ACT Housing is half way through a program of installing smoke detectors in all its housing stock. It is a worthy program. Smoke detectors should be installed in all houses. Smoke detectors cost very little, about $15 or so. The program began after several fires in ACT Housing homes causing large property losses, and more importantly, a potential for loss of life.
The trouble is that ACT Housing expects the program to last two years. It will take another year for it to be completed. ACT Housing is using the ACT Fire Brigade to install the smoke detectors. The fire brigade does not have a large staff. Its main function is to put out fires and to maintain the wherewithal to put out fires. It is likely that in the next year it takes to install smoke detectors in the remaining houses, that preventable property damage and perhaps loss of life or limb will occur.
This week a fire at a house in Lyneham caused $40,000 damage and could easily have caused the death or injury of some occupants. The woman renting the house, who had two children, said after the fire that she had made repeated requests for smoke detectors to be installed.
There is something wrong here. No-one owning or renting private premises would dream of getting the fire brigade in to install at $15 smoke alarm. It is a hopeless mentality of dependency. ACT Housing should have been less bureaucratic and more imaginative. It could have worked out a rent-rebate scheme (perhaps with a reward) for tenants to install their own smoke detectors. The $40,000 damage caused at Lyneham this week would have paid for more than 2500 smoke detectors, enough for about a fifth of ACT Housing’s stock.