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Topic
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Hello,
I've been renting a unit for 2 years. My unit is located directly over the elecronic garage door to secure car park. When I moved in the noise from the garage door was noticeable but bearable. But in the last year the noise has become so loud it sounds like a train driving through my unit. I can't sleep and nights and weekends have become unbearable. I can't afford to move so approached the body corporate, who advised me to contact my real estate agent, who advised me to contact the Building Strata Mgmt co. I have been sent round in circles for months and months. I decided I had no alternative but approach the Fair Trading Tribunal for a hearing about the problem. I have since had garbage dumped on my front door and veiled threats. I'm so stressed and miserable. Anyone walking in my unit cannot believe I'm living with the noise and I can't believe noone has even bothered to come to see what the problem is. I have lost all my faith in human decency and as a woman living alone have been frightened by a very aggressive representative from the body corporate. Can anyone please tell me who is responsible for the noise from the door?
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It seems you've done all of the right things
You need to keep trying
The obvious answer is that the Owners Corporation is responsible for correcting the noise & both your owner( and by extension your real estate agent) & the owners corporation are required to give you peaceful enjoyment.
Write a letter or email to your agent citing this issue & ask them to confirm that they have contacted the Exec Comm or their strata manager.
If a garage door is making this sort of noise it can't be good for the door either & the owners corporation must maintain common property
If you get nowhere check the building notice board to find out who committee members are & try to find a sympathetic one to come to listen & broach the matter with the Exec Comm
If you still get nowhere lodge a claim at CTTT against your landlord for financial compensation for not providing peaceful enjoyment & I know from experience that your landlord will get on to the Exec Comm & badger them until they solve the problem
Good Luck
It's sad that it has to come to this to get an issue solved
Sharyn Machin
Garages are usually common property, which would make the owners corporation responsible for repairing the door. Owners corporations delegate these kinds of matters to the executive committee (a committee of 1-9 people), who sometimes delegate their authority to building managers and strata managing agents.
You could ask anyone from the above how much they think it would cost to fix the door. If the sum is small, it'll be easier to reason with them to fix the door, because the cost of repair is taken from an administrative fund that all strata owners have to contribute to four times a year anyway. If you obtain your own quotes on the cost of repair, and the sum is low, it could be an added incentive for those in power to fix. I say could be, because some buildings are run by personal interests who take umbrage at the idea of having common property repaired at competitive prices by outsiders, or the very thought of serfs encroaching on power wielded within the fiefdom.
In the unlikely chance that it's not common property and belongs to an individual person, I think it'll be harder to compel the individual owner to fix it, because they'll have to pay the entire repair themselves, which won't be pocket change.
What's your landlord's take on all of this? If you're a good tenant, the landlord may be sympathetic and be willing to take up your cause, especially as the problem isn't going away and will plague future tenants regardless. An owner taking up a cause tends to enjoy more respect than a tenant.
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