SUBLEASING & OVERCROWDING SPREADS VIRUS
” THEIR SLEEPING IN KITCHENS AND LOUNGE ROOMS”
High-rise towers have become the new frontier of a thriving illegal rooming house market as “profiteering” operators prey on struggling foreign students. International student groups said a lack of affordable housing was leaving young foreigners living in Australia with “no choice” but to pay to live in slum-like housing.
” A bad reputation for Australia as a country, and its education institutions”.
Blatant overcrowding is also frustrating other tenants of high-rise buildings, who often have to wait in line to access their lifts and are being “tailgated” by swarms of other residents who do not have their own key.
A state government spokeswoman said “there are laws in place to regulate apartment safety and occupancy levels which allow council officers to inspect apartments without consent if they are believed to be unsafe” but it is not happening.
Subleasing and
illegal accommodation resulting in overcrowding is a problem for landlords and owners in residential towers impacting rental returns and capital growth of their properties.
Subleasing and illegal accommodation typically results in the property being poorly kept, causing significant and costly damage. Overcrowding creates a fire risk, which has resulted in a few cases of apartments in Melbourne catching fire in this year alone. Poor hygiene and security risks for residents are also significant issues.
Property managers are well aware of warning signs that indicate subleasing and monitor websites that are notorious for advertising illegal subleasing.
“All of that aside, it is illegal for anyone in a residential tower to sleep in non-habitual rooms such as the living room, where many people are now paying hundreds of dollars a week to sleep.”
Authorities also believe some of Melbourne’s illegal rooming houses are organised overseas, including through foreign-language websites, making it harder for the ringleaders to be discovered.
Even the tenants do not always know who they are paying because they are asked to deposit their rent into postal boxes or to hand money to the maintenance person.
Signs have been found on the back of apartment doors by council workers warning housemates not to speak to anyone who comes to the door.
3 Comments
I cannot understand why the death rate from the Covid-19 virus is so low in Australia (approximately 1.1%) compared to other countries. e.g. The rate in US is approximately 4.6%.
Could the figures be skewed by only testing those who have symptoms in instead of random testing such as what is currently being conducted in Australia. However, instead of counting us all in the denominator — in many countries including the US — only people sick enough to go to the hospital are counted. People sick enough to go to the hospital are more likely to need critical care, and patients in critical condition are more likely to die than patients with mild symptoms. This means the fatality rate looks higher than it really is.
Even when they are testing — depending on the type of test used — they may only be counting people who are actively infected, not those who had it and are thus currently immune. This again will lead to an underestimate of the denominator.
There a lot of people who test positive but have no symptoms but are still included in the number of infections. A number of athletes had positive tests but negative shortly after.
Up to date only 108 deaths in Australia!
It is difficult to calculate the death rate from Covid-19 because authorities are counting people who already have a life threatening pre-existing condition before being exposed to the virus.