Greetings Residence
The Body Corporate Committee wanted to take the opportunity to provide some points around living in harmony and
good feelings in community living:
Put your car in its designated space or leave it outside. At times you may need to park outside your home for 5 to 10 minutes to unload or load items which is acceptable, however please do so as quickly as possible and do not leave your vehicle unattended, then move your vehicle to a designated car park. Don’t block anyone, or anything with your vehicle.
Treat shared spaces with respect. Keep off the lawns and respect the gardens. If you make a mess clean up after yourself. Leave any common property you’ve used in the condition it was when you go there. And if it’s not up to standard that isn’t an invitation to treat it poorly. Either report it or clean it up yourself.
Keep the exterior of your lot tidy. Buying a lot in a body corporate is a shared investment. A failure of one person will have a detrimental impact for the value of the entire scheme. Appearance is one of the key responsibilities all body corporate residents share. Keep the exterior of your lot clean, tidy and uncluttered.
Keep the noise down. Shared spaces means there’s going to be some noise, there’s no way to avoid it. Please, do try and be quiet. Especially be quiet after 11pm and in the early morning, those times when local council by-laws prohibit loud noise. Especially keep the noise down outside at night.
Apologise to neighbours when you were noisy. Yes, OK you were noisy. The game was on, it was your kid’s birthday or, you just got carried away. Whatever the reason apologise to your neighbours. Acknowledging that you screwed up and letting them know it won’t be a regular occurrence will heal wounds and promote harmony.
Don’t hold grudges. Yes OK, your neighbour did that one thing that was truly annoying and inconsiderate. Please don’t glare at them every day for the next two years and especially don’t pounce on anything else they do wrong. You don’t have to like them or even have anything to do with them but snarling at them every time you see them is mean.
Discuss problems with your neighbours. If your neighbour has lived next door for a year and done the same thing every single day all that time, but its driving you wild, don’t assume they’re only doing it to annoy you. It’s far more probable they have no idea it bothers you. If you’d like someone to change a particular behaviour the best place to start is to discuss it with them.
Approach confrontation calmly and rationally. Screaming at someone because they’ve done this one thing every day for a year is not rational. Being confronted is hard to take even when things are done calmly. You’re not trying to start a war here, just get a behaviour modified. Calmly and rationally is your best way forward. If you’re not feeling calm and rational wait until you have some perspective.
Calmly listen when confronted with issues. If you’re calmly and rationally asked to turn the volume down, or whatever, please don’t lose all sense of proportion and start acting like they threatened your dear old Mum. Yes, it is quite probable the person who complained does annoying things to. Bringing them up right now is deflective behaviour and makes you look immature. Calmly listen to people’s complaints. Better yet, when you’ve had a chance to calm down, take action.
Be the bigger person. OK you’ve had words with a neighbour. They’ve asked you to turn the volume down. Going inside and turning the volume up is petty. Doing the annoying things back is petty. Spreading nasty rumours about them is petty. Pettiness is pointless and has a habit of escalating. All that’s going to happen is that everyone involved ends up feeling uncomfortable in their own home. Skip it by letting things go.
Accept that they’re going to have to share. Bodies corporate are about sharing: investment, responsibility and space. Yes your next door neighbour might be noisy and finding a car space is a challenge. Keeping the noise down, parking in designated areas, obeying by-laws, generally keeping your lot clean and tidy all promote harmony and are all necessary tasks for body corporate residents. Your rights are not being infringed because you need to be considerate. That’s simply life in shared spaces.
Let the committee know if you spot an issue. If you see something broken or suspect a problem around the scheme report the matter to your committee. If a problem hasn’t been addressed for a long period of time it could be because the committee don’t know about it.
Observe the by-laws; even if others don’t. “Everyone’s doing it” is not an excuse for you to not follow by laws. Other people’s bad behaviour is not permission for you to behave badly as well. Set an example and do the right thing.
Refrain from bullying, or worse, helping others bully. Mob justice is disrespectful and flat out nasty. Forming clicks to alienate people and try and control their lives is ugly and repellent. Disagreements happen in shared environments; it’s going to be a fact of life. Argue on the facts. Robust discussion on issues will help everyone. Never resort to bullying, discrimination, intimidation and threats to get your way. More importantly, don’t support those who engage in those behaviours. This is everyone’s home and all have a right to feel safe and supported in this environment.
We all want to live in a friendly, well presented and respectful community and to achieve this we all need to follow the points above.
Regards
John Paul Village Body Corporate Committee