Usually we get owners writing to this column but tenants suffer just as much from strata maddies, if not more. QUESTION: We have been tenants in a block of about 60 apartments for the past seven years and we love it here – or we did until a new caretaker-manager was hired.
Now I’ve been threatened with having my car towed from the space I’ve used for years, have been verbally abused and my husband has been physically intimidated by the manager and his mates. He even ripped into a neighbour for being one of the tenants who were “sabotaging” the property. The next day he apologised, saying he hadn’t realised she was an owner and he would never have been so rude to her if he’d known.
Meanwhile he has told other female tenants the way they dress offends his religion. But when we complained to the Executive Committee Chairman, he said the caretaker was always polite, friendly and helpful. The clear implication was that we were the problem. Other tenants and several owners feel intimidated and creeped out by this guy. The easiest thing would be to move out but I don’t see why I should be driven out of my home. What can we do?
Ropable, Potts Point ANSWER: Tenants are routinely treated like crap in some buildings and this sounds very like a manager I knew who sucked up shamelessly to the chairman and his cronies and treated everyone else, especially tenants, like dirt.
That’s why when you complain, the executive committee members are incredulous: “You mean that lovely man who licks our boots every morning? Surely not!” It would damage your block if it got a reputation for being anti-tenant (and anti-women, by the sound of it). So I would get a symapthetic owner to propose a code of conduct for this guy, and anyone in his position, that makes it clear he’s not allowed to make personal comments about female residents and that he has to treat owners and tenants exactly the same. Who could argue with that?
Get the support of as many owners and landlords as you can and it could make him calm down if not drive him out altogether.