Why putting off repairs to apartments due to coronavirus could be 'very dangerous'

Many apartment-dwellers mistakenly believe that tradies aren’t allowed to work on apartment buildings under the current restrictions, but such tasks all fall under essential services, and so are permitted.

“Work on strata buildings is classified as one part of the economy that can, and should, operate,” said Chris Duggan, president of Strata Community Australia (NSW), the peak body for body corporate and community title management.

“It’s vital that work that needs to be done, particularly repairs and maintenance, carries on during this period so that buildings remain safe and in good condition for their residents, rather the problems simply getting worse. And this is often the best time for work to be done, while so many people are at home and able to provide access and supervise, if necessary.”

Tradies who work in the strata industry are reporting that remediation work to dangerously dilapidated facades and replacing broken glass in balconies and sliding doors are among the critical jobs that are currently being cancelled or postponed.

Some could even be life-threatening if not done in time. “We have one building where panels are hanging off, which could be very dangerous,” said Paul Williams, general manager of Dukes Painting. “If they fall down to the ground, they could definitely kill someone walking beneath.

“It would be an awful tragedy if that happened, but we’ve also got a job where a big portion of a roof has been blown off that needs to be fixed, and if these jobs aren’t done, the problems will just snowball and get worse.”

The company Express Glass has also seen a dramatic fall in the number of calls to replace broken glass doors and balcony panels in apartments. “The glass is still getting broken, but people are putting off having it replaced,” said commercial manager Mark Jennings. “That’s dangerous. You want to get those things fixed.

“I think it’s about uncertainty over whether such services are considered essential. But they are classified as essential and there needs to be more communication about that.”

Mr Jennings has 90 employees and 25 trucks on the road to attend to glass jobs, but he’s seen work fall off constantly by 10 per cent a week, and is now, three weeks in, battling a 30 per cent decline.

With so many strata painting and remediation work jobs also being cancelled or postponed at the last minute, Mr Williams has seen his business badly hit, too. Usually, he’s asked to provide around 30 quotes a week for work. Today, it’s five to six if he’s lucky – a fall of around 600 per cent.

Across strata in NSW, that means a huge reduction in the amount of work being done in the state’s 80,664 schemes, and a mega-hit to the trades that specialise in the apartment industry.

In 2017, for instance, according to the City Futures Research Centre at the University of NSW, there were 1.2 million trades job callouts to apartment buildings – mostly plumbing, handyman and electrical work as well as painting, remediation, sewage work and gardening, worth a total of $2.5 billion.

Now the fear is that, when the coronavirus lockdown is over, there’ll be a flood of pent-up demand for urgent work to be done, but many of the businesses that service strata won’t have survived.

“We’re out trying to keep our people employed and the economy moving and business healthy to make sure there’ll be a business on the other side,” said Mr Williams, whose company employs 40-plus staff and has been going since 1958. “If we have to put people off now, that will be devastating.

“We had one woman in one apartment block in tears yesterday from another building that really needed remediation five years ago, saying the committee have just postponed the work so she was now worried by the time they agree again to get it done, the price could be higher. But the deterioration is so fast, we’d probably have to do another reassessment.”

Some of the usual apartment customers seem to be worried about the risks of letting tradies onto their sites, or into their homes. Mr Williams says, however, that most of his work is done outside buildings via scaffolding, and tradies don’t even have to access buildings’ lifts.

Similarly, Mr Jennings says he’s also used scaffolding at times to effect urgent repairs when, for instance, one person was in self-isolation.

“And we have strict protocols and risk assessment and management plans in place to deal with COVID-19 because it’s all about the safety of our clients and our employees,” he said.

“We want to make sure they’re working in a safe environment and they’ve all been given the training and tools to make sure they don’t put anyone else at risk either.”