Five dumb reasons (and one good one) for saying no to solar
Wondering whether your building is ready to make the great leap forward into solar energy? This month a new online tool was launched, allowing you to calculate how much…
It’s Byron Airbn-Bay as holiday town “gutted” by online lets
A newspaper interview by our good mate Mark Dapin reveals that online holiday letting is “gutting” Byron Bay. Meanwhile the State government snuggles up to Airbnb with a plan to…
Floating floors and renos
Who’s responsible when a neighbour floods your timber floor – insurers can’t agree. And then there’s the vexed question of compensation for tenants during major renovations … and more on…
Roundup: Complicit or compliant?
A story in the SMH last week about the relaxation of planning laws explains how new rules about ‘complying developments’ will make it easier to build townhouses and small…
Strataleaks – why you MUST lock your website
A few weeks ago we discussed in Flat Chat in the Australian Financial Review whether or not it’s a good idea for your building to have some sort of internet…
Roundup: Mr Valentine ponders training committee members
In a post-broadcast chat with James Valentine the other day (you can hear the Podcast here), he raised the issue of qualifications for strata committee members. James, who chaired…
How you can recycle, recover and re-use
In the dim and distant days before the Flat Chat strata forum was born and my partner was briefly chair of our building, she said: “Why don’t we have a clothing recycling…
Free guides through the strata maze
There are many barriers to the smooth running of strata schemes but foremost among them would have to be lack of knowledge. If you add up all the people who…
It’s time to do something about Airbnb
Worried about what’s happening regarding the impending short-term holiday letting legislation? You should be. Right now, it sounds like the NSW government could be going down the Victorian route which…
Roundup: Are balconies the next child safety battleground?
There’s a very lively discussion going on in the Forum right now between a Flatchatter who has installed child safety netting on her balcony and her committee and strata manager…
Flat Chat goes flat out with a website upgrade
I was wondering the other day how many millions of person-hours we humans spend every day collectively watching the progress bars of internet downloads, the hypnotic wheels of endless buffering…
Last post for insecure mailboxes
If there was one thing about its entrance that would put me off buying an apartment – apart from the obvious warning signs like grafitti, broken windows and wandering Airbnb…