Pest problems in coastal apartments and strata buildings
What lives in shared walls, roof spaces and bin rooms, who in a strata building looks after which part of it, and the New South Wales rules for pesticides in common areas. A guide published by Dotto from the official sources linked on each page.
- Notice before common-area spraying5 working days
In NSW, residents of a multiple occupancy complex must be told at least this far ahead.
- Possums in the roofProtected
Possums are protected in NSW, and only a licensed person or an authorised officer may catch one.
- Bed bugsNo known disease
They are not known to spread disease, healthdirect says, but bites can itch and cost sleep.
Six panels, six questions
Each panel answers one question from the pages of the NSW agencies, councils and health services that own the answer. Where a rule is a New South Wales rule, the panel says so.
- Pests in apartment buildings
German cockroaches, black rats and brown rats: where each one lives in a building, and what the official pages say helps.
- Strata and pests: who is responsible
Common property and lots, the common property memorandum, and how to raise a problem with the owners corporation.
- Bed bugs
The signs, where they hide, what heat does to them, and why a block of units makes them harder to clear.
- Pest technician licences in NSW
Which licence covers which work, the public register, and the three checks on a licence card.
- Notice before spraying
The NSW notice rules for common areas, step by step, from five working days out to the record kept afterwards.
- Possums are protected
A possum in the roof space is wildlife. The licence rules for catching one, and why it goes back to the same property.
A building divided in two
In a NSW strata scheme, the owners corporation is responsible for maintaining and repairing common property, and owners repair anything in their own property. Tenants ask their landlord. Common property is generally any area used by all residents or anything of structural importance: driveways and gardens, roofs, pipes, cables and external walls are the examples NSW Fair Trading gives.
The NSW pesticide rules draw a similar line. The NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) treats all of these as common areas: foyers, hallways and stairwells, shared laundries, car parks, roof cavities, the space under the floor, the outside of buildings, and gardens, paths and fences. Roof cavities are on that list, and roofs and cavity walls are where the Australian Museum says the black rat prefers to live.
Fair Trading’s repairs page does not list pests as a line of their own. Panel 02 sets the official pages side by side, including the memorandum some schemes adopt to define common property.
Warm, damp and close together
Cockroaches are cold-blooded and thrive in warm, humid conditions, Victoria’s Better Health Channel explains. The Australian Museum calls the German cockroach the hardest pest cockroach to get rid of and the most troublesome in Sydney, most common in kitchens, often inside cupboards, drawers and electrical appliances.
The Australian Museum describes both of the introduced rats as coastal. The black rat has spread through much of coastal Australia and likes roofs and cavity walls; it is a very agile climber. The brown rat shelters in sewers and other urban sites and is common in coastal urban areas.
Panel 01 compares the three, with what the official pages say about keeping them out.
Five working days, then a notice at the entrance
When pesticides are applied in the common areas of a NSW apartment complex, the person organising the work, generally the strata or property manager or the real estate agent, must notify residents before it happens, and the pest management technician must display a notice while applying it. The EPA explains why: people have a basic right to know when pesticide use may affect them, and residents warned that a treatment is coming can shut their windows or bring in their washing.
Panel 05 follows a notice from start to finish, including what it should say and when the advance notice can be skipped.
The EPA’s line for concerns about pesticide misuse, or when a pest controller’s licence cannot be found. The EPA’s page on engaging a pest management technician has the details.