This week, I read an article in the paper about a mum who received a by-law breach notice from her strata manager because her toddler was creating “excessive noise, in the form of…shouting and screaming…from early in the morning to very late at night on a regular basis”.
The notice asked her to “Please refrain from allowing your child to create excessive noise immediately and into the future.”
I read this article with three different hats on: (1) mum to a toddler (2) strata lawyer (3) human being.
As a mum, I know that little ones make noise. Usually a lot of it. As for “refraining from allowing” your child to be noisy, please give me that super power.
As a strata lawyer, I see how the use of a template letter in a situation that is outside of the norm has resulted in a bizarre direction, in my view near impossible for the tenant to comply with and just as impossible for the owners corporation in question to enforce.
As a human being, I wonder where the empathy is. I wonder whether any one in that building knocked on this mum’s door when her child was shouting and screaming “from early in the morning to very late at night” and asked her if she was ok. I wonder if anyone asked her if she needed help, or if she knew where to go to find help. I wonder if the building’s strata manager recommended any of these steps, or suggested that a phone call at least be made, before following the committee’s instruction and issuing the breach notice.
One of the great benefits of community living is the community part: feeling the security of others in close proximity if you are home alone; being able to knock on your neighbour’s door to borrow tools or ingredients; contributing to and enjoying the shared vegie garden; summer BBQs in the back yard where everyone brings a plate. Unfortunately, many fail to understand or experience such benefits.
I believe that strata managers are uniquely placed to guide their buildings about the importance and benefits of a strong community. I know many of you have seen first-hand how it can be done, and done well. Some of you even have programs in place to encourage it. Kudos to you and please spread the word about what you’re doing.
Letters like the one this mum received do nothing to enhance the image of strata living or strata managers – both of which already receive more than their fair share of bad press. Whilst I accept that you are under instruction from your committees, it is the uninformed committee, disconnected from their community, that instructs you to issue this kind of letter. I don’t know what, if any, alternatives were tried before this by-law breach notice was issued, but there were a number of better ways to approach this situation.
As a strata manager, do your best to ensure the committees you are working with don’t forget that they are people, dealing with people. Lead by example. If you aren’t sure how, speak to your colleagues, in and outside of your office, who are managing communities that are welcoming and relatively harmonious places and see if you can steal some of the secret sauce.
I would love to have your thoughts and ideas in the comments section. Let’s share learn and grow.
So perfectly put Amanda.
Community won’t happen on its own, like most things worth achieving, it requires work and perseverance. However it is possible. The active engagement of owners and residents generally requires one involved strata manager and one ‘champion of the cause’ owner – and a great deal of not giving up.
The lack of compassion shown is sad. By multiple parties it seems.
As for ‘allowing’ the child to cry and make noise – in my experience as a parent there is very little ‘allowing’ when it comes to small children between newborn and three years old. Small humans who cannot speak or understand emotions – well they cry. Sometimes a lot. And most likely their poor mother is as well. Hopefully not alone.
agree 100%.
As the manager of the scheme which has been used to promote community by The Office of Fair Trading we have seen the benefits of community interaction in that scheme – by knowing thy neighbor people are more comfortable to approach them not to just ask for something but yes offer help – they are also more considerate of their neighbors. In fact Signature Apartments doesn’t have noise issues like other large scheme’s and I believe this is a direct result of their interaction at “events” at which both tenants and owners are present.
That said, I recently asked a lady in another large scheme to approach her neighbor regarding door slamming that would occur (there is no door closer as these will soon be replaced with fire doors) – that lady then approached one of the committee to say our firm were rude and didn’t provide service, because we didn’t write the letter to the neighbor she was demanding.
So it is hard – you try to make things more community and someone then blows that completely out of proportion. I think the key as Natalie says is to have a champion of neighborly interaction on the committee also – fortunately I did in that scheme and after we chattered over the woman’s complaint he was going to go back and explain to her why we said what we did and that we have the Committee’s support. Without it, we would loose a scheme of almost 100 lots – all because we tried to encourage people to speak to one another.
Thank you for providing such useful and knowledgeable information about the strata community. Keep sharing this type of article.