FLAT CHAT WRAP

This week's podcast is all about wheel-clamping, email privacy and the amazing legacy of the Sydney Olympics athletes' village.But one of the biggest pieces of news this week is about the podcast itself or, more to the point, these show notes.As we approach our 100th edition, and following numerous requests from readers who don't listen to podcasts, we have finally discovered a program that will use Artificial Intelligence to transcribe the audio into text.Now, AI can only do so much with variations of Australian, Scottish and English accents, so it does require a bit of work to knock it into shape.Then there are the interruptions, half-formed thoughts, digressions and repetitions - not to mention umms, aaahs and other verbal punctuations - that you don't realise form part of your everyday speech until you see them laid out before you on a page.We've done our best to filter out the intrusions but I hope you get the sense of the discussions and the flavour of the podcast in this lightly tweaked and fairly raw form.Meanwhile, for those of you who prefer to listen, here's this week's podcast, where Sue and I talk about her story on the 2000 Olympic athletes' village, now a very desirable suburb.Then we are joined by Karen Stiles, Executive Officer of the Owners Corporation Network, to discuss the push to keep apartment owners' email addresses secret, and demands for a return of wheel clamping for rogue parkers.Listen HereYou can listen to the podcast by clicking on the "play" button below. If you haven’t already tried listening to a podcast, and you have speakers attached to your computer or earbuds attached to your smartphone, all you have to do is click on the link above.And if you like what you hear, you can subscribe to this podcast, absolutely free, on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or your favourite podcatcher. If the links provided don’t take you straight there, just search for Flat Chat Wrap, click on subscribe, and you’ll get this podcast every week without even trying. It’s free: no hooks, catches or sign-ups. Enjoy.Transcript: This podcast in print Jimmy: Hard to believe it's been 20 years since the Sydney Olympics.Sue  Oh, wow. It sure is. I mean, it's interesting when we're getting this documentary now about Cathy Freeman.   Lots of posts about it. Eric the Eel? Yes. And um,   the memories come flooding back. But it does feel only about a couple years ago.    Jimmy: Then you realize there’s been three or four other Olympics since then. But I was reminded, funnily enough, and these days of COVID going to the station to get in a train and finding that a certain time of night when it's going to be busy, the make you go round in a one way system through in and out the stations when people aren't bumping into each other facing each other.And that reminded me of at the Olympic Stadium, where they had a one way system for people to walk around. And you could see the gate that you wanted to get into about about 20 yards away. But you had to walk another half a mile around the system to get to that gate, but it worked.   It worked tremendously well.So you're going to be talking in a minute about what happened to the buildings that they built for the athletes.   The Olympic Village. And we're going to be talking to  Karen: Stiles of OCN about email addresses and clamping illegally parked cars. I'm  Jimmy: Thomson. Sue: And I'm  Sue Williams. Jimmy: And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.Olympic village now sought-after suburbJimmy:  Sue, you've done a story this week about the accommodation that was built for the Sydney Olympics.Sue:  Yes, I went out to Newington this week, for the first time ever. It was during the Olympics, I covered the Olympics, for the Sydney Morning Herald the Melbourne age out of Sydney Olympic Park and the big media center. But we were never allowed to go to the athletes village because obvi..

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Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook  and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.

It’s another big week on the podcast front with a lot of serious – and not so serious – issues to discuss.First up we look at this story about how the radical renovation of unused storage space in a Bondi block has allowed the owners to upgrade the whole 1930s building with new electrics, plumbing, roof, balconies and terraces.This, we learn, is what the other side of the “forced sale” laws allowed – a majority of owners to make the most of their collective assets and give their 90-year-old building a whole new lease of life.Ban the pet banThen we chat to UNSW Associate Professor Dr Cathy Sherry – one of our eminent thinkers in the realm of strata law – about why she wrote an op-ed in the Sydney Morning Herald recently, supporting moves to ban by-laws that ban pets.It’s a wide-ranging discussion that goes from the fundamentals of liberal democracy to negative gearing, via Feudalism, Utilitarianism, assistance animals, company title, build-to-rent and Airbnb.Cathy argues that despite the serious health and religious issues that genuinely affect some apartment residents, we can’t legally prevent assistance animals from being resident in apartment blocks so the idea that we can ban companion animals is based on a fallacy.What it comes down to is that people don’t have an inviolable right to live in apartments, so their rights are not being impinged by laws that say apartment blocks don’t have the right to ban animals. Or something like that …It’s not as simple as that – it never is in strata – but we discuss the possibility that, if no-pets by-laws are banned,  there could soon be an upsurge in interest in company title buildings where the “board” can set its own rules that are not affected by strata law.Moving on from pets, Cathy explains why she is dead-set against build-to-rent apartments, even the really nice ones, saying we need to get rid of negative gearing so that “mum and dad” property investors aren’t competing against their kids, pushing the price of homes out of their reach.Lonely kidsAnd finally in our Hey Marthas, Sue has found a story that says families that move into big houses where every kid has their own room – even their own bathroom – could be missing the point. Economics researcher Michael Dockery says kids in large family houses with their own rooms could be suffering social isolation and even loneliness.Learning to share and tolerate others’ foibles is an important social skill that our kids are less likely to acquire if they are allowed to lock themselves away in their rooms, playing their own computer games and going God-knows-where on the Internet.Just another reason why apartment living is good for kids.Meanwhile Jimmy takes a look at the building in Sydney’s Haymarket locked in a six-way stand-off over flammable cladding.You can read all about it here and listen to our thoughts on all these issues just by scrolling down this page.Listen hereIf you haven’t already tried listening to a podcast, and you have speakers attached to your computer or earbuds attached to your smartphone, all you have to do is click on the link near the top of these show notes.And if you like what you hear, you can subscribe to this podcast, absolutely free, on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or your favourite podcatcher.If the links provided don’t take you straight there, just search for Flat Chat Wrap, click on subscribe, and you’ll get this podcast every week without even trying.It’s free: no hooks, catches or sign-ups. Enjoy.

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Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook  and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.

We have one of our longest ever Flat Chat Wrap podcasts this week, but it’s all good so brace yourselves, pace yourselves and buckle up for some interesting material from our multitude of guests (well, three, to be exact).First there is the redoubtable Karen Stiles who is the Executive Officer at the Owners Corporation Network (OCN) and, as such, has a seat at the table for some of the most critical discussions being made about NSW strata in decades.Karen has come on to the podcast to explain how Building Commissioner David Chandler has the power (and is using it) to enter newly completed blocks that are still under warranty and then order the builders or developers to fix the defects.One developer has already heard the hard word and is considering their options, while another has "surrender tackled" and is just getting on with fixing thingsAnd what if they refuse?  The Commissioner's plan to stop future defects will see problem developers identified early by calculating an agglomeration of bad history and previous use of poorly performing certifiers, architects, engineers and builders.They will then come under severe scrutiny that could result in them being ordered to fix defects as they go, and if they don’t, denied certificates of occupation which will mean they won’t be able to complete the sale of  their apartments.Thus, if Big Dave has told your developer to get their houses (or, in this case, flats) in order and you decline to do so, you could be entering a world of short-term pain and long-term extinction.RevolutionaryIt’s revolutionary stuff, and continuing the theme of fundamental change, Chris Duggan and Tony Irvine from Strata Community Australia (NSW) – the strata managers’ professional body – joined us via Zoom, to explain their plan to raise the professional standards of their members to the point where accreditation must be earned and maintained by increased education and training and constant scrutiny of their performance.This would be a huge step forward for strata managers – putting them on a par with professions like accountancy – and brings with it the promise of better consumer protections.Also on the agenda with the SCA bosses was the issue of building facilities management contracts and why they need to be pulled back from the crazy 10-year-plus deals that exist now, why apartment owners need more help on cladding, and why the much vaunted short-term holiday letting code of conduct is presumably under a too-hard basket somewhere in the bowels of Fair Trading.It’s an interesting and informative chat, and well worth a listen.Finally, in our Hey Marthas, we discuss why Queenland’s coronavirus restrictions are good news for swingers … unless they want to dance at weddings.That’s all in this week’s bumper Flat Chat Wrap.Listen hereIf you haven’t already tried listening to a podcast, and you have speakers attached to your computer or earbuds attached to your smartphone, all you have to do is click on the link below.And if you like what you hear, you can subscribe to this podcast, absolutely free, on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or your favourite podcatcher.If the links provided don’t take you straight there, just search for Flat Chat Wrap, click on subscribe, and you’ll get this podcast every week without even trying.It’s free: no hooks, catches or sign-ups. Enjoy.

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Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook  and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.

This week’s podcast takes a look at an area of strata life where strata managers could be breaking the law … because apartment-owning clients want them to.We’re talking about email addresses which, if they are part of your strata scheme’s records, should be available for inspection to all owners.But many owners – and a fair few tenants – don’t want their email addresses to be available to their neighbours or other owners.Why?  Is it a case of simply not wanting to know what’s going on, so we don’t have to make difficult choices?Block nuisancesIs it about not being hassled by the obsessive serial emailers who just won’t let up once they get their teeth into a topic?As JimmyT says, it’s very easy to block nuisance email addresses.  So is this more about strata committees not wanting anyone but themselves to be able to contact owners en masse, in case an alternative view of issues is too widely canvassed?By the way, when your strata manager or secretary cites privacy laws as a reason for not passing on strata information, there’s a 99 per cent chance they are talking through a hole on their strata hat.Ask them which laws they mean, specifically, and how they are supposed to be applied and then point them at these notes from our friends Lookup Strata and Amanda Farmer.Radio posersThen we move on to last week’s session with James Valentine on ABC 702’s Afternoons.Generously, James opened the session with a clip from our Hyperbole Towers podcom then we got down to the serious business of listeners’ calls.First up was one about who pays when a council-owned tree’s roots invade a strata schemes drainpipes?  The answer is not as simple as you might think.Then there’s the scheme where a general meeting agreed to spend money on much-needed and long overdue repairs, only for 6 of the 30 owners to demand that the work be halted because they don’t agree with it.There’s the woman who’s 30-year-old flat is badly affected by mould and the strata committee says it’s not their problem.  Is it?  And what can they do if it is?Finally there’s the mum whose strata committee won’t let her put a safety cushion on common property so her daughter can practice gymnastics.  However, the majority of owners are in favour – what should she do?Hey Martha!In this week’s Hey Marthas, Jimmy highlights the good news for Victorian strata owners where a two-year extension has been granted for claims against builders who installed combustible cladding.Plus there’s some relief for locked-down residents with apartment renovators told they can only work if the whole block is empty, not just their apartment.And Sue explains why she used to hit her legs with a badminton racquet until they bled.  Not as weird as it sounds!Listen hereIf you haven’t already tried listening to a podcast, and you have speakers attached to your computer or earbuds attached to your smartphone, all you have to do is click on the link below.And if you like what you hear, you can subscribe to this podcast, absolutely free, on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or your favourite podcatcher.If the links provided don’t take you straight there, just search for Flat Chat Wrap, click on subscribe, and you’ll get this podcast every week without even trying.It’s free: no hooks, catches or sign-ups. Enjoy.

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Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook  and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.

We have a bumper edition of the Flat Chat Wrap podcast for you this week with a ton of material and some new voices too.You might want to ration your listening - for some people there are two commutes worth of pod in this episode.First off, we catch up with the amendment to the NSW strata Act that we flagged briefly last week, which would ban any apartment block from having a by-law that said pets weren’t allowed.How this came about is detailed in this story but, in a nutshell, there was a proposal floated in the Upper House to amend the strata Act so that changes to common property that would have a beneficial effect on sustainability wouldn’t require the normal 75 percent approval of a special resolution.Instead, a simple majority of owners at a general meeting could decide, for instance, to put solar panels on the roof, batteries in the basement and electric car chargers in the car park.It’s a good idea.  Environmental recalcitrants can find a million bogus reasons why they don’t want to contribute to the fight on climate change and they can often drum up the 25 percent of support need to block any such moves.So it’s a good move. But then, late in the day, an Animal Liberation Party MP (did you even know we had one?) attached an amendment to it and it got through.Sue and Jimmy discuss its chances of becoming law.Airbnb loopholesNext up, it’s the scramble by some strata schemes to close the loophole left, possibly deliberately, that would still allow empty-flat Airbnb lets in buildings that really, really don’t want them.As it stands, the new anti-short-term letting laws say that owners corporations can pass by-laws blocking the letting of apartments that are owned by investors.  However, people for whom their flat is their principle place of residence, can still let  their apartments short-term whether their neighbours want them to or not.Now, we had naively thought this was to allow genuine “sharing” – when a stranger comes and stays in your flat while you are actually there.But, no, as this story explains, “principal place of residence” could cover someone who stays there four nights a week and lets it to strangers over the weekend while they are off at their country retreat, visiting their parents or shacking up with their significant other.Or perhaps they stay their 50 weeks of the year but disappear over Christmas and New Year when city pad rentals quadruple, if not more.That’s why a number of strata lawyers are devising legal but complex by-laws to make the whole process difficult if not impossible.  Why?  Because you really wouldn’t want to get between an Airbnb host and a bucket of money.Strata summitNext cab off the rank is Amanda Farmer who joins us to explain what her Shared Space Summit is all about and why she undertook to get a global view of how we deal with and make the most of living in strata.You can read about the Summit here.Senior systemsSue has been super-busy this past week with yet another yarn in the SMH, this time about a new approach to accommodating senior citizens of strata.As her story explains, connecting seniors to a system within their community will maintain their independence for longer and might even avoid the Covid-19 carnage that we have seen in aged-care facilities across Australia.FashionistaAnd out Hey Marthas! This week looks to the USA and the impact that Melania Trump’s fashion tastes had on the political landscape during the Presidential nomination last week.Should we even be discussing what female politicians wear?  There’s a very interesting and controversial point of view from the (addictive) NPR Politics Roundup podcast from the USA.Listen hereIf you haven’t already tried listening to a podcast, and you have speakers attached to your computer or earbuds attached to your smartphone, all you have to do is click on the link below.And if you like what you hear,

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Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook  and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.

It’s a case of too many Ps on the pod this week when we discuss your participation, the Hyperbole Towers podcom, pet petitions and payment for strata committee members.Let’s get to participation first.  We want to hear your voices, literally, so send us a question or a suggestion for a discussion topic as an audio file – record it on your smartphone – and we’ll try to include it in the podcast and respond to it too.The format should be something like: “This is Jimmy from Darlinghurst and I was wondering …” Then you’ll get your 15 seconds of fame – sorry, 15 minutes would be way too much – and you might even get the answer to a question that’s been bugging you.Promoting the PodcomThe second P is a little self-indulgent in that it’s a clip from the Hyperbole Towers Podcom.Now, at time of writing, more that 310 people have listened to the Podcom in the first six days that it’s been “live”.  Now, if that doesn’t sound like much, consider this; if a podcast gets more than 136 listeners in the first MONTH that it’s been released, it is in the top 50 per cent of podcasts in the world, according to this web page.So 310 in less than a week must be pretty good, no?  You can still have a listen yourself, if you haven’t already, by clicking on the story somewhere on this page or going HERE.Pets in parliamentThe third P is the pet conundrum and how one of the people who thought she’d persuaded NCAT that a no-pet by-law was unfair, and was later told by the Appeals Panel told that it was OK, has launched an online parliamentary petition and a crowd-funding campaign to cover her legal bills and get the law changed.And, as I write, the NSW Upper House is debating a change to the strata Act, making it easier to approve environmentally sustainable changes to common property to which someone has added this amendment:137B  Keeping of animals(I) A by-law has no force or effect to the extent that it purports to unreasonably prohibit the keeping of an animal on a lot.(2) The keeping of a particular animal on a lot is reasonable unless the owners corporation can show that it is not in the best interests of the animal taking into account the needs of the animal, including exercising, feeding and toileting.Whether or not that flies, you will know by the time you read this – but it’s a crafty, if shifty move to attach it to a Bill that has nothing to do with pets but has been sponsored by the Premier.Cash for committeesOur fourth P is about payment to committee members or office bearers.  As it stands, strata law in NSW allows committee members to be paid for their work but only retrospectively. In other words, the have to do the work for a year and then turn up at the next AGM and hope that the majority of owners think they did a good enough job that they deserve some kind of reward.There’s always a danger of people getting elected so they can get some pin money, if you do pay them.  Maybe it should be related to having done a basic course in strata management and committee work before you can be paid, retrospectively or otherwise.And finally, Sue talks about the chrome-plated, tiled and built-in Hell of choosing what to put in a bathroom renovation.Listen hereIf you haven’t already tried listening to a podcast, and you have speakers attached to your computer or earbuds attached to your smartphone, all you have to do is click on the link below.And if you like what you hear, you can subscribe to this podcast, absolutely free, on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or your favourite podcatcher.If the links provided don’t take you straight there, just search for Flat Chat Wrap, click on subscribe, and you’ll get this podcast every week without even trying.It’s free: no hooks, catches or sign-ups. Even better, it’s fun.

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Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook  and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.

Were going flat out to lift the gloom in this week in the Flat Chat Wrap.First we go behind the scenes of the much heralded and long-awaited (by JimmyT, anyway) Podcom – podcast sitcom – which we are now calling Hyperbole Towers.Why “Hyperbole?” Because every new apartment block has some sort of exaggerated name, although not always creating the image the developers might hope for.For instance, we think The Babylon, for all its gardens, might conjure up slightly sleazier images, especially in the minds of fans of the TV series Babylon Berlin, if not Kenneth Aunger’s scandalous Hollywood Babylon.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5eorwxcIuUAnyway, Hyperbole Towers is a much tamer affair, although it’s more Number 96 than Fawlty Towers.  You can find out more about it and listen to the episode right here.Bean me upThen we continue the “kick back and relax” theme with a visit to Frankie’s Beans coffee bar and café in Darlinghurst where Fern tells us what it’s like to run a café  in a large apartment block during a Covid-19 lockdown.After that we take a trip to Sydney Olympic Park where two of the four towers of a new development are  given over to “build to rent”.  What does that mean?  One landlord, longer leases, on-site maintenance and pets, among other attractions.ExperimentFinally Sue’s Hey Martha is about the little dog that travelled through several countries to be reunited with its owners.And Jimmy looks at the Sydney Morning Herald’s series on the “social experiment’ in Sydney’s Waterloo and why residents are angry at plans to demolish 2000 old homes and replace them with 6000 new ones.And finally, there’s a call out to our listeners to get involved by sending us questions as audio tracks that we can include, and answer, on the podcast.Listen hereIf you haven’t already tried listening to a podcast, and you have speakers attached to your computer or earbuds attached to your smartphone, all you have to do is click on the link below.And if you like what you hear, you can subscribe to this podcast, absolutley free, on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or your favourite podcatcher.If the links provided don’t take you straight there, just search for Flat Chat Wrap, click on subscribe, and you’ll get this podcast every week without even trying.It’s free: no hooks, catches or sign-ups. Even better, it’s fun.

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Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook  and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.

It’s here! The long-awaited podcom (podcast sitcom) set in a dysfunctional apartment block’s strata committee is live and ready for your ears.The premise of this audio comedy, Hyperbole Towers, is as simple as it’s believable. The strata scheme has, thanks to a stuff-up by the secretary, accidentally changed its by-laws so that they MUST hold their meetings on Zoom (rather than CAN do so).Add in characters who work from home in their underwear, use “you’re breaking up” as their fall-back get-out-of-jail card and get involved in the usual committee power struggles, and you have a potent recipe for some serious fun.The Cast and crew (minus one) rehearse Hyperbole TowersThe Hyperbole Towers characters are:Charlie, the long-suffering chairwomanAlfie the manipulative and scheming building managerBrooke the hopeless secretarySteve, the committee treasurer who sees everything in terms of moneyWendy a do-gooder who is also a nasty gossip and a racist  Joe a class warrior retiree for whom nothing is Left-wing enough (until it affects his hip pocket)Damien a manic day trader for whom the committee is his only social contactAmber a "massage therapist" who says it as she sees itThere is also a cameo guest appearance by star of stage and screen Todd McKenney, adding some pizzazz to the proceedings.The StoryThe Hyperbole Towers committee is in online crisis meetings to discuss the potential conversion of their former meeting room turned commercial space into a day spa … or is it a massage parlour?Meanwhile, constant thumping sounds, morning noon and night, are driving everyone mad, especially since building manager Alfie seems very reluctant to do anything about it.This is a classic radio sitcom with some very modern themes.  But it’s a work of fiction and any similarity to anyone living or deceased is purely coincidental, and the nature of apartment living.In other words, if you think you recognise yourself or your neighbours, you don’t.And if you enjoyed it, please, please, please share it with your friends and fellow strata dwellers and professionals through this link, and encourage them to do the same.If we can find an audience, there will be more, we promise.CreditsHyperbole Towers featured Tsu Shan Chambers,  Valentino Arico, Amelia Conway, Eveline Schubert, Michelle Rouady, Robin Queree, Matias Klaver and David MacPhail. It was narrated and directed by Warren Coleman.The podcom was written and produced by Jimmy Thomson and Warren Coleman. Audio editing and effects were by Sydney Sound Brewery under the watchful ear of John Hresc. Phoebe Armstrong was production assistant.“Hyperbole Towers” is a Flat Chat Production, copyright (2020) Words Worth Pty Ltd."Hyperbole Towers" could not have been made without the generousfinancial assistance of City of Sydney Council.Listen Here

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Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook  and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.

We cover a lot of ground in this week’s podcast … and by  “a lot of ground” we mean pretty much the whole planet.First, we take a look a the recent 60 Minutes report which examined the progress being made by NSW building commissioner David Chandler in trying to make sure no one in the future suffers the same heart-breaking disasters as the residents of Mascot Tower.It’s a surprisingly well put together report - commercial TV usually doesn’t do too well on complex issue like strata defects.And it reveals a nasty piece of legal jiggery-pokery that seems to be geared towards nothing less than making sure the Mascot owners couldn’t claim against the people they believe are responsible for their current plight.And what is that plight?  If you haven’t been paying attention, last year the residents of Mascot Tower had to be evacuated when the building started to crack and literally started sinking into the ground.It now looks like March next year before they can get back … if they can afford to pay the $53 million repair bill.Cladding winThe 60 Minutes track also looks at the flammable cladding problem, especially in Melbourne, where two high rises have become notorious for their external cladding going up in flames across several floors.In the podcast, Sue reveals that owners of a scheme in Sydney have just had a big win against developers who installed combustible cladding but said they weren’t liable as their Occupancy Certificate made it all OK.  A Tribunal Appeals Board disagreed, as you can read in Sue's story, here.If you didn’t see it, the 60 Minutes track is well worth a look.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJdilY29t7YTravel fantasiesMoving on and, in our minds at least, far, far away, we talk to travel writer and podcaster Ben Groundwater about what travel will be like when the pandemic is over. Prior to Covid-19, cheap flights and Airbnb led to some of the world’s most wonderful places being almost destroyed by having too many tourists.Will this change when it’s finally safe to travel beyond these shores (and come back without having another enforced stay in a local hotel)?And Ben talks about people who go to the same place every year and  how you have to strike a balance between fully exploring places you love by returning to them, and broadening your horizons by going somewhere entirely new.We suspect that there will be a short window between travel restrictions being eased and tourism swarms reforming when you will be able to go back and see the world’s great cities and sight as they were in the days before Tripadvisor.You can hear more from Ben on his Flight of Fancy podcast on the Nine newspapers’ website.Services rip-offAfter that, we talk about claims that some essential services providers are ripping off  apartment owners by taking advantage of their dual role as inspectors and repairers.Then Sue  picks the bones out of a report by National Bank of Australia economists that says apartments would be cheaper if we just let developers build them 20 storeys higher.Like many experts, we say no. Apartments will only be cheaper when people stop paying so much for them. Listen in for a vivid illustration of that fact of strata life.And finally, there’s a call out to our listeners to get involved by sending us questions as audio tracks that we can include, and answer, on the podcast.Listen hereIf you haven’t already tried listening to a podcast, and you have speakers attached to your computer or earbuds attached to your smartphone, all you have to do is click on the "play" button below.And if you like what you hear, you can subscribe to this podcast, absolutely free, on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or your favourite podcatcher.If the links provided don’t take you straight there, just search for Flat Chat Wrap, click on subscribe, and you’ll get this podcast every week without even trying.

____________________________________________________


Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook  and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.

This week we get tangled up in the wiring as we examine the effect of Zoom meetings and electronic voting on the democratic processes of strata committees ... and the House of Lords.The chat was sparked by this forum post which alleges all sorts of skullduggery – okay, maybe not skullduggery but it suggests that a Zoom-based AGM was used to push through an excessively expensive window replacement contract.And it seems like some people may be taking advantage of the pandemic to sneak things past people who aren’t tech savvy and/or who have other things on their minds ... like how to avoid the virus and feed their families, maybe?By the way, in the pod cast, I say the meeting was an ordinary general meeting – in fact, it was a Zoom AGM.  Danger, danger!Brush with a painterI was going to make a joke about painting over the cracks but that would do our guest this week an injustice.  Paul Williams, general manager of Dukes Paint, joined us online to talk about paint in all its glories.He answered questions about whether a new paint job really makes that much difference to the value of the apartments inside the block and whether or not paint was an important part of the maintenance, regardless of the aesthetics.Did he ever discover paint had been used to cover up potentially serious defects (like concrete cancer, for instance) and what was the conversation like when he said "I've discovered problems, prepping the paint job, but I can fix them"?Are there different kinds of paints for different circumstances? How has paint technology changed in the last 10 years or so? How often should the owners in a high-rise paint the exterior? What happens if they leave it too long?On a lighter note, we asked if there are new trends in colour schemes and whether he had ever advised a strata block against using a colour they’d asked for?We asked what the oddest request he’d had when painting a building and what was the one piece of advice he'd give apartment owners when it comes to painting their building.All in all, it’s a painting masterclass, and if you are even just thinking your block might need a freshen-up, you should listen in.By the way, at the end of that segment, there’s a snatch of music from the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, playing “My Pink Half of the Drainpipe,” a situation Paul has encountered more than once when two adjoining homes can’t agree on a colour scheme.Following that, we answer a question about how you should present your case at a Tribunal (based on this Forum post). Keep personalities out of it and stick to the facts is our advice.Join the podAnd that got us thinking … if you want to be on the podcast, record a sound file (on your phone?) of you asking a question and we’ll play the clip and try to answer it in the podcast.Send your sound files to [email protected] and we’ll give them a listen. Just give us a name – maybe not your real one – and the state where you live, and we’ll do our best to answer your question or offer a solution to your problem.While, we’re at it, if there are any strata issues you’d like us to discuss (rather than direct questions – that’s what the Forum is for), send us a note to the same address and we’ll see what we can do.Todd's masksMoving on, our “Hey Marthas” this week are about Todd McKenney’s project Todd Masks, getting theatrical costumiers and dressmakers to make covid masks and sell them online (all the money goes directly to them).And Jimmy Zooms in on a clip from the end of this week’s Insiders on the ABC that shows high office doesn’t render you immune from technical incompetence.https://www.facebook.com/InsidersABC/videos/741300493356643Listen hereIf you haven’t already done so you can subscribe to this podcast, completely free, on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or your favourite podcatcher.If the link doesn’t take you straight there,

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Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.