An interesting article written by Jimmy Johnson an expert in the field of apartment living and owner of  www.jimmythomson.com/flatchat

As the world comes to terms with overpopulation, increased urbanisation and the threat of global warming, apartments are the anvil on which the shape of our society will be hammered out over the next decade or so.

Investors and residents are just the most obviously ill-matched co-owners. Owner-occupiers and tenants are merely the most frequently cited bad neighbours.  First-time owners and empty nesters, the oldies who have cashed in their large suburban homes  for a taste of life in the city, are circling each other like alley cats, each wondering which planet the other dropped in from.

And then there are property developers – the people who make their money out of this social drift, with little or no regard for the consequences of their rapacious attitudes.

OK, not all of them are that bad and some of them are ethical, fair and honest – but those are in the minority.

It’s the fundamental and casual dishonesty in their dealings that make developers such 22 carat pariahs.  From the legitimised bribery of political donations to the casual and systematic short-changing of their customers, the property development industry and particularly the apartment building business is profoundly corrupt, and has been since man first put mortar to brick.

People need homes and governments need people who know how to build them.  Until such time as the population boom goes into reverse, property developers will prosper.

What that means for the buyers of nice new apartments is that they will be sold sub-standard properties and will lack the knowledge and/or clout to get what they paid for.

The developers’ mates will buy cheap and sell early, making their killing while the ordinary home owner is left to pick up the tab for buildings that deteriorate well before their use-by dates.

Poor management  -- often installed by the developer – will accelerate and exacerbate the physical decline of buildings.  Poor design will mean buildings that should be a more energy efficient way of housing people are actually a bigger drain on our resources. Poor sound insulation will increase the likelihood of trouble between neighbours.

So what’s the answer?

Simply it’s education and information.  Potential apartment buyers and renters should be able to tell how good the noise insulation between apartments is, the same way we can tell how energy efficient our fridges and washing machines are.

Armed with this “star” rating, people would be less likely to loose their cool when they heard noise from their neighbours.  They would also be less likely to make too much noise themselves if they had an idea of how many people it was affecting and how much.

What they wouldn’t do is go crazy because they thought they were living in a place built to the highest possible standards, just like it said on the brochure.

When it comes to older apartments, there should be a clear set of rules governing the most common and divisive forms of anti-social behaviour.  Whether it’s making too much noise late at night  or treating common areas like garbage dumps or stealing other people’s parking spots – it should not be the person who complains who’s made to feel like they’ve done something wrong.

OK, there are people who will complain about anything and everything and  their version of “my home is my castle” is just as bad as the person who treats an apartment as if it was a free-standing home and expects all their neighbours to put up with their behaviour.

The best apartment blocks are those where everybody understands what’s acceptable and what isn’t.  In some buildings they tolerate the noise from neighbours parties because they know they’re going to have one themselves sooner rather than later.

In others, parties are a no-no, and heaven help those who try to break or bend that unwritten rule.

With older, longer established apartment blocks, the culture of an individual building is not such a mystery for someone hoping to buy in or rent.  All you have to do is ask around and you can find out whether or not it’s a party building.

But don’t bother asking the estate agent – they’ll tell you whatever it is you want to hear and leave it to your new neighbours to explain the facts of life … usually after they’ve removed the master fuse to your electricity at about three in the morning.

But with newer blocks, it can take years to establish a benchmark for acceptable and unacceptable behaviour.

Wouldn’t it be great if developers had to fill in a future resident’s guide that said, for instance, the building was expected to have pets and a lot of parties, parking was available but not guaranteed and most of the apartments would be rented and the building would be run to suit tenants rather than owner-occupiers.  By the way, the building standards are pretty crap, you’ll have to replace the tiles after five years and the sliding doors after seven but that’s OK because the prices are 20 percent lower than anywhere else around.

Buyers and renters would flock to their apartments because they knew exactly what they were going to get for their money.  And nobody could really complain about parties, pets and other noise because it was all there right on the front of the sales contract.

Conversely, the sales or rental contract could quite clearly state that the building was intended to be uptight and intolerant and if you wanted to be able to blast your surround-sound all day and all night, look somewhere else.

Instead we get people who’ve been promised resort-style luxury who find themselves living in a bad re-run of The Young Ones.  Meanwhile others who think they’re going to extend their student lifestyle into middle age find the cops are being called every time they sneeze.

Why does this happen?  In new buildings it’s because developers sell their apartments to their target market, then lie to everyone else who comes along just to soak up their last few sales.

In older apartments, it’s because Estate Agents,  the people who really know what’s going on, won’t do anything that might jeopardise a sale or lease, even when they know the buyer or tenant is going to hate their new home almost as much as their new neighbours are going to hate them.

The misery Estate Agents cause by putting the wrong people into the wrong apartment blocks is criminal. They and the property developers should be made to share their worst flats … for a couple of years

The answer to all these square pegs finding themselves in round holes in the sky is simple.

All we need to do is inject the apartment industry with a little openness, honesty and accountability.

So it’s not going to happen any time soon.