Coronavirus protection in your apartment building or community

When you live in a public space like an apartment building or complex, protections from coronavirus become more communal. Precautions are no different than the steps you to take in your own home, but the difference is you don't have control of everything that happens.

If you're concerned about your management's preparation for coronavirus prevention, sit down with your strata manager and find out if they're following these guidelines.

1. Make hand sanitizer available everywhere

You don't have sinks to wash in all over your lobby or common areas, so your building should provide hand sanitizer everywhere — at the front desk, at the gym, by the mailboxes — and encourage residents, staff and visitors to use it often.

2. Clean a lot

Just like in your apartment, high-traffic surfaces in common areas should be cleaned and sanitized, and it should be repeated multiple times a day. The staff should be instructed to disinfect commonly-touched surfaces in places like the front desk, lobby restroom, mailroom, game rooms, elevators, door handles and delivery areas. All deliveries should be left in the lobby for pickup and not taken to apartments.

3. Close the garbage

All trash cans, both outdoor plastic garbage cans and lobby wastebaskets, ought to have working lids which should be kept closed. No one wants to, or should be forced to, pick up used tissues that have fallen on the ground.

4. Don't come in if you're sick

Apartment management should communicate and ensure all contractors are following the policy that they do not come into work if they are feeling sick.

5. Be transparent and communicative

All employees, residents and visitors should be encouraged to alert property management if they believe they might have contracted coronavirus, especially if they have used common areas. That way, other residents and staff can be notified and take appropriate precautions.

In Victoria residents have been asked to also wear masks when ever they leave their buildings. Please take all precautions as communicated by Government - because it is about keeping everyone safe. And that is an outcome we all want!