It started with a leak. A pool of water spreading out in the spare bedroom.
"It was soaking. It wasn't just wet," Jenna Alexander said.
Ms Alexander had moved into the brand-new apartment a few months earlier with her husband Sean and their newborn son.
She said they called the construction company, who did some works including replacing the carpet and told the couple the issue was fixed.
But Ms Alexander said a few months later, it happened again.
Under the carpet, the couple claim they found mould and rusted fixings.
A building report, seen by the ABC, detailed issues with waterproofing between the terrace doors and the spare bedroom, and evidence of water leaks.
The report also showed damage to the waterproofing membrane between the door connecting the terrace to the lounge room.
The couple called a mould expert to do a test in the spare bedroom.
"He rang us and said, 'get out of the room, shut it up, rip the carpet out'," Mrs Alexander said.
"We had two small children by this point and that was also their toy room. It became known as the danger room."
The mould report, also seen by the ABC, says mould was found in an external wall and in two bedrooms.
All up, the building inspector's report estimated defects identified in the property, including issues beyond waterproofing, would cost $116,645 to rectify.
The bulk of that — more than $87,000 — would go towards repairing terraces and damage to external doors.
Settlement 'under protest' leads to VCAT hearing
Mr and Mrs Alexander bought the apartment in Melbourne's north off the plan, and moved in in late 2018.
"Everything was kind of working out perfectly for us. Until we had a building report done before settlement," Mrs Alexander said.
That report alleged issues with the apartment included missing flashings — which are installed to keep water seeping through the windows — along with leaks in the wall cladding and missing waterproofing.
"We probably went back and forth between the lawyers for as long as we possibly could before we were threatened with a fine for delaying settlement, which did form part of the contract. And they could do that," Mrs Alexander said.
The couple said they settled "under protest" and filed a case against the construction company in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) in early 2019 and their hearing is set for later this year.
The ABC approached the company which built the Alexanders' building, which denied there were water issues in the building. The company said there had been a leak near a window which they had tried to fix, but that the couple had stopped giving them access to the building.
The builder's lawyer was approached for comment but they did not reply by deadline.
By the time the couple gets to their VCAT hearing, they say they will have spent tens of thousands of dollars on legal fees, expert reports and rectification works.
The Alexanders say they've contacted multiple agencies, but have found it hard to get help.
"No one wants to hear it … [the system is] just completely broken," Ms Alexander said.
Leaky buildings reach 'pandemic proportion'
The issue of leaks in apartment buildings and townhouses has become so common, experts fear a domestic building crisis is looming in Victoria due to a lack of regulation in the waterproofing industry.
A review by the Victorian Building Authority (VBA) released this year found nine in 10 building insurance claims had at least one water-related defect, and Cladding Safety Victoria's latest annual report found more than 71 per cent of defective balconies it had assessed had insufficient waterproofing.
Byron Landeryou has been in the waterproofing business for more than two decades and says the problem of leaky buildings has reached "pandemic proportions".
"It's pretty much everywhere. We've known about the problem for quite some time," he said.
"A lot of builders, designers, waterproofing contractors, even tradies that have to do work around waterproofing really aren't aware of the mistakes that they're making."
Qualified professional researcher Nicole Johnston conducted a study with Deakin University in 2019 that looked at defects in more than 200 apartment buildings across Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland.
She said water ingress was "a widespread issue" that encompassed faulty design, issues with installing waterproof membranes, and the wrong products being used that led to mould, rust and corrosion.
But Dr Johnston said the full extent of the problem would not be known until the government dedicated more resources towards research.
"It's certainly significant, I would say the problem is worse than we have been estimating in some respects because you may get some of these issues arising five or 10 years down the track," she said.
"We are uncovering and discovering those now."
In another building, a collapsed ceiling points to a wider issue
The consequences of a leak in a building can be slow to appear, but ultimately devastating.
On a grey weekday morning, Mr Landeryou explained just how bad it could get.
Inside a Melbourne apartment, built a decade ago, were the remains of a kitchen.
The ceiling, after years of collecting water from the balcony above it, had caved in, smashing the bench and sink beneath it.
Insulation and plasterboard lay strewn across the floor. The walls of cupboards were swollen with water. Black mould was beginning to appear on parts of the ceiling.
"This is quite a serious situation," he said, noting it was lucky no-one was in the kitchen when it happened.
Outside on the balcony, Mr Landeryou pulled out chunks of rotted wood filled with rusted nails from an external wall.
"That's the timber framework that's basically holding up the structure of the building," he said.
For regulators and the government, the issue of leaky buildings is something they have known about for years.
In Victoria, anyone can call themselves a water proofer. And any tradesperson can do waterproofing works up to the value of $10,000 without proof of compliance with a specific standard.
In 2017, the Victorian government introduced draft legislation that would have required mandatory waterproofing inspections for new builds to address the "high incidence of defects related to waterproofing".
Government documents said evidence showed "an increase in water-damaged buildings caused by ... poor workmanship and site supervision, waterproofing being damaged by subsequent trades and the installation of inappropriate materials".
But mandatory inspections were scrapped before the draft legislation became law.
The government later flagged plans to register a number of trades, including waterproofing. But five years on, that change is yet to take effect.
The VBA's state building surveyor Andrew Cialini said the regulator's "proactive inspections team aims to identify areas of building and plumbing non-compliance, such as water ingress, before they become an issue for homeowners".
Domestic Building Insurance in Victoria does not apply to apartment buildings above three storeys.
That means, if something goes wrong, it's up to the owners to chase the builder through VCAT, which industry figures warned could take years.
Victorian Strata Community Association president Julie McLean said education and regulation were so poor that even rectification works were often not up to standard.
"So we are getting defects on defects," she said.
"We need better education for the trades that are involved, there needs to be licensing, and there needs to be minimum educational standards set."
Ms McLean wants to see Victoria introduce a "warrant of fitness" for buildings at the 15 or 20-year mark.
"It shouldn't be left for our future lot owners to hold everyone else accountable in the system. That's the regulator's job," she said.
Dr Johnston agreed buildings which were 15 to 20 years old needed to be assessed.
"We need people like structural engineers to be in these buildings and to start looking at the structural integrity of these buildings," she said.
"Governments need to be playing a bigger part in this. We've left this issue go for so many years this is why we have this problem, it's a legacy issue of buildings that are 15 to 20 years old that haven't been built well."
Government building legislation bill back on the table
Last year, the ABC revealed the government's building system review panel had handed down a report to the planning minister revealing poor construction had led to unsafe buildings, was costing the industry billions, and was not protecting consumers.
A spokesperson said the state government was "reforming Victoria's building industry", and had "recently introduced legislation to provide greater protection for consumers".
The bill before parliament addresses some of the building system review panel's recommendations, including:
- Making the State Building Surveyor a statutory role
- Establishing a Building Monitor to advocate for consumers
- Introduce a building manual for owners and owner's corporations about the design, construction, and maintenance
But the bill doesn't address a pathway for addressing the issues seen in hundreds of buildings built over the past 20 years.
The Building Legislation Amendment Bill was introduced to the state's lower house earlier this month, and is yet to progress to the upper house.
