Occupants Satisfaction Towards Building Maintenance of Low-Cost Building Apartment In Kajang: Pilot survey

Abstract

A typical apartment in Malaysia, especially in urban areas such as Selangor and Kuala Lumpur, is usually categorized as a low-cost residential building. Commonly, to distinguish its classification in the aggressive apartment sector, maintenance management is key to enhancing its market value. Therefore, this study focuses on building apartment maintenance through user satisfaction in the Kajang region, Selangor. Among its research objective is to identify the maintenance team's critical challenges in a low-cost apartment. The research engaged the quantitative and qualitative approaches, where questionnaire surveys were distributed to forty-three (43) respondents and interview sessions with six (6) experts. The research findings illustrated that the current maintenance level was dissatisfactory due to a low maintenance level, reflected through the number of occupants’ complaints about the facilities, maintenance aspects, and obvious building defects. A limited number of workers and a lack of maintenance period for building services were consistently the chief culprits for the maintenance team's poor performance. Hence, overcoming these critical challenges would effectively improve the environment in a low-cost apartment building.