This article discusses body corporate shared clothesline usage rules and how committees can address excessive use through by-laws or formal action.
Question: A tenant takes up a large proportion of the clothesline space every day, leaving clothes out well after they are dry. We’ve approached them gently about the matter, but nothing has changed.
We are a complex of 18 units. There are eight clotheslines for all residents. One tenant uses three clotheslines daily and leaves their washing on the lines from early until late. There excessive use restricts residents’ access to the clotheslines.
We have gently approached the tenant, requesting they remove their washing from the lines when it is dry but there has been no change. How should we approach this problem?
Answer: The body corporate might have to consider an amendment to by-laws to regulate washing line usage.
You may need to look at this from a few angles.
Presently, you’re looking at it from the angle of asking the tenant (known as an ‘occupier’ under Queensland strata legislation) to change what they do, and it seems you’ve tried doing that reasonably and informally – which is what I’d recommend. You can now continue on to do that more formally and, I guess, more assertively by making a request in writing.
To do that, though, you’d have to have a basis on which to ‘continue on’. That’s where your by-laws come into play. Do they adequately cater for this situation? If not, the body corporate might have to consider an amendment to by-laws to regulate washing line usage. Bear in mind that by-laws cannot discriminate between different types of occupiers, so whatever by-law gets considered in relation to washing line use, they will have to apply equally to everyone and not just this individual. You might also want to ask yourself if there’s a reason why this occupier has this seemingly very high washing demand. Do they have a very young family? Does their occupation require it? Understanding the motivation might get you closer to arriving at a solution that works for everyone.
The next angle: is the washing line situation adequate for the needs of the scheme? My rudimentary maths tells me that if the 18 lots had two occupiers each, on average, then that might be 36 people trying to use eight lines at any time, or a ratio of nearly five occupiers per washing line. Is that a good ratio? I can’t answer as I don’t know the scheme, so the committee might like to consider it and whether there is scope to add further lines onto what I assume is common property.
This post appears in the March 2023 edition of The QLD Strata Magazine.
Chris Irons Strata Solve E: chris@stratasolve.com.au P: 0419 805 898