Unreasonable requests from university village management

I have been living at a Sydney based University residence on campus for 3 years and for the most part have never had a problem until the last few months when new management has come in and things have been going down hill. I will start with saying that my shared apartment is by no means dirty. It was last cleaned on Friday (vacuumed, benches cleaned, bathrooms done).

To put things short, i have received an email at 4pm Wednesday stating that apparently our apartment of 5 is not clean and at an unacceptable standard. They demanded this to be fixed and brought up to standard otherwise we will be charged a large sum of money for them to hire cleaners at 11am Friday. Now, this is a problem because the only access to vacuum cleaners are during 9-5 office hours, and since i did not personally see the email until tonight i will no longer have a chance to borrow one due to class all day tomorrow and Friday morning.

Here is a list of things to be done.

  • Vacuum everything (move furniture, vacuum furniture).
  • Clean all walls, tiled splashbacks, cupboard doors, fridge doors, windows etc
  • Mop all floors
  • Clean all tabletops, sinks, range hoods, microwaves (internally), ovens, windowsills
  • Remove ALL soap scum from both showers, leave glass streak free (whole shower is a giant glass pane, could easily fit 6-8 people in that shower).
  • Leave toilet spotless

In other words they would like the entire apartment spotless from top to bottom with 1 days notice at a university village where students are studying and working full time. I should also mention this goes against there contract as it states they will give is a minimum of 5 days notice for all inspections. This is not at all possible as 2 of our roommates a generally out from the very early hours till late at night due to postgraduate work or graduate full time work in the city. I and the remaining roommate have class all of Thursday and i also have class from 9-11 on Friday.

I have sent an email to them outlining how this is unfair and against what i have signed, but based of the experiences of friends here, and based off there recent activity i doubt they will have any mercy. Is there anything else i can do as this is unreasonable and certainly goes against the intentions of the previous managers to provide a supporting residence for the students.

I have heard sending a complaint to the Rental Ombudsman could potentially be an option. I would also like to apologize for the large block of text, i have attempted to add formatting to highlight key points and make it more readable.

Edit: If anyone is doubting me that it is clean / already at an acceptable level, i took photos of all areas of the apartment prior to receiving the email and would be happy to provide. I do know they have a bunch of students living on campus hired as cleaners who are available as needed on call, wouldn't surprise me if this was a technique to try and make some money while students are at a busy time of semester.

Edit2 We already have four scheduled cleaning inspections per year with dates notified to us at the start of the year.

Edit3 25/8 I have received a response back to the village management and the response is that the time/date is final. There is apparently a clause aside from the table of allowed times that is nearly identical to that of the fair trading NSW one, that states they can request access to common areas at any time for inspection. In that case, management is only hurting themselves when alot of residents are already wanting to move off campus due to the actions of new management. Its probably a good thing there is 2 new student friendly complexes opening across the road that appear to me cheaper then here with significantly less restrictions.

Comments

  • -4

    I think the request is fair enough

    • +2

      Why is that Savas?
      The apartment is cleanly maintained, vacuumed weekly, mopped as required and other things such as cupboard surfaces, microwaves and oven etc cleaned as needed.

      They are expecting every surface inside and out to be cleaned spotless with a days notice. I dont know about you, but thoroughly vacuuming and moving all the furniture in a large apartment takes a good 20 minutes. Add to this mopping (10 minutes), scrubbing every cuboard door mark free (dark cupboards, 15-20 minutes), cleaning out fridge and washing every shelf (20 minutes, removing all food putting back). Scrubbing a shower spotless from any buildups and drying without marks on a >2m tall piece of glass, 3m long takes time as well.

      Looking at your profile picture, have you ever been in a situation where you have had to clean an entire home from top to bottom spotless?
      Now try doing that when you have class from 9-4 and have an assignment also due.

    • +2

      That's because you're 12 and get mummy to do the cleaning.

      • +3

        Hey, cut him some slack, he's got a busy Pokemon schedule…

      • +2

        No need to be ageist.
        It is quite possible Savas does their share of housework. My kids do.

        I think it is reasonable to expect rental property to be maintained tidily, and if it is not, then a deadline given to bring it up to scratch.
        Since the OP has circumstances that make it hard to meet the deadline, but could meet one a day or two later, it seems like asking for an extension is a good idea.

        The bigger issue is that the OP believes the property was already clean, so they may still find themselves in dispute after they perform some cleaning.
        Perhaps explaining the situation, asking for a couple of extra days and getting all 5 housemates to pitch in and clean the apartment would be the best course.

        • I have previously rented for many years. Some real estates have unrealistic expectations of cleanliness. I remember one agent that did the whole white glove routine. I responded saying perhaps we should go to her house with the white glove and see how clean it is. That shut her up pretty quick!

        • As dogboy mentioned in his response to this, it is an unrealistic expectation of cleanliness they hold. It wouldnt matter if i had cleaned everything top to bottom on Tuesday, by then there would be a slight build up of dirt that would be unacceptable to them, though any guests would even call it a clean house.

          Lets say you do weekly cleaning, and you wiped every surface of the house from top to bottom (i assume you wouldn't thoroughly clean every fridge shelf, oven, scrub entire shower etc weekly realistically though) and they came in half way through that cycle, they would not be happy. Things like tables are wiped clean between uses, but things like cleaning the floor are a weekly task and other things like cleaning out the fridge, cupboards etc are more of a monthly / as needed task.

          I had the village manager personally inspect our apartment for the last scheduled inspection, he noted even the slightest bit of dust as the place was cleaned the day before as we should have been inspected early in the day, but was actually inspected after 5pm. He wasn't happy with the sink, it had dried water marks and someone came back from class and washed up plates without getting out a towel to manually dry the sink streak free.

  • Start cleaning.
    They probably won't hassle you once you get your accommodation up to scratch.

    DO you live near Royal Prince Alfred Medical Centre?

    • +1

      I do not. Personally i do not mind giving out the name of the university, but i know it would probably go against some forum rule / some law.

      I do not believe this will stop them hassling me unfortunately, this has happened to friends apartments multiple times before mine. I have found the cause of them finding out, a repair man swapped a globe over today while a roommate was in his with some stuff out on the table and food cooking. Ironic considering whenever they replace a globe they drill into the roof for whatever reason and leave a big mess on the ground. Must have cleaned up by himself today otherwise i would have noticed.

      • The reason I asked is because I know the owner at the Sydney Uni village.

        • Unfortunately, this collection of villages on all of the uni's villages are owned by money hungry international owners who own hundreds of villages/hotels worldwide. it would be good to have the previous management / owners back.

  • +1

    Yeah that's pretty unreasonable by anyone's standards. Unreasonably high expectations for just a routine inspection (they should only be concerned about damages and mess that would eventually cause damage) and a completely unreasonable timeframe to give a deadline like that.

    But you could spend as much time fighting and stressing over it as you would just mucking in and giving your apartment a once-over. There's 5 of you. The apartment was cleaned recently so can't be in that bad a state to start out. Take a task each and just get it done tonight and/or tomorrow night. Only the vacuuming needs the vacuum cleaner, everything else can be done. Surfaces that need mopped can be swept first.

    Some battles just aren't worth it. You could just be making your life hell further down the track by putting a target on your head.

  • A couple of things sound strange to me. In your rental agreement it should state how soon they can conduct an inspection (ie they have given you notice to fix and there should be a minimum number of days they can allow you before reinspecting it (probably seven days unless it is a serious issue). If there is no clause in your agreement then look at this: http://www.fairtrading.nsw.gov.au/ftw/Tenants_and_home_owner… So they should give you reasonable time to correct the infringement.

    Also in a lot of cases, written notice is required for inspections. As far as I am aware this would not include e-mails.

    However on the other side of things it seems strange that you would take photos of how good the apartment has been cleaned BEFORE you received the notice that it needs to be cleaned.
    Did this email come through last Wednesday at 4pm or today. I find it hard to believe that 3 Students wouldn't have checked their email in 7 days, particularly when you don't necessarily require a computer to access (get them on your phone). So if written notice does include e-mails I would not think that not checking emails would be a good enough excuse.

    • Thanks, i will have a look into the fair trading side of things.
      I took photos directly after receiving the notice, which was sent on Wednesday 24th (today) and it must be done by the Friday 26th 11am, which basically means only tomorrow when i have class prior to 11am.

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