CHEMICAL WARFARE?

For the last six weeks I've been experiencing chemical fumes in my unit.
A similar happened around this time last year.
The chemical substance left a burning sensation on my skin, forcing me to leave my unit and sleep in my car.
Coincidentally it happened during the week before a decision was handed down by the Consumer Trader & Tenancy Tribunal that I as a public housing tenant living in a retirement village was not covered by the Retirement Villages Act.
It was only the fee paying residents who had this privilege.
To be protected against discrimination and harassment by management and other residents.
It had taken seven stressful months for the CTTT to make this ruling, and both sides were during that time understandably getting a bit toey.
I'd been firing off some angry emails at the other side.
They retaliated by placing a chemical substance in my unit which burnt my facial skin and made it hard for me to breath.
Suspecting foul play, I went to the police.
Once the decision that went against me was out in the open, the chemical warfare suddenly stopped.
This year the fumes have been coming mainly at night, and the early hours of the morning.
Now they are happening during the day too.
Wonder what they are and where they are coming from?
Bridget Jones Message to Self: Don't get paranoid about this.
There may be a totally innocent causation, an alternative explanation.

ALL WAS EXPOSED

Well, the sky didn't fall in after all at the mysterious meeting held at the retirement village last Monday week.
It was a very interesting meeting nonetheless.
A male public housing tenant, our self-styled leader, took the floor claiming he had asked the general manager to call the meeting.
But what about the email I had sent him telling him I wanted to call one to which he did not respond?
He seemed to have been chosen by management to go into bat for PHTs whenever a problem arose as someone who sounded credible but who was not prepared to rock the boat too much.
The local newspaper had been invited to attend the meeting, but he insisted the journalist leave.
Nonetheless, our fearless leader was very upset about public housing tenants officially being made 'second class citizens' by changes to the Retirement Villages Act.
In particular the removal of the 'joint venture' clause which on paper gave public housing tenants living in retirement villages where Housing NSW is involved in a 'joint venture' with other parties the same legal protection as the self-funded residents living there too.
Now the only legal protection we have is the same as public housing tenants who live in houses or blocks of units.
Housing NSW acting head lawyer, Chris Valacos, said he had the legislation changed to 'clarify' the situation.
Now we were the same as all other public housing tenants.
We were saying we wanted to be treated as equals with the self-funded residents and he was saying we were now equals with all other PHTs.
He suggested we were up ourselves if we dared to argue with that.
Well, our living situation is entirely different for a start.
We also pay a fortnightly levy for 'services provided' by the management of the retirement village which other PHTs don't have to fork out of their pensions.
Our fearless leader asked why an act of parliament had been changed just because one PHT had tried to take legal action against the retirement village. He may well ask ...
For a while I thought changing the law to deny someone their legal rights was called perverting the course of justice, but I looked this up and found out this is not the case.
I did find a couple of emails from the abovementioned lawyer in my Housing NSW file urging the Office of Fair Trading to remove the 'joint venture' clause in response to my legal action in the Consumer Trader & Tenancy Tribunal under the Retirement Villages Act.
The CTTT determination went against me on somewhat spurious grounds.
The HNSW lawyer said that although this ruling was in his favour, he was not content with it because it had only been made in a lower court, not in the Supreme Court.
I had said in my email to OFL that I wanted to call a meeting of PHTs to discuss the ramifications of the changes to the Retirement Villages Act, and to hopefully establish a public housing tenants forum.
OFL shouted my latter suggestion down, saying it would create an 'us and them' situation with the self-funded residents.
But wasn't that what he had been complaining about earlier?
About how the change to the act had now made this official?
I could see it was a 'no win' situation.

GRAND SOCIAL EXPERIMENT IN PUBLIC HOUSING FAILS

Post removed voluntarily because information contained in it was not correct.

NSW Housing's revolving door

A forthright middle-aged woman managed to grab centre stage and precious media minutes on ABC-TV's Q&A last Monday night to question Federal Housing Minister, Tanya Plibesek, about public housing tenants being evicted by Housing NSW and made homeless as a result. The Minister said she could not address the subject because it was a specific case she knew nothing about. Has this very serious matter ever been investigated by the media, including the ABC?

More stimulus package refurbishment carry on

The botched Housing NSW refurbishment of kitchens in one of its Sydney retirement villages had a couple of positive outcomes. It resulted in two meetings of public housing tenants - the first held there for seven years, possibly even longer.
Keeping us isolated from each other appears to be part of a 'divide and rule' policy by the management of the retirement village and Housing NSW in the interests of the self-funded residents who live there as well. The underdogs have to be kept under the thumb.
At the second meeting it was revealed that the flat taps would be replaced by high arched ones, and the single sinks would be replaced by double ones. H-e-l-l-o! So why were the high arched taps and double sinks removed in the first place? The return of the double sinks would mean ripping out the new single sinks and reconfiguring the new cupboards underneath. Well, that's what the stimulus package was all about, wasn't it? Keeping tradesmen busy. Making sure they had enough work. 
The housos were unimpressed. They just wanted their old kitchens back. But management told them that they thought the refurbishment program had been a success and to rate it 8 out of 10.
Was this to make the Housing NSW team leader and the young man who chose the new kitchens, both of whom were present, feel a bit better?
Housos were being told the emperor was wearing clothes but he was actually naked.

Carry on refurbishing

Every houso has a maintenance story to tell, usually about shoddy workmanship. This one takes out the 'colander' (full of holes) award.
The DOH powers that be decided used some of the Rudd stimulus package to install new kitchens in a retirement village - naturally without any consultation with its clients, the people who had to use them. 
So the first recipients of this unexpected largess were shocked to find that their double sinks had been replaced by single ones, and that the high arched water spouts had been replaced with flat ones, making it impossible to fit large pots underneath them.
Then there were the cupboards, the top shelves of which extended right up to the ceiling, requiring elderly people to teeter on tiptoe on chairs in order to access anything from them.
The biggest bungle was the removal of a beam containing a very strong flourescent light that extended above the full length of the kitchen bench. This great aid for ailing elderly eyesight when trying to read recipe books was removed in the name of allowing more light into the area during the day.
Mmmm. Does the young man who came up with this 'colander concept' ever do the washing up, or does he always leave it to his mum?
Sorry. Can't afford prizes for all those correct answers.

Putting the boot into tenants

Well, Housing NSW has tried to evict me twice now for 'management reasons', as if I was in in their custody and they were not simply my landlords.
The bullying and intimidation of me by its legal department as well as its senior staff has been horrendous.
The team leaders I have encountered as part of the appeals process have made my blood run cold.
Why have these insensitive, uncaring people been given so much power over their tenants?
Particularly when many of their tenants would be victims of child abuse and possibly former clients of DOCS?
It doesn't figure, professing to want to help abused children then putting the boot into them when they are adults.
Why they want to put the boot into me is because I've complained about their incompetence and their abuse of power.
I've finally spoken up about it after living with it for seven years in a state of fear.
I have had enough.