Catch 22 for Tyrrelstown residents

Over the years, the services being charged for and provided by the management companies of Tyrrelstown have received a lot of attention in the local and indeed the national media. Local politicians claimed that the levels of charges did not adequately reflect the services provided and Tyrrelstown was held up as an example of all that was wrong with the industry.

The T4 management company, run by the Smith’s Property Management Agency, was at the eye of the storm back in 2006, when Dr. Cletus Okonkwo and 23 residents took a successful court action against the agency, closely followed by Linda Woods’ lone victory over Smith’s in the circuit court for non-payment of fees.

Now it appears that the situation on the ground has worsened considerably since those halcyon days.

“Things have been getting worse for over a year now but matters really started to deteriorate when we had the windy weather over Christmas,” explained Curragh Hall resident Dave Murphy. “I live in one of the houses facing the apartments and the litter that blows out of the wheelie bins is unreal. Every day I am out in my garden picking up papers and plastic and it is a constant torment to all of us here.

“What is far worse though, is that when you approach the wheelie bins there is a scattering of rats. You can hear them scurrying about and the area obviously needs a big and urgent clean up to avoid a very real health and safety risk.

“I rang the management company to ask them if they could do something about the litter and the infestation of rats and I was told that there was no money in the pot to pay for this service, as residents had not been paying their service charges. They told me that the only service they could afford to provide were the wheelie bins themselves!

“When I explained that I had paid my service charges but, as a house-owner, I did not benefit from these wheelie bins, I was simply told that they could not provide a service until everybody pays up. Since then, I have tried and tried to get a hold of them but every time I give my name I am told that the person responsible is in a meeting,” Dave added.

In desperation, Dave rang Fingal County Council who were sympathetic to his plight but stated they were powerless to act.

“Our litter warden’s job is to prevent the creation of litter in a public place or in any place that is visible to any extent from a public place,” said an FCC spokesperson. “In the case of developments controlled by Management Companies it is their responsibility to keep the public areas litter free. In the event of a complaint or the accumulation of litter, the Litter Warden would normally make contact with the Management Company and if they did not remove the litter, a fine would issue and proceedings would follow if necessary. This is assuming that a Management Company is operating properly in any area.

“If the Management Company are not carrying out their duties for whatever reason there is very little the litter warden can do to address the problem short of trying to establish where every piece of litter or windblown refuse has come from. If there is a pest problem within the development again it is up to the Management Company to arrange for pest control to deal with this.”

Daragh O’Sullivan, one of the directors of Smith’s Property Management Agency was also sympathetic to Dave’s plight but said that the onus was very much on the residents to bite the bullet and pay the service charge. “The easiest thing for us to do would be to wash our hands of the whole estate,” he claimed, “but we want to try and help to get the estate back to the way it was. Unfortunately, the reality of the situation is that there is now a consensus over there that there is no need to pay a service charge and as a result the estate is spiralling out of control and will soon become a ghetto if people don’t start paying up.

“There is an impasse in the situation at the moment – a Catch 22 situation where the services cannot be provided because the money is not forthcoming and the money is not forthcoming because there are no services being provided. What the residents must realise is that it is a big problem for them, as their estate is going to rack and ruin and they cannot sell their apartments.

“The level of a service charge is not excessive – between €100 to €200 per house – yet we have a shortfall of €80,000. With such a small charge, the scope to collect is limited – it would cost us €500 to collect €100, which is not viable, so we need the voluntary payments to happen to let us provide the landscaping and the caretaker that we want to provide.

“I will admit that mistakes were made on all sides in the past,” he claimed, “and quite frankly I blame local politicians for this current deterioration of the estates. They were swarming all over Tyrrelstown when there was an election on in 2006, but where are they now? They simply preyed on people’s vulnerability at the time and now the chickens are coming home to roost.

“The irony of the situation is that this particular estate looked the best it ever did in 2006 before all the trouble started,” said Mr. O’Sullivan.

 

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