Comment by ObsoleteNerd | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ObsoleteNerd | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I've lived in a Meriton apartment complex in Sydney. It was one of the complexes built right in the biggest part of the boom, when they were rolling out "largest development in Sydney/Australia" one after the other, trying to outdo themselves and each other.

We moved in (renting) when it was brand new, peeling the plastic off the appliances etc. Within 1 year they were doing MAJOR fixes to building-scale defects in the construction, and within 2-3 years we had cracks in the walls, paint flaking off, doors that didn't line up, windows that didn't seal when closed. This is on a ~8th level apartment, and these aren't cheap apartments. They're not luxury, but they're comfortable in the "mid-to-high" end of the Sydney scale, just on the edge of the CBD.

We since moved out of Sydney, but we'll never live in a new-build Apartment again. The hell we went through, just as a renter in those few years, was mind boggling. Giving engineers and tradies access to our apartment seemingly every week, sometimes every day for days on end, so they could inspect and fix issues. I can't even imagine how bad it is for people who got suckered/conned into buying those POS apartments.

A London plumber told me once he spends a lot of time in super poorly made new builds. Construction firms build them super shitty but with a five/ten year guarantee, take the money, then declare themselves bankrupt. The guarantee is worthless because the firm is gone, they make a ton of cash on the build, they set up again and rinse and repeat. I assume it's a little more complicated than that, but he said he'd seen it a lot and spends a lot of time fixing problems he shouldn't. Is this similar in Sydney?

Yup spot on. They're famous for going bankrupt and reappearing under new names.

Phoenixing - ASIC was meant to be cracking down on that but I hear from ppl that work there they cant be bothered with small companies and mainly want to focus on banks etc.

This was the underlying plot of the movie Jack Reacher; shady construction firm that goes from city to city.

So the usual Meriton SOP is to retain control of the body corporate for the duration of the builder’s liability so that they can’t start proceedings against the builder (Aus strata title, body corp coverered here: https://www.lawsociety.com.au/for-the-public/know-your-right...).

Strata title laws have been changed recently, but the system is slow to catch up to these cowboys.

Meriton is extremely well connected politically. NSW (the state Sydney is in) has always had a problem with corruption stretching back to the Rum Rebellion [0]. If you are thinking of buying a new apartment in Sydney then just walk away, if the developer is Meriton then run.

0. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rum_Rebellion

Connected politically or not means squat if you build a structure that collapses killing hundreds of people. At least I hope that is the case in any place under rule of law. Of course I would hate to see any kind of building failure that causes mass casualty. But are the execs of Meriton aware of such possibility?

I am reminded of the Sampoong Department Store collapse in Seoul, Korea. This happened in 1995. This was a very high end department store from what I heard. I know acquaintances who know of a family that lost multiple family members.

The family that owned the building was one of those chae-bul family in S. Korea with multiple business interests. I believe in top 50 at the time or something like it. So yes they were politically connected. But because of the catastrophic failure of the building with mass casualty, the family's entire holding was liquidated to pay for compensation to the victims' families. And the owner/owner's son both served lengthy prison terms.

Edit: While reading up on Sampoong incident, I learned the owner wanted original construction firm to take shortcuts to reduce cost, but they refused. So the owner fired the firm and started HIS OWN construction firm to build the building. At least someone had a backbone, stuck to what was right, and lost a big job/contract, but was proved to be in the right. I bet someone at the original construction firm let out a huge sigh of relief later.

Any problems regarding Meriton don't seem to be well documented. The only issue on its Wikipedia page is a fine for manipulating TripAdvisor reviews.

I did say they were very well connected ;)

Yes when your buildings collapse you will find you have problems bigger than your political friends can help you with.

Meriton is competent enough to put up buildings that won’t fall down on their own.

Have a look at the James Hardie Industries case to see how large Australian companies avoid legal consequences for killing large numbers of people.

"The total number of past and future claims made against James Hardie for asbestos-related diseases is estimated to be more than 12,500, of which 8103 will be claimed after 2006."[1]

[1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hardie_Industries

> Connected politically or not means squat if you build a structure that collapses killing hundreds of people. At least I hope that is the case in any place under rule of law.

I wouldn't count on that. 18 months later there have still been no prosecutions (or even open court cases AFAIK) regarding the Grenfell Tower disaster. It'll most likely be years or decades before that happens.

If it turns out this was caused by someone being negligent, they will continue endangering the lives of other people until that happens.

No case against the government/council? It was the fucking lack of regulation.

My experience of equivalent buildings in Melbourne matches up. Leaks and cracks all over the place. All these building seem to be built out of prefabbed concrete panels in a hurry. Bonus points if it's also covered in a flammable cladding.

Yeah we moved from Sydney highrise hell directly into Melbourne highrise hell (we thought Melbourne might be better... Oops) and received a flooded 10th floor apartment in a 1 year old highrise because they "forgot" to seal where the wall concrete meets the floor concrete, and an exterior ledge pooled water until it seeped through the cracks and flooded our apartment.

Multiple weeks with 2 adults and 2 kids and all our belongings in the single dry room while they stripped the inside and outside of our apartment to bare concrete, sealed it all, and rebuilt all the interior, drywall, carpets, etc.

Because we rented, we received no compensation or assistance. Yay Victorian tenants rights (or lack thereof).

We're now in a 30yr old double brick house (with all new high quality interior) in a rural city and never been happier. We'll never live in an apartment or major Australian city again.

So finally construction caught up with software.

Move Fast And Break Things became Build Fast And Things Break.

Cheaply constructed apparment buildings falling or burning down has been a thing since Roman times.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insula_(building)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com