Melbourne

After my little mini rage on Monday, they pushed child protection along and got the security upgrades happening. The 4 things they promised were:

• a gate on the driveway (which is currently the only unprotected entrance)
• security cameras around the property
• proper locks on the side gates (currently 2/3 gates are just a simple latch with a padlock hole I've put an unsanctioned padlock in)
• a deadbolt on the front door
• replacement door frames to fix all the damage old mate inflicted with his little knife episode

Apparently all except the deadbolt have been approved (they're still trying to come up with a solution that doesn't violate the fire code thingies, although I guess technically the screen door is a deadbolt, since it can't be opened by sliding a knife into the lock and prying, which is all I really wanted. A dude came out today to measure the door frames, apparently they're going to replace all the doors as well. Interestingly they've actually used a local tradie instead of the idiots from mcpeake.

Mcpeake are the previously unnamed idiots that do stupid work that I mention almost weekly. As I understand it, they have the contracts for fixing, upgrading, and maintaining all public housing and out of home care properties in Melbourne. They seem to take it for granted, or the department is locked into a long contract. they don't provide timeframes, they usually rock up unannounced (a problem because I'm not allowed to let them in, or approve/sign off on any work, that's all the property managers job), at least outside of emergency works. They also do shoddy work, are staffed exclusively by arseholes (their google reviews are hilarious btw), and usually don't even finish the job right.

But it seems that people above the property manager have been stressing the importance of getting things done in a timely fashion, and they ended up finding local tradies to do most of the work.