Property managers love to say “safety first” until safety costs money.

So when one tenant kept warning their management company of unsafe lighting conditions, he was told nothing would change until someone got hurt.

So when the same tenant ended up in the hospital with broken bones, management was finally forced to face the music.

You’ll want to keep reading for this one.

If you wont fix the lights because of a potential safety hazard, what about because of a confirmed safety hazard?

I live in a unit complex managed by a certain public strata corporation that cares very little about its tenants.

A few years back, we had some really old common area lighting that used fluorescent tubes that needed to be replaced frequently.

Management quickly proved they weren’t up for the task.

Strata obviously got sick of replacing them all the time, and they also did a poor job of illuminating common areas.

So they took the easy way out.

So they installed brand new LED lamps with built-in motion-sensing dimmer switches.

They’d go bright when they sensed motion and dim when idle.

When installed, they were on 24 hours a day.

Of course, this didn’t actually solve the problem.

Fast forward to about nine months ago, we started having regular issues with the common area lighting.

Usually they’d turn off for no reason, and Strata would have to send a contractor out to fix them.

This coincided with a nearby property development.

So they decided to use someone else as a scapegoat.

Strata took advantage of this development by shifting the blame to the energy provider.

Who had supposedly flagged the light switch as being turned off as a safety risk to workers in the nearby development.

The resident obviously saw through this flimsy excuse.

But only our common area lights?

Okay???

That’s not how electricity works.

Still, the debacle continued.

They also started rewiring the lights to fully turn off during the day, from about 7 a.m. to about 8 p.m.

This was a problem, and I made sure to tell Strata this too.

See, our building has a common garage area with carports that is completely under-cover.

It’s literally built into the underside of our building.

This proved to be a huge safety issue for the residents.

During broad daylight, if those lights are off, it’s pitch black in the carports.

A person could easily hide in the carports next to cars or even in empty carports and jump people as they pass by.

Which isn’t totally out of the question for the area.

Strata continued to make excuses about why they couldn’t do their jobs properly.

Up until about three months ago, Strata would begrudgingly restore the original lighting settings for about a week or two before sending another contractor out to set them back to timed.

However, when I called Strata this time, they informed me that due to a new policy, the lights could not be restored to their former settings.

So finally, this resident was forced to take control.

I asked to speak to the supervisor of the person I was speaking to, and it went a little something like this.

Supervisor: “The lights cannot be on at day.”

Me: “The lights have to be on at day. Otherwise, you cannot see what you are doing in the stairwell or in the garage area. We have elderly residents here and people with mobility issues. Someone could easily fall and break something.”

Supervisor: “That doesn’t change anything. Until someone does break something, we cannot change the lighting settings.”

That’s where the malicious compliance comes in.

So naturally, with this in mind, I devised some malicious, if not self-painful, compliance.

See, a few days prior to this call, Strata had sent me a letter demanding I dispose of a couch outside my door in the common area.

I had plans to do it anyway, as it had only been there for two days.

This turned out to be the leverage this resident had been waiting for.

And the lighting situation made it hazardous to do whenever I had some free time and an extra set of hands.

But I decided to throw caution to the wind because I was determined to get those lights fixed.

With the aid of one of my neighbors, we began carefully moving this couch down three flights of stairs.

That’s when it happened.

As we got to the bottom, I tripped and fell down half a flight of stairs, with a three-seater couch following close behind me.

Naturally, this hurt a lot.

I ended up going to the hospital for a couple of broken bones.

Once I had a spare moment in the hospital, I called Strata to repeat my request.

They tried to make excuses, until they realized the full extent of their culpability.

Naturally, they jumped straight to, “We can’t do anything until we’ve confirmed it’s a safety hazard.”

They changed their tune really quick once they heard about my injuries.

It’s funny how quickly things changed after that.

By the time I got out of the hospital, the lights were reconfigured to be on 24 hours a day.

I haven’t had an issue yet.

The pain was worth it, to be honest.

I’d rather take the injury than one of our elderly neighbors.

What a selfless hero.

Redditors chime in with their thoughts.

This whole thing could turn into a huge lawsuit.

This commenter worries this resident is missing out on a big opportunity.

This user can’t imagine ever doing something like this.

Management wanted proof it was dangerous, so the broken bones provided a pretty compelling case.

Liability has entered the chat.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.