Project Snapshot
| Location | Fitzroy, VIC |
| Postcode | 3065 |
| Service Type | Landlord Electrical Safety Check & Remediation |
| Timeline | Same Day (Inspection + Remediation) |
| Key Challenge | Discovering and remediating dangerous exposed wiring concealed behind a wall in a rental property |
The Situation
A property investor who owned a two-bedroom Victorian terrace on a side street off Brunswick Street in Fitzroy called us to carry out a routine landlord electrical safety check. The property had been tenanted for about three years, and the landlord, who lived interstate, was doing the right thing by keeping up with his compliance obligations under the Residential Tenancies Regulations 2021.
Victorian legislation requires landlords to have the electrical installation in their rental property checked by a licensed electrician every two years. The inspection covers the switchboard, wiring, power points, light switches, smoke alarms, and any fixed electrical appliances. If the property passes, the electrician issues an electrical safety check report that the landlord must provide to the tenant within the first 30 days of a new tenancy and keep on file.
The landlord’s property manager booked us in for a Tuesday morning. The tenant, a young professional working from home, was happy to give us access. It was expected to be a straightforward inspection. It was not.
What We Found
The first part of the inspection went as expected. The switchboard was a relatively modern unit that had been installed about 12 years earlier. It had circuit breakers and a single RCD protecting the power circuits. The lighting circuits were on circuit breakers only, without RCD protection, which we flagged as an item for the landlord to address, as current best practice is to have RCD protection across all circuits.
The power points and light switches throughout the house tested fine. The smoke alarms were present but one of the two units had a flat battery, which we replaced on the spot.
The issue came when we checked the spare bedroom that the tenant was using as a home office. There was a double power point on the wall behind the desk that felt slightly warm to the touch, even though nothing was plugged in. This is never normal. A power point should be at ambient temperature when nothing is drawing current from it.
We turned off the circuit at the switchboard and removed the power point cover plate to investigate. What we found behind the wall was genuinely alarming. The cable feeding the power point had been extended at some point using a method that no licensed electrician would ever use. Two pieces of cable had been joined together using nothing more than electrical tape wrapped around bare copper conductors. There was no junction box, no proper connectors, and no mechanical protection. The bare copper was visible where the tape had started to peel away from years of heat cycling.
The join was sitting against the timber framing inside the wall cavity. The heat from the poor connection had already discoloured the timber. If this had been left for much longer, there was a real possibility it could have ignited the timber framing and started a fire inside the wall. The tenant had been sleeping in the next room for three years with this sitting behind the plasterboard.
The Solution
We called the property manager immediately to explain what we had found and to get authorisation for the remediation work. Given the severity of the hazard, the property manager contacted the landlord, who approved the repair on the spot. This was not something that could wait.
We isolated the circuit and carefully opened up the wall to access the full length of the damaged cable. The dodgy join was about 400mm inside the wall cavity, just above the skirting board. It had clearly been done during a previous renovation, likely by someone who was not a licensed electrician. The cable on one side of the join was older rubber-insulated cable, and the cable on the other side was modern TPS. Rather than running a new cable properly, someone had simply stripped back the insulation, twisted the conductors together, and wrapped them in tape.
We removed the entire section of compromised cable and ran a new length of 2.5mm TPS cable from the nearest junction point in the ceiling space down to the power point. We used a proper junction box with screw terminals at the ceiling connection, secured the cable with clips at the required intervals, and reinstalled the power point with new terminals.
While we were there, we also upgraded the switchboard to include RCD protection on the lighting circuits, bringing the installation in line with current best practice. We tested the smoke alarms, replaced the unit with the flat battery, and confirmed both alarms were operational and within their 10-year service life.
The entire job, inspection plus remediation, was completed in about five hours. We patched the small section of wall we had opened, although the landlord arranged for a plasterer to do a full finish the following week.
The Result
The tenant was understandably shaken when we showed her what we had found behind the wall. She had been plugging her computer and monitor into that power point every day for three years. She was grateful that the landlord had arranged the inspection and that we had caught the problem before it became something far worse.
We issued the electrical safety check report to the property manager, noting the hazard that had been identified and the remediation work that was carried out. We also issued a certificate of compliance for the new cable run and the RCD upgrade. The landlord was now fully compliant with his obligations under the Residential Tenancies Regulations, and more importantly, his tenant was safe.
The property manager later told us that the landlord had purchased the property about five years earlier and had never been told about any unlicensed electrical work. The dodgy cable join had been hidden behind a wall and could have gone undetected for years if the safety check had not been carried out. This is exactly the kind of hidden hazard that these inspections are designed to catch.
“I manage several rental properties and Carlin Co handles all our electrical safety checks. The Fitzroy inspection is a perfect example of why these checks matter. They found something genuinely dangerous that nobody knew about. Professional, thorough, and fast to fix. Highly recommend.”
– Rebecca W., Property Manager, Inner North
Key Takeaways for Landlords and Property Managers
Electrical safety checks for rental properties are not optional in Victoria. The Residential Tenancies Regulations 2021 require landlords to have the electrical installation inspected every two years by a licensed electrician. Failing to comply can result in penalties, and more importantly, it puts your tenant at risk.
The inspection is not just about ticking a box. As this case demonstrates, serious hazards can be hidden behind walls and ceilings, invisible to the tenant and to the landlord. A qualified electrician knows where to look and what to test. A warm power point, a slightly discoloured cover plate, or a faint buzzing sound can all be indicators of a concealed problem.
If you have purchased a property that has been renovated or had work done by previous owners, there is always a chance that some of that work was carried out by unlicensed or unqualified people. An electrical safety check is one of the few ways to catch these hidden defects before they cause harm.
For property managers running a portfolio of rental properties, we offer scheduled safety check programs where we work through your properties systematically, provide all the required documentation, and flag any remediation work with clear pricing so you can get landlord approval quickly. Call us to set up a schedule.
Areas We Service Near Fitzroy
We completed this landlord safety check in Fitzroy (3065) and regularly service the surrounding suburbs including Collingwood (3066), Carlton (3053), Fitzroy North (3068), Clifton Hill (3068), Abbotsford (3067), and Brunswick (3056). See our full Melbourne service area and postcodes.
Need a Landlord Electrical Safety Check?
Call Carlin Co on 0432 632 346 or email [email protected] to book an inspection.
Licensed & Insured | REC 33210