Is it a series of cover-ups or just another run of cock-ups? Either way NSW Health is making a mess of its covid alerts when it comes to apartment blocks.Whether it’s deciding not to let us all know that there are major outbreaks in public housing schemes – and asking residents not to tell anyone about it – or not alerting neighbours in privately owned strata blocks that there are cases in their buildings, the response has been ham-fisted.An editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald from the Owners Corporation network has outlined just how dangerously incompetent the NSW government’s approach to covid infections in apartment blocks has been.And the worst thing is the confusion it has created, with some buildings over-reacting to a potential threat, others fail to take it seriously at all, and a huge chunk of the strata community misses out altogether.LISTEN HEREMeanwhile we look at a story from the forum which reveals an issue that comes up much more often that you might expect: an owner taking over common property for their own benefit, increasing the size of their apartment and expecting not to have to pay for it.Then we look at how introducing some greenery into your strata life can lower your stress and make you a nicer person to be around in the last of our locked-down days (we hope).And finally, Jimmy has his annual pre-summer rant about balcony barbecues and discovers that a lot of the suggestions he made ages ago about limiting the smoke and smell intruding on other apartments – which were howled down by outraged neighbours and dismissed contemptuously by his block’s committee – have quietly found their way into a code of conduct.That’s all in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy 00:00We had two picnics, this weekend.Sue 00:01Yes, we did! It was hard work, wasn't it?Jimmy 00:04It was very hard work, because there was a lot of people, down there in the park.Sue 00:08It was like Christmas Day, really. I think there was a real celebratory mood though, which was really lovely.Jimmy 00:12Yes, it was. There were people walking around; they'd take their masks off to eat and forget to put them back on again.Sue 00:20It kind of felt like we were out of a pandemic, when really, we've still got a bit to go, I guess.Jimmy 00:25And there was police wandering around, not bothering anybody. It was pretty good. I'm not a big fan of picnics, as you know. That's my two picnics for this year; possibly this decade.Sue 00:37And that's why it was such hard work, because Jimmy doesn't like sitting on the ground. We ended up having to cart five chairs, a table; and then we had knives and forks and plates and stuff, whereas most normal people would be happy with the little bag of sandwiches and on a rug for the ground...Jimmy 00:53But our friends said it was the best picnic they'd ever had, or maybe the fanciest picnic they'd ever had. It's not sitting on the ground that bothers me, it's getting up. That's the issue. Today, we're going to talk about the ongoing issues with notifications of infections of the COVID virus in apartment blocks. You've got a nice uplifting story about greenery and I'm going to dig into the forum, because there's a story that's come
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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.
