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Topic
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A problem has developed in my strata-building. And effecting now, I’d say most buildings in NSW and Victoria, with outdated strata-laws, and outdating buildings not fit to cope with young families with you guessed it children/kids. As post WW2 baby-boomer generation, Australian apartment buildings were not built/or designed for families with children, just adults. As young families of past generations(eg baby-boomers) would live the now old outdated great Australian dream of buying your own home(the 1/4 acre block which is now a faded dream and reality for young Gen X-Y OZ families in 2015).
We have a shute and the cleaners have complained about getting soiled nappies chucked down them, “talk about airing your dirty laundry”.
Now another problem I’m having, and that’s kids on my floor, and one of the renters with 2-small kids, the mum she handwashes the kids clothes a lot of them, and then chucks them in the dryer, doesn’t use the washing machine.
But the problem is now the dryer, has a filthy stench to it when you put clothes in there, hence effecting the scent/smell of your own clothes/bedsheets/towels, it’s awful,like a bad perfume or aftershave.
And it’s a strong dryer, but it seems the mum isn’t washing the kids clothes properly when they pee or pooh there pants, or have last night’s dinner on their T-shirts (grease-fat).
Does the (OC) executive-committee ban hand-washed clothes to enter the dryers in my building? Maybe!
Or put signs up in the laundry and notify people about no handwashed clothes in the dryer, only clothes that have gone into the washing machine!
I’d also on a hygiene level would like the building to move to hot-water for washing machines, they only seem to have cold. The building is 50 years old (built in 1965) so it 50-years old and behind planning standards of today. It has had some major renovations over the last 5-years, to modernise it. It had some new hot-water tank, but nothing seems to be done about hot water for the laundry (washing machines on each floor). It’s a 20-floor building, I ask myself why have they not installed hot-water into the building? Does the building not have the engineering structures to cope with hot-water, or is it costs.
We all pay our bills anyway everytime; we use the dryer/washing machine, as each unit has an electrical PowerPoint, so you pay your own electricity costs everytime you use the dryer.
As say about 8 people on average live on each floor, surely it would be more hygienic to have hot-water washing machines anyway, and also as the “preferred option” for residents to have access to hot-water for doing there clothes washing. As for greasy things, or if you work in a trade e.g.-(builder/carpenter a lot of dust on work-clothes) hot-water washing would be preferable.
Is it really that expensive for the (OC) to install hot-water tanks for common-property laundries, anyone know?
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The joy of communal laundries. Have you referred to your by-laws, unless there is a bylaw in place regarding the use of these laundries then any notice the executive committee may place there is unenforceable.
Whilst it is impossible to answer your last question, it may be better for the owners corporation to consider the use of washing machines which incorporate heating coils internally than providing hot water from an external source.
Depending on the space you have available, have you considered buying your own dryer and installing it within your own unit? Then you wouldn’t be facing communal dryers contaminated with smelly and unhygienic substances.
Matt – There’s nothing applicable in the Strata Schemes Management Act as it more a public health matter that you’re trying to resolve, but you mention that each each Unit has an electrical power point (presumably in the common laundry) so that individual Owners pay for the electricity consumed when they use the clothes dryers.
That may be a means to restrict or to at least segregate the usage of the dryers, but how does that allocated power point system currently work?
Who owns these washing machines and dryers? Are they common property, but you have to plug them into your unit’s power point in the laundry to use them?
If they are CP, who services them? Are these odours the result of the lint filters not being cleaned out regularly, or other lack of maintenance? If the filters are not being cleaned, this is also creating a well known fire risk.
Without intending to be flippant, perhaps you could take a bucket of hot water from your unit and put it into the washing machine. Most current detergents work quite well in cold or warm water anyway.
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