Columnist HUGH SELBY eavesdrops on an imaginary departmental meeting dealing with complaints by Housing ACT tenants…

Come on, grab one of those wipes to get the sticky bun off your fingers, and then let’s get back to work.

The next item on the “do we have to do anything?” list is complaints by ACT Housing tenants.

Ah, yes, that woman with the small kid, Dion, in Dickson; no, sorry that’s Lyneham. She’s a problem. Got herself media attention and in CityNews (here and here). Then Liberal MLA Peter Cain asked questions about her leaking place in the Assembly. 

It’s a bit of a problem that we had the kitchen renovated, and put in new carpet, but did nothing about the badly leaking roof, the broken cistern, the rocking toilet, the mould, the un-openable window and the rusty iron out the back.

Still, who’s to blame? None of us. As for Housing, they know the drill. See no evil, hear no evil and speak only about the problem tenants, not the problem properties.

Good thing that the news cycle and everyone’s attention is so short. Wouldn’t want to have her stirring up more trouble. It will give other tenants the notion that they have rights. Losers.

Little Dion wants Uncle Andrew and Aunt Yvette to look at his place

Coming in this morning, Christ it was cold. I needed gloves and an extra layer under my padded jacket. Did you see that they have a sale coming up? Anyway, saw this bloke, probably in his 20s, wrapped up in just a colourful hoodie and matching pants. He was sitting on the ground, back up against a fence, legs pulled up. Looked like a big cocoon, huddling for warmth. It was a bit overcast, so I wondered, just for a fleeting moment mind you, where he’d go if it started to rain.

Not to Dion’s place!

People like “the cocoon” make good tenants: they don’t know how to complain so they are out of sight and out of mind. I doubt he travels much. Wouldn’t want him outside the Assembly: that would make us look like we didn’t care.

I’ve got a note here about what has been done to do nothing. Hold on a sec. Got it. Says that the maintenance people went out and the tile roof over the renovated kitchen was leaking. That wasn’t mentioned in those media articles which reported the other roof leaks.

I wonder if she’s deliberately making the place worse. Maybe she got up on the roof with a hammer and cracked a few more tiles. Probably not, unless she has a ladder. She carried on about putting a tarp over it. They didn’t have one, so they used some silicon. I don’t know whether it was a little or a lot. She’ll whinge again if it doesn’t work, but, heh, who’s listening?

Oh, just reading down the note. Maintenance has agreed to replace the skylights – the ones that leak. That’s all of them. They didn’t tell the tenant when they’d do that. Thank goodness. The last thing we want is some deadline that we can be tied to.

Hold on, they told her it could be another year or so before they get around to her place. Good on them.

Bit of a safety issue with the kitchen light cover that fills with water when it rains. No worries because the circuit breaker will cut out all the lights. TV is on the power circuit so they can watch Bluey in the dark.

Quite rightly, maintenance took a hard line on the syringes that the tenant keeps on finding in the unusable back yard. Pointed out to her that they were probably being thrown over the fence and so she has to clean them up.

Yeh, I know that the earlier reports were that she was digging them up, and so they were there when she and the kid moved in. That means it is ACT Housing’s responsibility. Not to worry because no one is going to remember that.

Oh dear, maintenance foolishly promised to send the tenant an email setting out what would be done. Ah, it’s okay. They haven’t done that. Just make sure that doesn’t happen, would you?

That’s about it. Hold on. There’s a yellow Post-it Note. The backyard tap wouldn’t turn off. All good because they got a plumber out there quick smart before the long weekend to replace the tap. I reckon that’s a 10-minute job that we can use for 10 months to do nothing. It shows that our people are on the ball.

Any questions, comments?

You’re saying that Children’s Services says the place isn’t safe for Dion? You’ve had a call about the mould and the lack of ventilation and the syringes. Keep that one under your hat for now. We might be able to use that to relocate them. I know she doesn’t want to move. So we make her move by threatening what will happen to the kid.

Enough of this. We have more sticky issues to deal with. Let’s start with the Integrity Commission. Fortunately, there’s still no report on the Campbell School works tender fiasco.

Is it too much to ask ACT Housing keep tenants safe and dry?

Author Hugh Selby is a CityNews columnist, principally focused on legal affairs. His free podcasts on “Witness Essentials” and “Advocacy in court: preparation and performance” can be heard on the best known podcast sites.