Renovation to a truly awful shared laundry

That laundry reminds me of the back street slums of Taiwan....ahh the fun times..

 

Is there a minimum usage requirement payable and if its not met, Strata has to pay? I'm sure the costs will be recouperated quickly, but i wonder if there's a clause in the contract that protects them.

 

The novelty of going down to the Waldron Road laundromat soon wears off. Convenience/complacency will win out with these types of installation.

 

Will 2 machines be enough? I would have thought 3 or 4 for that many flats.

 

I mentioned above that people with two bedders would have a washing machine in their flat, so not all residents will use the share machines.
Two machines is the recommendation of the people who will install and manage them.
There are still about 8 machines in the laundry as of this morning, so I won’t be popular when I stick them out the back of the building.

 

$2 a wash is quite reasonable.
Assuming a wash a week, that’s $104 a year.
Most washing machines are around $500 and some last 3 years, some last 5 and some last forever.
Still reckon gas dryers should be put in, but that’s assuming there’s a gas line to the building.

 

That building has things called 'clotheslines'. Much cheaper to run.

 

Provided the things are in the sun/windy spot, are maintained (tight lines/not rusted), then people will use them.

 

They are and they do.

 

I went down on Sunday to see how many machines were still in the laundry past the 5pm Friday deadline. There were eight. So I set about moving them out into an undercover unused car space - the one I want to buy. One of the machines had a note on it from a tenant stating that it was not to be moved because he wanted to keep it but had nowhere to put it.
I made the mistake of calling the number on the note. I tried to explain why his machine had to go. He called me a fascist and then got upset when I laughed and said that we weren't in post WW1 Europe. I told him I would put his machine in the stairwell for a week but he needed to deal with it.
Of course, calling him meant that he had my phone number so I got a text later that day from him telling me had written a letter to the council and was going to call Fair Trading about the fact that the strata manager was installing pay per use machines as a money making venture.
I responded and told him that I hoped he had not yet put a stamp on that letter to council. I pointed out that all required notice had been given, that the owners were spending $12,000 fixing up that awful room, that the company who installed the machines collected the money and that owners would be paying the electricity from now on. I signed my message 'the fascist'.
The demolition started this morning at 7.30.

 

Nah! Unfriend him on FB far more meaningful

 

There has been no subsequent contact, so he's probably settled down.

 

So there are now some free washing machines available for pickup in the carport of that unit block?
Address please

 

There were 5 left this morning. None of them are any good. They'll be going to a scrap metal place I suspect.

 

Demo is done.
Looks better already.
Plumber is back today to rough in the water and on Friday the renderer comes.
Waterproofing Monday and tiling later in the week.
Then it's just paint.

 

Apparently it had been thought about and talked about for over 10 years. Getting action required a few people on the strata committee (me and two others) who could push it through and then someone (me) willing to manage the process.

 

We also just moved to a very good strata manager who helped us get all our ducks in a row.

 

I have a couple of stray units in older strata complexes with shared laundries. Some of the stratas have only owner/tenant machines and some have pay machines with owner/tenant machines also crammed. We have found it an ongoing battle keeping the owner/tenant machines out of the laundries where we have pay machines. In the end the blocks with only owner/tenant machines are easier as they battle the space out among themselves.

One block has a shared laundry that was abandoned before I came along. It was abandoned as a result of thefts of the pay machines and owner/tenant machines alike. I have approached the washing machine service people about installing some equipment but they have declined.

So good luck with it but it sounds like you already have resistance and they will creep in when you are not looking.