Renter Laura Koefoed has expressed her frustration after strata voted against bikes being kept in her apartment block. ·Source: Supplied
A Sydney renter has slammed “out of touch” investment property owners after they denied a request to install a bike bracket at her apartment block or to store them in any common areas. The 30-year-old said it was another “frustrating” example of how landlords treated housing as a business, rather than as someone’s home.
Laura Koefoed pays $500 a week to rent a “shoebox” studio apartment in Sydney’s inner west. The media advisor told Yahoo Finance she can’t afford to buy a car, and doesn’t have a parking space with her studio, so she relies on her bike as her primary form of transportation.
This week, Koefoed said the strata committee voted against bikes being stored at the 12-unit apartment block because it was “not a good look” for the building. Koefoed said multiple residents at the building had bikes but there was only currently one spot to store a bike.
“The only option will be perhaps seeing if they let me have a wall bracket in my rental. Even then a bike takes up so much space when you don’t have space,” she said.
“I don’t want to leave it outside or in the elements where it gets rusty. I can’t afford a new bike [if it gets stolen], I need to know that it’s safe.”
Koefoed said one of her neighbours, an owner-occupier, had offered to pay for the bike bracket for the building so it would not have cost the strata anything.
But she said the “simple request” which would have made a "massive difference" for tenants was denied, along with the ability for residents to store their bikes in common areas like the laundry and in space under the stairwell where they are currently placed.
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Koefoed said the issue was symptomatic of a deeper problem with the way that some property investors viewed housing.
“For me, it’s about the bigger picture of housing being treated as a business to the point where people’s lives are governed because of an aesthetic reason from owners,” she told Yahoo Finance.
“If you’re not rich enough to own a property then your entire life is governed to the point where you can’t even park a bike safely near your home.”
Koefoed said the majority of residents in the apartment block were renters. Only four of the units have open-air car spaces, while around half have balconies.
Koefoed said she was keeping her bike in the building's laundry as she has no parking space or balcony. ·Source: TikTok
Strata Community Association NSW relationship manager Scott Martin told Yahoo Finance strata was "like the fourth level of government" and there could be a lot of internal politics at play when deciding on issues.
Martin said unfortunately tenants had "very little say at all".
"From a tenant's perspective, ultimately, their line of process is they have a relationship with the leasing agent and should be going through the leasing agent," he explained.
"The leasing agent has a relationship with the landlord or the owner of the property. Who then says, 'This tenant wants to put a bike rack in, is it ok to make an application?'
"Then they write to the strata manager who acts as the agent for the owners corporation."
The issue would then need to be voted on at a general meeting.
"The tenant can go on the committee, this is the law, but they don't have any voting rights and they can't speak to anything to do with financials. It's crazy," Martin said.
Martin said it was "frustrating" that a "simple process" of adding a bike rack involved so much red tape.
Renters worried about speaking up
Koefoed admitted she felt nervous speaking up about the bike issue and worried that “kicking up a stink” could mean she gets kicked out of her rental where she has been living for the past five months.
“I can’t help but feel nervous because you feel like you don’t have a lot of rights as a renter,” she said.
The NSW government banned no grounds evictions for the state’s 2.2 million renters in October, which the government said would help renters “make a house a home”.
Tenants’ Union of NSW CEO Leo Patterson Ross said the reform was the “single most significant change” the government could make to the residential tenancies law.
Koefoed said the issue underscored a deeper problem with the way some property investor's treated housing as a business. ·Source: Supplied/TikTok
“Millions of renters have felt the impact of no grounds evictions in their lives - whether it was hesitating to ask for repairs or negotiate a rent increase, or having to find a new home without justification,” he said.
The change was part of a suite of rental reforms in the state, including limiting rent increases to once per year, making it easier to have pets in rentals, and banning background checks when applying for a property.
The Tenants’ Union said the reforms weren’t perfect but they marked a significant step “toward a fairer and more balanced rental landscape”.
‘Ridiculous’: Aussies weigh in
Koefoed shared her story online and has been met with an influx of responses, as well as Aussies sharing their own rental and strata stories.
“It's so ridiculous that you're not allowed to have your own mode of transport at your property?? The owners know how small the spaces they rent out are already how can they expect you to keep a bike inside too?” one said.
“Yeah we had the same problem in Brunswick where they were like ‘We’ll give you two weeks to remove your bikes or they will be removed’ so I locked my bike to a pole outside and then it got stolen,” another said.
“I just got my first place on a strata and it's kind of wild how nonchalantly they ask you to vote on things which would have massive ramifications for residents,” a third added.
Other Aussies said they agreed with the strata’s decision and thought bikes were an “eyesore” for buildings, while another argued tenants should be responsible for finding somewhere to store their bikes themselves.
Koefoed has argued that investment property owners have a responsibility to ensure their rental properties are “safe and accommodate people’s lives and that includes access to appropriate common spaces”.
Koefoed said she planned to keep fighting the issue and was seeing if a tenant delegate could be added to the strata committee.
