Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Spotless Inc, shoddy contractors, make dogs breakfast of maintenance program

DH lives in a street that HNSW is currently repainting for the 3rd time in 4 years, despite that the houses were built of paint impregnated boards that were not supposed to be painted in the first place. (But having been painted once, will have to be repainted evermore).

This second repaint is because the first lot of contractors did such a terrible job just 2 months ago.

What a terrible waste of money, for a job that didn't need to be done in the first place, didn't need to be repeated just 4 years later, and was done in some cases in a colour that jars with the existing look of the buildings, thus cheapening their value even further. Makes you wonder whether the contractors managed to get a cheap joblot of paint somewhere

And it's no use complaining, apparently that the money could have been spent on things we really need. Apparently, with the "New Maintenance Program", money is locked in for specific purposes, in this case, presumably to give jobs to painting contractors who do not appear to have got any trade qualifications whatsover.

Who are these people, who descend on our houses, hacking, botching, and smearing their way through publicly owned property?

Is there some kind of black market exploiting recent migrants?

DH had to have her bathroom floor replaced, and when HNSW inspected, the job was so poorly done that they demanded it be redone


Since the stimulus package spend, every job DH has had done has had to be redone!



What's going on? Is it just DH's karma? Was she perhaps a jerry-builder in her past life? Or are we looking at a systemic problem?

And why is Spotless Inc getting paid a fortune to totally fail to project manage these apparently straightforward jobs?

Samples of contractor's handiwork

Disclaimer for the downwardly envious: If the money saved on this shoddy work was going to be used to rehouse one of the homeless, DH would gladly have done without.

Work includes - door hacked when it didn't fit on replacement (yes, the door in the picture is shut), waterproofing is smeared on willy-nilly, vanity basin set in at angle, ceramic tiles that look dirty even when clean, tiles unaligned (not shown).












DH wants to make clear that it is not HNSW's fault. They are trying to put things right. Actually DH has asked not to have the jobs redone as it's not worth the expense and further disruption. She is not that house-proud, and there are more urgent uses for the money elsewhere. Perhaps there are not enough skilled tradespeople around for the huge amount of stimulus work?

3 comments:

OUT IN THE OPEN, Sydney, NSW Australia said...

We must be getting some Federal government money to fix up the retirement village where I live. All public housing tenants have been told that their units are going to be brought up to scratch, in line with those of the 'self funded residents' who share the place under a 'joint venture' arrangement between Housing NSW, the local council and a religious body. It seems we are going to get new carpet and the walls painted, but no one has said anything about moving the furniture. When the outside of my place was finally repainted, it was only given one coat instead of two until I jumped up and down. So why do I think the 'improvements' that are going to be made are going to be more trouble than they will be worth?

Anonymous said...

Last time I had some work done on my upstairs bathroom to fix damage from a leak, the preferred supplier was given the job. They employ people who could not get a job anywhere else on low pay. The work is extremely shoddy. They removed my tiles and flickmixer and gave me laminate and $10 taps.
The leak is back.Downstairs the wall is mouldy and rotten. I could go on but I'm keeping this short.
I'm not phoning again because I don't want these kind of idiots in my house. Once, a guy working for a painter was only just out of jail and came back in the early a.m. to rob me.

Anonymous said...

I've lived in the same house now for 20 years. In this time very little, if any maintenance has been carried out. My bathroom started leaking into the kitchen. I phoned maintenance who sent out some tilers who retiled my bathroom (with different coloured tiles) but did not stop the leak. It acutally made it worse. I was told they couldnt match the tiles, bright white? The tiles have been removed at least 3 times over the past 3 months and the problem is still there. Luckily the electrician who came to put a new power board in was obliging and helpful (to date he has been the only mainenance person who phoned and did the job properly and promptly - 1 out of 4 was on the job). He sealed off light fittings until the roofers had finished. The roof is leaking so badly, the ceiling in one of the bedrooms has collapsed. The water has made its way down light fittings and blew all my lights so we are living with candles. The call centre told me to "wait until it dried out then switch it back on and use buckets for the leaking roof and skylight". I have never seen so much water leak into a house before, it was literally raining down my narrow, steep and very dark staircase. The skylight hadnt leaked for the 20 years I've lived here until they replaced it. The contractors tell lies to housing. I phoned maintenance and was told the roofers (who had left over an hour ago) were still here (they stuffed up my cable satellite dish). They turn up today after I phoned housing last night to let them know about the terible leaking and power and the roofers just picked up their ladder and took off. I was told that my roof needed to be replaced. After waiting for a tree to be trimmed they finally turned up. It seems that the work that is required to be done on my roof is happening in such a haphazard way. I know they get paid very little, thats why I reckon they tell housing they are doing work here and they are not even on site. Housing keep on sending contractors to paint and carpet my water damaged home. No phone calls to arrange suitable times etc. Just lob up, dont show ID and very litle communication. Why would housing want to lay new carpet and paint while water is still flooding into my home? The kitchen is so badly water damaged. They dont care and only want to slap a coat of paint to cover up years and years of neglect. My house is heritage listed, I thought they would want to look after it. Seems strange to me that they are building new, green powered, flash looking units but not maintaining the properties that already exist.