I live in a medium/large apartment complex with a security gated basement car park. The gate is remote control operated and each unit has an allocated space painted on the ground.
I have noticed many vehicles parked in non designated spaces including along walls, ramps and next to fire exits. This make it more difficult to manoeuvre in the car park yo say the least.
I called the strata manager and they said unless I can identify which apartment resident owns the vehicle, they can't do anything.
Is this correct?
I have two vehicles and only one space, and I do the right thing by parking one vehicle further away in the public streets.
Should I just park like the other a.holes as there seems to be no consequence?
How do I get the strata manager and other inconsiderate residents to clean up their act?
Vehicles Keep Parking Illegally in Apartment Building
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There is no CCTV and I don't think that would make any difference for the slack strata manager.
There is no scrambling of fobs.
If it was one car, a polite note on the wipers would suffice however its dozens of vehicles.I’d take photos of offending cars and ask to attend next strata meeting and put this item on the agenda. Then explain at the meeting how this is impacting you and ask if there could be a better solution, ie cameras and fob scrambling/data base. If nobody addresses how it’s managed it’s never going to change.
Park across the entrance and see how they react. If they don't know your apartment from the vehicle, by their own rules they can't move it…
There's no CCTV you say? The answer seems quite simple then. Let down all four of their tyres. They'll be forced to call for help and that, combined with the inconvenience to their day should make them learn pretty quickly not to park there.
Lazy strata. A good strata would put a huge warning sticker on the windshield of the offending cars.
They still wont tow the car away, it is just one extra meaningless step
Depends on the adhesiveness of the sticker.
If it's in the drivers field of view and really hard to get off, it may be effective.
Depends on the adhesiveness of the sticker.
If it's in the drivers field of view and really hard to get off, it may be effective.Reminds of these Russian guys
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHJxIwvFIGY@aragornelessar: Omg i just went down a rabbit hole watching so many of those crazy russian footpath driver videos
Great way to get a criminal damage claim.
It's a sticker on a window
Glebe Police had no report of the incident, but Inspector Clive Ainley said people should not take matters into their own hands if they had a problem with parking.
“If the stickers have caused damage and can’t be removed, it’s an offence of malicious damage, it’s a crime,” he said.
Source: https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/newslocal/inner-west/rage-…
Well just like how shopping centres aren't responsible for damage to your car, so too aren't apartment buildings that you don't live in.
The service has to be provided with "due care and skill".
So somebody hitting your car in the car park doesn't generally mean it's the car park operators fault.
But something like a dangerous corner or a failing of the operator may mean that the service hasn't been provided with "due care and skill" so you may have a case.IMO, if a car is parked incorrectly, that's not really the operators fault. But if they take no action to address it…that might change things.
You forgot the part where the OP mentioned there isn't CCTV. Good luck proving who did it.
The world has gone mad - people can now identify as stickers!
How do I get the strata manager and other inconsiderate residents to clean up their act?
First leave a sign on the car asking them to move their car politely. If nothing happens make the sign more assertive and rude. If nothing happens escalate these actions, e.g. superglue their valve caps to the stems, smear poo on their door handles, key their car (this seems to be a normal thing people do in Sydney) etc.
Hopefully after this they learn a lesson.
But who wants to be the smeareem or the smearer? May have to airtask that one.
I'm sure a homeless person would be willing to do it for a bottle of whisky.
classy 👌
@payton: You clearly don’t know the difference between “flinging”, “slinging” and “smearing”… and I’m the one who’s parents failed them 🤣
@Ghost47: if that's your take on the video, its even more of a justification for the refund of your education fees 🤣
@payton: I didn’t actually watch the video, just looked at the title.
Parents didn’t pay for my education either, most people who aren’t born into wealth go to public schools and go to university and pay HECS.
Keep making stuff up in your head though, it’s not pathetic at all 👍🏻
If you offer a full bottle you are definitely overpaying.
Pick and spread using a generous fistful of TP, or if you're a dog owner you will be familiar with the daily routine.
Haha wow i like the superglue idea, i'd never considered that one before
superglue their valve caps to the stems, smear poo on their door handles, key their cars
So you're a poo smearer whose life sob story is how you couldn't find parking at a shopping mall
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/686882
and also suggesting OP to vandalise cars
roflmaoIf thats your bright idea I pity your neighbours … and the people who shooks with you 🤣
Not creepy at all for keeping tabs on me.
Imagine being dumb enough to actually believe I’m being serious…
if the ideas in your head revolve around slinging feces while calling others stupid, your parents should receive full refund on the money they spent on your education … its only fair.
@payton: Maybe your parents should be given a refund for your education, because you didn't learn how to capitalise correctly or use "it's" properly.
Do the cars obstruct egress from a multi-story building? Could it be construed as an evacuation/fire hazard? Regulatory compliance issues tend to motivate lazy strata managers more than complaints, especially if its on record.
The other option is to complain, document everything, document them failing to act then bringing all this in at the AGM along with a proposal to change strata management. Its a LOT of work though if you end up actually shit-canning the existing management.
Threatening to take the contract from them is what it took to get my strata managers to actually address enquiries & follow up on things without being constantly hounded.
I have noticed many vehicles parked in non designated spaces including along walls, ramps and next to fire exits.
I think this very well might be the case.
I'm honestly quite surprised though. Generally it's a given that residents park in visitor spots, because most families have more than one car and apartments generally have one spot, but parking like that is just ridiculous.
What's probably happened is that one asshat has gone and done it, and normalised it, now everyone does it.
OP, take pics of all the offending vehicles if they are actually causing egress issues from fire doors, that is an absolute "action immediately" thing and can get a vehicle towed if they're actually blocking it.
Test the fire escape egress out, and maybe involve the local FD to check it — the may remove part of the vehicles to access the building.
If you are absolutely sure that no CCTV exists.
Leave a note stating this is the FIRST and LAST warning. Future indiscretions will be both expensive and inconvenient.
No CCTV easy let down there tyres
Permanently let down.
Play the long game. Make friends with the person who owns the car then get them addicted to smoking. When they're addicted and start to smoke when they drive, run a pipe from the engine that injects fuel into the cabin. Then when they light up a cigarette, BOOM! Car explodes.
Make friends with the person who owns the car then get them addicted to smoking crack.
There's a saying in road safety. Advertising changes attitudes. But only enforcement changes behaviour.
Get this signed off by the body corporate. There's usually a significant fine allowed to be levied for this sort of rule breaking. Put up signs - they only need to be word processed and computer printed - where people are parking illegally warning that there will be that fine for parking here, and that enforcement will commence in, say, a week. Then offer a bounty of 50% of the fine to any residents who dob in illegal parkers and provide photographic evidence of them getting out of the cars and going into whatever unit they are going into. That will cost you nothing to implement, in fact the body corporate will be ahead by 50% of the fine amounts, and will mean the enforcement will be random, and proportional to the level of the problem.
There's ways you shouldn't organise it. You don't want to have to pay someone up front to do it. And have them come at some predictable time the scofflaws can avoid. And you don't want it to be hidden, like camera enforcement that only the person caught knows happened. You want it to be very visible. You want them to see they are being are photographed and followed to their unit. But so it changes behaviour rather than starts fist fights, issue once only warning the first time. And if there's no-one or few people doing it you want the enforcement to stop, until it starts being a problem again.
That latter point is important. The strata managers know that if they do something, and it works, in 6 months there'll be new tenants and they'll start doing it. They know its pointless to spend your money doing the sort of things they can do, because it'll only make it go away for a short time.
Leave a note saying 'apologies in advance if my large bullbar makes contact any vehicle incorrectly parked while I attempt to manoeuvre past it'
No CCTV? ….Awesome……pulls out pocket knife…
The only way that seems to work is to physically block access to the spots with bollards where the illegal parking occurs, suggest you put a motion on the agenda for the next AGM.
I called the strata manager
Send an email with pics . Its good to have documentation on complaints. Blocking fire exits is good enough readon to tow.
Vehicles Keep Parking Illegally
Which law?
Private property
Sounds like common property?
Strata by-laws, using common property for private use etc.
Because people who think they can do whatever they want without consequences are a stain on society.
Because they’ll be the first ones to start problems with everyone else in the building when they get hit one day because they’ve made it extremely difficult for other drivers to manoeuvre the space.
Sounds absurd, by that logic if a resident has 1 allocated car space but 2+ vehicles. That gives them the right to park their excess vehicles wherever they want on common property?
OP has done the right thing by not taking amentiy away from their fellow residents by parking their excess vehicle legally elsewhere. Folks are fully aware of how many spaces they have allocated before moving in or before buying additional vehicle(s). The solution isn't to palm it onto your neighbours.
As always, get some wheel jacks/dollys, jack the car up and keep moving them into the strata managers spot. Then we will see how fast they get their shit together to get the offending cars moved.
this is the way to do it :D
or just move them a foot out from the wall so they're properly in the way of everyone, just subtle movements, enough to be properly in the way of everyone but not enough to look like it was done deliberately.
Strata should send a note to all residents that offending vehicles wheels will be clamped. As soon as one vehicle is clamped to show residents this is no joke, it will stop.
The good thing is offenders will be easily identified when they come whinging. The only problem is how many clamps to buy.
Buy one clamp and clamp your own car. Will show that clamping is not a bluff.
I'm surprised noone have suggested the most obvious solution yet.
BIKIES!
ugh… do you yell "Taxi" when someone drops a glass at a bar too?
Yes, I do, and I still think it's funny!
Jeez lighten up Cranky Chris!
I'm surprised people think strata will actually do anything
My building has just implemented towing fees for parking in the visitor parks. A tow truck company comes and tows the offending vehicles if parked there longer than 6 hours. There is a code on the front door visitors who park longer than 6 hours (eg overnight) can scan and you input the visitor number plate in and they are good to park there longer. There are signs now all over the car park stating the above. A few have been towed (including the manager’s sister’s car when she forgot to warn him she was going to park in his spot:)).
It depends in which state you live, but generally the OC is able to arrange a car towing service that can be used for cars in breach of OC rules and on OC property (i.e. if cars are parking outside of marked lot bays, or obstructing traffic).
The same towing service could also be used for lot owners to have cars towed from their lots.This is what is in place for the apartment complex I'm in anyway. There's still some issues around residents parking in the visitor spots.. although the same towing rules apply here, it's just that the building manager monitoring the visitor car parks isn't their fulltime job… there's discussion of automated licence plate recognition to assist with the admin of this however.
The problem is that the Owners Corp (Body Corp) hasnt put proper procedures in place. Put it on the agenda for the next AGM. Write a short statement describing the problem, attaching photos, and describing the ineffective responses you have received to date. Ask for better solutions to be put in place asap.
If that doesnt work then get creative as described above.
Absolutely, if other people are being twats, it’s far, far less stressful to just join them. Park where is convenient for you. If you work out who one of them is, work on stealing their spot- that’ll really annoy them.
Kinda like driving in Sydney in general. Don’t get mad, get even.
Should I just park like the other a.holes as there seems to be no consequence?
When in Rome, do as the Romans do
So, yes.
It would be most likely either tradespeople (if it's a ute), guests or AirBnB using those spaces. Or it could be people with more cars than car spaces allocated, (if it's always the same ones parking there).
We have the same issue in our office carpark, and years of arguing has led to the neighbours sticking screws into car tyres regularly, until we had our own CCTV installed. You could suggest at the body corporate meeting that they need to be installed, highly recommended, especially if you have non-tenants getting access to your private carpark.
I called the strata manager and they said unless I can identify which apartment resident owns the vehicle, they can't do anything.
Is this correct?LOL..same response that I got before when raising the same issues in my complex. Same s*it Strata everywhere.
The obvious are there, but they can't action anything until you know which unit does the vehicle belong to, what a joke.
If they're parked "illegally" for the car park then they should tow them away with no need for you to identify who owns the car.
Tow trucks aren't getting into small apartment parking lots
The strata should be allocating parking permits with their rego logged with them and give out guest permits with a coding system to link to the unit dweller. This will allow people who are parking incorrectly to be identified.
The strata body can't hand out official fines but they can use "breach of contract" rules to issue penalties for parking incorrectly.
Gotta love people.
I have two vehicles and only one space, and I do the right thing by parking one vehicle further away in the public streets
interesting interpretation of "the right thing" IMO. The complex was clearly designed for your unit to have one car and approved on that basis, relying on you to use the onsite space. This is why people hate developers. And why parking requirements should never be reduced from standard for the zone.
IMO if an apartment tower is approved in the basis of residents having a certain maximum number of vehicles (0/1/2) then you shouldn't be able to register more than that to that "garaged address".
Make developers accountable for claims that the residents of studio apartments next to public transport won't need to own a car (and therefore they shouldn't have to build a space for one), rather than washing their hands and forcing the crowding onto existing residents to further compound their loss of amenity
I used to visit someone in a secure building with a handful of visitors' spots. They were quite narrow with only 2 spaces between pillars. One other vehicle was always parked in a visitor space with the wheels over the dividing line, making the space next to it unusable.
I glued a note to the driver's window with water soluble paste. At the bottom, it said "The next note will be affixed with Araldite". Problem solved.
I feel your pain. Strata is useless.
I live in a much smaller building and had problems with people uncapable of putting their recycle bin inside the recycle bin and instead left on the floor, so i went and knocked on every apartment, asked if it was them and said i was about to check the cctv and get the culprit fined. I still don't know who it was, but problem solved.
In your place i would leave a note on the car as suggested, and then escalate where appropriated - feces/glue/tires….
Good luck!
Visitors parking always ends up being claimed by some halfwit. If the spots cannot be shared they should be auctioned off to the owners allowing them to buy registered car spaces. It would fill the capital works fund for some places to sort out cladding, water proofing, structural repair or whatever a typical post year 2000 unit block is afflicted with.
Honestly isn't much you can do but you can always mess with them a bit by doing one of these each week.
Lift up wiper blades.
Fold the passenger side mirror forwards.
Push side mirrors so they aren't aligned anymore (the mirrors themselves not the housing).
Check if they are locked. If unlocked then change the position of the driver's seat and/or steering wheel position. Be sure to lock the door after to really confuse them, bonus points if it's a manual car and you can push it forwards or backwards a bit.
If the cars are dirty then use your finger to leave graphic symbols, do one at a time until their car either becomes progressively cleaner as they remove them or totally covered.
Get a few mates around for a free workout https://youtu.be/LY5kh61pXOc
Use your imagination to do something annoying but not permanently damaging.
Op, do you rent or own?
Vandalize the illegally parked cars.
I called the strata manager and they said unless I can identify which apartment resident owns the vehicle, they can't do anything.
Pick a car at random, yell out you've hit it accidentally, watch the owner come scurrying out.
Ask them to again confirm in writing that its free game keep parking 2nd car like a idiot to prove a point block in anyone thats sits on the board. They will soon be forced to inforce the rules
Print out signs to the effect: Spoke with strata who said car spots are unenforceable (include screenshots if possible). Free to park anywhere at all times!
This will create a domino effect and piss off the 80% of the residents who do the right thing. Strata will sort it out at the next meeting.
I hear your keys might be a good solution.
Some choice ideas. Personally, I found the adhesive stickers quite effective. Granted, I may have gone a little overboard (I think 20 address printer bright fluorescent labels saying I must not park Illegally) but they did the trick quite well.
I had an open allocated parking space near the train station in Sydney.
I called the strata manager and they said unless I can identify which apartment resident owns the vehicle, they can't do anything.
Is this correct?The strata manager is lazy, whilst they aren't building managers (there is a difference in responsibility) you'd expect them to have the wisdom and experience of handling similar situations in other strata schemes they also manage. And I can assure you parking is a common issue that most if not all strata managers have come across.
The "can't do anything" is only partially true. The reason they want this, is so they can issue a "Notice to Comply" which is essentially a formal 'you've been naughty, stop breaking this {insert_strata_bylaw_rule} or else' letter. If said bad behaviour continues then the issue can be further pursued with NCAT/VCAT etc. However this whole process is a non-starter without first being able to identify the offending resident(s).
So the first real step is probably engaging other owners (who may be complicit in the bad behaviour and not want to help you) to see if they have any appetite to support a motion to say install cameras or create a building vehicle registar to identify the bad parking vehicles. If you don't have any support, then I'd just consider moving else where because the building is what the collective owners make of it.
I have two vehicles and only one space, and I do the right thing by parking one vehicle further away in the public streets.
Thank you, this is what should happen, but unfortunately people are entitled selfish a*holes who are more than happy to take what's not theirs from their fellow neighbour.
Should I just park like the other a.holes as there seems to be no consequence?
Mixed feelings, because on one hand your stooping to their level. On the other hand, its a quick way to get more people to care when these issues also affect them (make it their problem too sort of thing).
How do I get the strata manager and other inconsiderate residents to clean up their act?
Talk to other owners to get some support, AGM agenda item to start with things that enable the identification which apartment parked which vehicle. You may want to do some homework here and get a copy of your bylaws so that you can be specific in your conversations. As mentioned earlier, if you've got zero support, it's going to be very difficult and I'd just consider moving elsewhere.
take a shit in the apartment lobby and assert your dominance!
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Normally if it’s security gated, there should be a cctv camera above the entrance. If you know the rego of the cars parked illegally, the person who monitors the cameras should be able to cross reference the number plate with the security fob that opened the carpark for that car. Sounds more like the building is poorly managed. Is there a building manager as well as a strata manager? Do they regularly scramble the fobs and register them to a database?