I pay $500 a week to rent a studio apartment and asked for a simple change to make life easier… the response shocked me

A tenant has lashed out at the landlords of her apartment building for having ‘no contact’ and refusing to leave her bike in the communal area.

Laura Koefoed rents a ‘shoebox’ studio flat in Sydney’s Inner West for $500 a week and relies on a bicycle to get around the city because she can’t afford a car.

But even if she could afford a car, her studio apartment has no parking, and now there’s nowhere in the building where she can park her bike.

The strata committee voted against allowing residents of the 12-unit building to keep their bicycles in the common areas because it did not give a “good look” to the apartment building.

Ms Koefoed told Daily Mail Australia there was only one bike shed in the building and her studio apartment was too small to store it.

“If I could explain how small my one-room studio is,” she said.

‘It’s just one bedroom, living room, dining room etc. It’s stupid that they don’t consider allowing bicycles in perfectly reasonable communal areas.’

Although many of the building’s residents also had bicycles, there was only one bicycle shed between them.

Mrs. Koefoed indicates that she does not want to leave her bicycle outside in case it is stolen or rusted.

Although a good Samaritan neighbor offered to pay for the bicycle rack so that strata and the owners’ committee did not have to pay the costs, the offer was rejected.

Ms Koefoed said having a cycle rack for residents was a ‘simple request’ and had the potential to make a ‘big difference’.

But the communal storage space was also excluded, because residents could no longer store their bicycles in areas such as the laundry room or under the stairwell, where people parked them.

The apartment complex where Mrs. Koefoed lives is mainly occupied by tenants. Only four of the apartments have open-air parking spaces and only half have a balcony.

Mrs. Koefoed’s studio does not have a balcony.

The tenant said the issue was a sign of a deeper problem in the housing market, where investors saw housing as a business concerned about aesthetics and not as someone’s home.

“This really goes further than just this cycling situation,” says Koefoed.

The strata committee voted against allowing residents of the 12-unit building to keep their bicycles in the common areas because it was not a “good look” for the apartment building

“This was just one more testament to how little they care about the lives of the people they benefit financially.”

Ms Koefoed shared her frustration on TikTok, where some social media users blamed her, saying she should go buy a house and then she could do whatever she wanted.

She branded the response “ridiculous.”

“People have told me that if I want a place to store my bike, I should just buy a house myself,” she said.

“Do you think I would rent a studio the size of a shoebox for $500 a week, with no separate bedroom, etc., if I could afford to buy a bigger house?”

The media consultant said she left home at the age of 17 and worked “so damn hard” to pay $500 a week in rent on her own.

“So the idea that I have to work harder or that there is something wrong with me because I can’t afford the money to buy a house is ridiculous,” Koefoed said.

“I think people understand the struggle, but there’s a mentality of ‘well, I had to do it, which means you do too.’

“Instead of using their experience and creating change, they perpetuate this unhealthy narrative.”

Strata Community Association NSW relationship manager Scott Martin shared Yahoo those layers had become ‘a kind of fourth level of government’ and there was often internal politics when issues were voted on in a building.

Mr Martin said tenants do not have much say in strata matters, but can communicate any concerns or requests with their letting agent as they can approach the landlord on behalf of the tenant about issues.

But Ms Koefoed has not yet approached her real estate agent to ask the landlord for permission to install a bicycle rack in her studio because she is ‘afraid of pushing it so far that I will be evicted from my house’ and she is still there only five months.

“I’ll go this week, but I’ll just take it easy,” she said.

The media consultant is aware that she may have “caused a commotion,” which could mean that “he could find a reason” to evict her if he wanted to.

Unfounded evictions were banned in NSW in October for the state’s 2.2 million renters, but won’t start until 2025.

They will also extend to residential rental agreements signed before the law came into effect.