Telling Residents About a Repaint: Notice, Access and Parking

Most complaints during a building repaint are not about the painting. They are about someone arriving on a balcony unannounced, a car park disappearing for a month, or scaffolding going up outside a bedroom window with no warning. Nearly all of it is preventable with communication that starts before the contractor does.

Give notice in stages, not once

One notice three months out gets forgotten. A useful pattern is:

• At the decision. A short note explaining what is being done, roughly when, and why. This is also where you head off the question of cost.
• Two to three weeks before work starts. Dates, the contractor’s name, what residents need to do, and who to contact with questions.
• A few days before each stage reaches a particular area. This is the one that matters most. People need to know when work is coming to their unit specifically, not just to the building.
• At completion. Confirming the work is finished, scaffolding is coming down, and how to report anything missed.

Put notices in more than one place. A sign in the lobby, an email, and a note under each door catches more people than any one channel.

Be specific about balconies and windows

This is where privacy concerns concentrate, and they are legitimate. People want to know when someone will be working outside their window and whether they need to close curtains or move things off the balcony.

Give a date range per elevation or per stack of units, ask residents to clear balconies by a stated date, and say plainly that workers will be at window height. If washing lines, plants or furniture need to move, say so early enough that people can arrange it.

Parking is the issue people actually complain about

Scaffolding, skips, a site container and contractor vehicles all take space, and in most Wellington apartment buildings there is none spare. Work out exactly which car parks are affected and for how long, tell those specific owners individually rather than by general notice, and if possible arrange an alternative.

Giving a resident four weeks’ warning that their park is unavailable turns a grievance into an inconvenience.

Security while scaffolding is up

Scaffolding provides access to upper-level windows and balconies, and residents will raise this. Address it before they do. Explain what is being done, which usually includes alarms on the scaffold, removing ladders between levels overnight, hoarding or gates at ground level, and lighting.

Advise residents to lock upper-level windows and doors that they would normally leave open, and mention it more than once. It is also worth telling people to check their insurer’s position, since some policies have conditions about scaffolding.

Noise, hours and access to the building

State the working hours and stick to them. Say which activities are loud and roughly when they will happen, because water blasting and grinding are far more disruptive than painting. If anyone in the building works night shifts, ask them to make themselves known so the programme can accommodate them where possible.

Confirm how the contractor gets in, whether they need a key or a fob, and make sure residents know who is entitled to be on site so they can report anyone who is not.

One named contact

Nominate one person, usually the building manager or the committee chair, as the point of contact, and put their details on every notice. Residents approaching painters directly with requests is a reliable source of confusion, unpriced work and inconsistent answers.

Equally, the contractor should have one person on site who is responsible and identifiable.

Say what happens if the programme slips

It will. Wellington weather makes exterior programmes move, and residents cope with that far better if they were told at the start that dates are weather dependent, and if they get an update when things change. Silence is what turns a delay into a complaint.

Ask for feedback at the end

A short note inviting residents to report anything missed does two things: it catches genuine snags while the contractor is still on site and the retention is unpaid, and it gives people a legitimate channel instead of a grievance at the next annual general meeting.

How we work with committees

We are used to working to a staged programme on occupied buildings and providing the notice information a committee or building manager needs to circulate. There is more on how committees should assess contractors in our note on choosing a painting contractor for a body corporate.

Get in touch, or read about our commercial and body corporate painting work.