantime it was such a hassle and an inconvenience. I couldn’t have a hot shower before bed, or watch TV. I had to read a book by candlelight (not good for my eyes) and go to bed early at 8pm, because there was nothing else to do. In the morning we had daylight and I went to McDonalds for a hot breakfast because fortunately someone had winched the electrical security door open so cars could be driven out of the basement car park for people who needed to get out to go to work. My ice-cream in the fridge melted from having no power, and I still couldn’t shower before work. I also had to reset all of the electrical clocks; plus I couldn’t use the computer and access the internet to read ‘Flat Chat’.
No real experience, but just commonsense and working with an issue. Do you drive to work and need to use your car on a daily basis? If not, then arrange errands, shopping etc. to not happen in that week that the work is scheduled and just tolerate the inconvenience. Keep your car parked in your car space, and if you need to run an errand, get a cab home. If you need the car to go to work every day, then park it in the street and hope you are lucky when you get home to find a nearby vacant space and you don’t have to walk far.
Have you ever had some moron prang your car in an accident that wasn’t your fault and the panel beater needed to keep it for a week to make repairs, and you were peeved at the inconvenience of having no car to drive, caused over something that wasn’t your doing? I have! That’s life!
The driveway needs to be repaired. Probably concrete needs to be laid and allowed to dry for a few days. Other residents are also being inconvenienced but complaining about trivialities that may not happen will not achieve anything but your neighbors branding you to be a whinger. There are probably a few young mums with small kids who live in your apartment block, who have to park a long way away for the week also, and are bothered by dragging prams and screaming toddlers 100 metres home. There are businessmen who have heavy briefcases full of papers who have to do the same thing. You are not the only person who has to put up with the remedial work. It is only for one week!
Well you have called their bluff already and paid the invoice minus the late fee imposed. What is the late fee anyway? some 10%? or $20 – $30? When my apartment purchase was settled eight years ago, the strata company imposed a late fee on me for levies some 3 months later, but they had never invoiced me as the new owner initially, so I had no idea of the levy notice being due. I wrote a covering letter to them advising them it was their fault for not mailing me the levy notice in advance, and I wasn’t paying the 10% penalty (or $13 charge) as I recall. I never heard anything more about it. For the strata company to take debt recovery proceedings over such a paltry amount as an overdue percentage would be ludicrous and simply not worth their time. Most strata agencies have moved with the times these days and email the levy notice rather than use snail mail anyway. I suppose you could get narky with them if they want to pursue it and advise you will put forward a motion for another change of strata manager ( as a matter of principle) at the next AGM if they don’t back off. That reminds me, I have to draft a motion to propose a change of strata manager at my next AGM……….!!!!!
Why not post a photo so we can see the situation of the staircase before advising?
I really think Reddant’s remedy lies in having a ‘cease and desist’ letter on a legal letterhead posted to the amorous miscreant. I could almost guarantee that a threat of legal proceedings from a lawyer if the behavior continues will be sufficient to ‘nip it in the bud’ before you need to get the strata committee involved or threaten breach of by-laws (although your lawyer could include this in their letter). The offender should be sufficiently intimidated by your legal stance, at then avoiding meeting you at all costs on common property; or maybe moving out altogether to avoid further confrontation. Spending a few hundred dollars $$$ on a lawyers letter will be worth your trouble. It’s my experience that most committee members and managers don’t want to get involved in other residents conflict issues. Plus you may find involving other people in such a personal issue embarrassing. So get a lawyer!
Post a task on Airtasker calling for a lawyer to undertake this very simple task for you. The cut price rates for bidding on Airtasker by competitive lawyers who are desperate for work, might lessen the financial burden on you and permit you to enter 2022 harassment free! Let the forum know how you go as I am anxious to find out having suffered unwelcome sexual harassment from unattractive and unappealing male neighbors myself.
Unfortunately this does happen in apartment blocks. When I purchased my first apartment in Sydney some years ago, an upstairs neighbor constantly harassed me but not on common property. He had suffered a stroke and was wheelchair bound.
It had apparently affected his masculinity and when his wife told him a young female had moved in downstairs I was subjected to all sorts of filthy behavior with them inviting me upstairs for a meal (so they could get to know their new neighbor) where he would masturbate in front of me, invite me to watch porn movies with him, ask personal questions about my private life and ask me to come to a nudist colony with them etc.
The obvious reaction to this would be not to go to their apartment again. However, the AGM, and any directors meetings were held there because of his physical impediments to leaving the unit. I was more surprised at the wife’s behavior of being a complicit accomplice to his dirty intentions.
I recall telephoning the wife from work one day to ask if she would go downstairs and check from the outside if I had shut my bedroom window as I thought I may have inadvertently left it open and it was bothering me that I could be burgled ( I was on the ground floor). I could hear her husband calling out in the background “get her work number off her! get her work number off her”.
Another older female resident had told me he opened the door to her in the nude when she knocked for some reason.
I was very young and naive at dealing with such a situation. In hindsight I would have written a letter to them asking them to stop and put it in their letterbox. My father was on the verge of speaking with them about it as it was obviously causing me a great deal of distress.
If it takes a legal letter from a lawyer or you proceed with lodging an AVO, that may be a sufficient deterrent to having the bad behavior cease without a formal court order. It can be really unpleasant to have to live with neighbors who cause unnecessary distress this way.
Spend a few hundred dollars and pay a solicitor to write a legal letter to scare this dude from re-offending. If that doesn’t work then get the committee/ strata manager behind you. From what I have read of your post he may be even unaware that he is causing any trouble. Some people just have warped personalities. Go and see a solicitor.