EP. 1227 Bad neighbours - when do you abandoned ship?

Ever been woken up at 3 a.m. by a party next door, or found yourself in a cold war over parking spaces with the guy across the street? Buckle up, because we're joined by Cleo, a sage of the property management realm, to unpack the knotty world of neighbourly spats. Our chat traverses the terrain of preemptive peace-making – think door-knocking for the real skinny on your future block – and the underestimated clout of a good first impression. Noise complaints might just be the tip of the iceberg in modern living, but with Cleo's seasoned insights, we're laying out the blueprint to mend fences and silence the squabbles that can make home life less than heavenly.

As we stir the pot on community dynamics, we discover that a dash of personality, a sprinkle of effort, and a hearty dollop of neighborly love are the secret ingredients to a blissful block. Taking a leaf out of the raucous romp "Bad Neighbours", we chuckle over the quirks of cohabitation and the winsome ways we can turn a potential nemesis into the pal next door. So, slide into your comfiest slippers and tune in; we're serving up stories and strategies that might just transform your street into the friendly avenue of your dreams. With Cleo in the conversation, it's not just talk – it's a masterclass in crafting a harmonious habitat.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Bad neighbours, bad neighbours, bad neighbours. Now we're going to share some stuff with you today to enlighten you why we get all the complaints from the neighbours. We get people selling. So we're a bit of an aggregator of hearing the bad neighbours stories and we've got some good news of stuff that we can share with you. Stay tuned. Special guest Cleo. Expert property manager of like 4 million years dealing with millions of landlords and tenants. Why did you want to do Bad Neighbours today?

Speaker 2: 0:58

I think it's a topic that I guess all our topics that come to light each week are from things that we deal with during the week. So I am in a situation where our tenant is the bad neighbour and other owners and tenants in the building are complaining and writing to Strata and writing to us and we have to circumvent that whole process. So I thought we'd bring it up today because there's lots of stories and I guess, um, everybody's got neighbors, so yeah, everyone is.

Speaker 1: 1:34

Ain't that the truth? Ain't that the truth? And I've got to say advice that I gave my mum when she went into strata and um, and advice that I really feel strongly about is love thy neighbour.

Speaker 2: 1:51

Definitely and you do your due diligence when you purchase a property. I would suspect most people, when they're buying like a $3 million or $4 million home, they are going to look around with the neighbours and see, you know who lives where and you know will it all gel. But I guess when you're a tenant? Sometimes you just don't. You don't look upstairs or downstairs or who your neighbours are going to be. How can you Like? It's just one of those gambles.

Speaker 1: 2:18

Do you know what? Lesson number one of what I would suggest out of today is door knocking. Lesson number one of what I would suggest out of today is door knocking. So whether you're going to be renting a property or buying a property, have a good old-fashioned chat with adjoining owners and you will get all of the goss within 60 seconds, unadulterated, unfiltered, not motivated because they want to sell the property or rent the property. They're gonna give you the no bull on the neighbors yeah, that's a good tip.

Speaker 2: 2:53

Definitely, people do love a chat and they'll just spill stuff to you that you don't know definitely a difficult.

Speaker 1: 3:02

What happened to the good old-fashioned? He's a cake. Oh no the bunt cake with the hole in it. Is that gone? You know, when the neighbour ding-dong hi just moved into the neighbourhood, I see, and wanted to cook you a cake, oh my God, it's like Wisteria laying desperate housewives.

Speaker 2: 3:24

It's definitely an old-fashioned thing to do, but it is, you know, it's respectful and it's nice to know your neighbours, you know, and you know you can go on holidays and ask them to watch out for your house, take your bins out, things like that. I don't think that it's totally gone, but you know, in property management we don't always hear about lovely neighbors. We only hear about the neighbors that are either partying too loud on the weekend, or they're watering their plants and the water's like going down onto their balcony like it is fun.

Speaker 1: 4:01

I reckon people just just. One of the biggest problems Cleos is people just lose their shit because they store it, and I think that if you're first dealing with your neighbour you're a correction officer or a police officer it's not a good thing. So I I know that if you are, as a, you know, moving into an area, make every effort to um, say g'day to everyone and make that first interaction a um a welcoming and positive one, because the next one may not be, and you've actually already broken the ice and they can see that you know you're not just because I think people just lose their like they don't say anything. They don't say anything, then they just go and the person who didn't even know they were making the mistakes like mate, where'd that come from?

Speaker 2: 5:00

yeah, but not everyone's reasonable. That's the thing. And, um, you know, no one wants a letter under that, like we find the letters are very aggressive. If you're getting a letter like I don't know if you've ever parked somewhere where you shouldn't park and you come back to your car and there's a letter there, you're like what?

Speaker 2: 5:19

it gets you so angry and I think, as a neighbor, I think that's a real aggressive um way to approach a situation, especially when you have two mediators Usually you've got a property manager and a strata manager. I mean that's what we do, in that sense, before it gets escalated to that kind of aggressiveness, because you have to see these people every day in the common area, at the letterbox, at the garage, like you know, like you've got to sort of think about the end game as well rather than the heat of the moment.

Speaker 1: 5:55

Oh, you know, we've all these stories. I don't think there's any coming back. I think once it's, once it's, once it's gone, rotten, it's gone, yeah, it's like meat or an egg, you know, once they go, like you know, keep it refrigerated, keep it good, you know it's going to be fine. But once it's stuffed, it is stuffed. Yeah, what's the? Do you? What would be the rate of, say, out of 100 hundred properties, what would be the rate of you getting a bad neighbor complaint and what would the nature of that complaint be?

Speaker 2: 6:35

two questions what do you mean by right?

Speaker 1: 6:39

like, would you say, out of a hundred tenancies you would have one noise from one noise.

Speaker 2: 6:46

Complaint um one out of ten at least. Really, yeah, at the moment I think as well, like if you, if you want to look at it with new builds as well, they're noisier, the properties are noisier, you can hear your neighbor a lot more than in the older double brick, red brick. You know beauties, you know they're quite indestructible internally, but yeah and and I've been telling people the opposite for years oh, really no, it's.

Speaker 2: 7:17

I mean, some are built really well, but I think as well, with these bigger complexes, you're looking into a lot of your neighbors as well. Like the balconies, the windows, everything's a lot more visible, um, and you can sit out on your balcony and you can just watch, you know, watch your neighbors doing what they do, you know. So, um, the nature of the most nature complaints we get is noise. Noise is the biggest one, um, whether it be loud music or thumping around because of floorboards or anything noise related. We deal with a sort of with a three strike sort of situation with Strata. They are, you know, they'll receive an email from a neighbor, maybe an owner. They'll send us something and then we then let the tenant know and then it's a series of three, three strikes, basically, if you keep doing something that's annoying everyone and everyone has the right to quiet enjoyment.

Speaker 2: 8:18

That's the bylaws of living in a strata building, um, even in a house. And yeah, like, if you just continue on with the behaviour, then the repercussions are maybe the owner won't extend your lease, you will be asked to move out. Some strata's impose a fine, you know, with complaints. So that's the end result. Usually it de-escalates after a complaint, one or two, but sometimes these things can drag on for ages.

Speaker 1: 8:53

I think, like I really I grew up most of my life when my parents rented out the property. We had a house and they rented out underneath. It was like a duplex and my mum and dad were always up me for um, walking on my heels. So I don't know if you've been living underneath someone who walks on their heels, on their bones, um, but it's very common and mum and dad were always always like shh, don't walk like that, shh, don't walk like that. So you know, walking on the front pad of your foot, in the back or in heels or that sort of stuff, it can drive people nuts and the poor person who's actually walking around? They're just bloody walking around, they're just walking around the house and they're bothering the neighbour. So I think there's lots of things to consider. Noises is huge. Smoke drift.

Speaker 2: 9:56

Huge one at the moment. Definitely, the smoke drift is huge and there are, you know, the amendments in all the bylaws that have been put in place. That's you know it's a breach. So you do often see, I know it is. It's, you know one of those things. You see this you know designated smoking areas now in unit blocks, like they have in the airport. You know where the neighbours all can get together and smoke in some sort of area as opposed to on their balconies. You know.

Speaker 1: 10:27

So starters are allocating smoking areas, are they?

Speaker 2: 10:34

Well, it's unofficial as such, but you know I've seen some. I've been looking at properties in the west, you know, southwest of Sydney at the moment. So I have seen common area gardens where there is a designated area at the back of the complex where you know you can smoke if you're a smoker.

Speaker 1: 10:51

I would love that.

Speaker 2: 10:52

I'd love to go for a bunga with mates, that's probably where, if you're gonna buy, that's where you want to hang out and ask questions.

Speaker 1: 11:03

They're the people who have good chat.

Speaker 2: 11:05

Yeah, totally, totally or unofficially, out on the street like outside restaurants. It's usually where people are smoking nowadays. But yeah, no, the neighbourly complaints. We don't get involved as property management in domestic disputes. It's very, very hard to let people know that we can't get involved in that situation. Sometimes people call us up and they give us all the backstory and they tell us this and that and we do empathise.

Speaker 2: 11:40

But if it gets to a point where someone's feeling either unsafe or threatened, that's not something we can jump in and handle. That's always for your local police. And any complaints we do receive we request in writing and then we forward them to the strata managers because they have access to everyone who lives anywhere names, numbers. We don't know a lot of the time if the neighbour's a tenant or an owner, how to get in touch with them. So strata is the time. If the neighbor's a tenant or an owner, how to get in touch with them. So strata is the mediator. If it's a unit, block um and of course, if it's ever an unsafe situation, always call your local police station so thank you for your time.

Speaker 1: 12:22

You are a legend. Hopefully this helped people today. Clear, clear off um the um. One thing that I I in summary, and some one thing for I'll go that I haven't mentioned, is, if you do, if it's wild um and you are making a complaint and you will mark yourself to that neighbor and you will also, when that complaint escalates to the police, they know it's you. Um, whenever there's been wildness um, I've always called the police straight away and they do a fantastic job on um, shutting down the wildness in a in a nice manner first warning, second warning, whatever. But when you do mark yourself, you will be marked forever um, if that tenant ever gets further noise complaints as the perpetrator to complaining against them. So be careful, handle it diplomatically.

Speaker 1: 13:27

But in summary from what we spoke about today and throw these in as we go along, one love thy neighbour. Make a huge effort when you move in to make common ground with people, because you don't want the first meeting with that, with those neighbours, to be a negative one. So make that first meeting a positive one. Eat humble pie. Two, cleo, what did you say? Be conscious with yourself and report it to your real estate agent. If it's strata, I guess was there. But a couple of really good tips in there and I think smoke drift, noise, parking.

Speaker 2: 14:17

Oh, parking is huge. Another big fight battle. We could do this three segments of this topic honestly.

Speaker 1: 14:24

It could be there. But all of these things are people getting along, fundamentally, people getting along with people. So I think a bit of personality and a bit of effort, a bit of love goes a long way.

Speaker 2: 14:38

It does. Go and watch Bad Neighbours with Zac Efron Great movie. I love that movie, love it.

Speaker 1: 14:44

Love it.

Speaker 2: 14:45

Have a good week everyone.

Speaker 1: 14:47

Thanks, cleo, you're a legend, huh, she is. Love my neighbor, love that neighbor. Bye See ya Take care.