But with possum urine running down her kitchen walls and bugs eating her carpet, she feels far from at home.

Ms Casey and her neighbours have had long-standing issues with maintenance, where routine issues have become catastrophic because their concerns were ignored.

Water getting into the roof has been an ongoing problem in the complex.

The eaves were replaced but rain - and possums - still gets in.

Last year, the kitchen ceiling collapsed onto Ms Casey while she was cooking at the stove because of the weight of the water in the roof space.

"I rang Housing Emergency and was told to ring the SES because it was after 6pm. I went but 'I’ve got water in all my electrical stuff'. ‘Not my problem’, they said," Ms Casey said.

"The SES were great but when they pulled up the guy from Spotless was parked outside the letterboxes and when they pulled up they went 'Have you come to help?' and he took off in the car."

Spotless came back to fix the ceiling after many phone calls, Ms Casey said.

The contractor accused her of damaging the ceiling, and then told her to wear a shower cap while cooking.

"That’s the attitude we get from them," she said.

Housing ACT confirmed a roof leak was reported at the site in December 2017 and a four-hour work order was raised and completed to repair the roof.

A follow-on works order to repair the ceiling was completed in four days, their spokeswoman said.

However getting maintenance in less dramatic circumstances can be an uphill battle.

Ms Casey's neighbour Dawn Elms has had a 10-centimetre hole in her ceiling for the past 10 years.

When it rains, water streams down her wall.

Her kitchen cupboard doors are rotting from the dampness in the unit.

Ms Casey helped Ms Elms to replace all of her photos and frames around Christmas time last year, because they had been destroyed by water.

The 83 year old recently got out of hospital after suffering from double pneumonia. It was the third time she has had pneumonia in the last three years.

And while Ms Elms has pointed out the hole repeatedly over the years to her housing manager and the contractors that have come by, she does not want to make any trouble (the Housing ACT spokeswoman said they had no record of the hole).

"I am grateful for the roof over my head," Ms Elms said.

"At least we're not right out in the rain," Ms Casey added.

Other women in the complex have been beset with broken drainpipes, toilets that don't flush and water getting in.

The Housing ACT spokeswoman promised to have a housing manager visit the complex to hear residents' concerns.

But maintenance of the territory's 12,000 public housing properties has long been a fraught and expensive exercise.

Housing ACT forecasts it will spend $8.4 million on responsive repairs during 2017-18.

All up, about $40 million was spent on repairs and maintenance in the last year, and about the same is expected to be spent this coming fiscal year.

Comparatively $37 million has been set aside in the ACT budget to buy, build and refurbish new public housing properties this coming financial year.

Spotless has held the maintenance contract since 2005, and its last contract expired in June 2017.

Since then, the contract has been repeatedly extended while the ACT government looks for a new contractor to look after all of the territory's maintenance, not just its public housing portfolio.

But taking care of Canberra's ageing public housing stock is a big job.

From July 2017 to May 2018, Spotless has received nearly 60,000 calls through its 24/7 call centre, largely about maintenance.

Since last July, Spotless has completed 35,737 works orders, lower than previous years.

However the spokeswoman said that  reflected a "streamlining of administration processes", with the "same overall volume of work to be undertaken in tenant’s homes".

She said there have only been 669 complaints, about 1.87 per cent of work orders completed.

But ACT Auditor-General Maxine Cooper found in 2016 Spotless had failed to meet its targets for routine maintenance (20 days), however targets for urgent maintenance had been met.

The protracted procurement process of a total facilities manager will be the focus of a future audit, she revealed last week.