Roughly one in three Australian homes built before 1990 contains asbestos cement somewhere. It is harmless left alone and dangerous when cut, sanded or smashed.
Asbestos cement sheet was cheap, fireproof and everywhere from the 1940s to the mid-1980s: eave linings, wet-area wall sheets behind tiles, laundry walls, vinyl floor tiles and their glue, fences, sheds, the backing under the electrical board. Australia banned all asbestos from 31 December 2003. Bonded (cement) asbestos is low risk while intact; friable asbestos (insulation, pipe lagging) is a different and serious category.
Do not test it yourself by breaking a corner. Get a sample taken by a licensed assessor ($60-$150 per sample) or assume it is asbestos and treat it as such. Removal by a licensed removalist, with clearance and disposal certificates. Homeowners in SA and VIC can legally remove small amounts of bonded sheet themselves under strict conditions, but almost no insurer or buyer wants to see that.
Indicative 2026 ranges, not quotes. All costs
No. Asbestos in an older house is normal and priced in. Walk away only from damaged, weathered or friable material that has clearly been disturbed, or from a renovated house where the wet-area sheets were tiled over with no paperwork.
Suburbs in our street DNA set whose era mix and soil make asbestos in the eaves, walls and fence a regular. Not a survey; a pattern.
Technically small drilling with wet methods and a mask is low risk, but the safe answer is no. Use adhesive hooks, or drill into the timber frame where there is no sheet.
The landlord. Asbestos is a property condition, not tenant damage, and disturbed asbestos is a health and safety matter that the regulator takes seriously.
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