We keep hearing about bad landlords, but what about the bad tenants?
In response to a report from Renters United detailing the perils of being a tenant, Stuff ran a story giving the other side of the story, because it’s not all roses and cupcakes in landlord land,
There’s no doubt that there are some bad landlords out there, renting out some decidedly shitty properties. I had the misfortune of dealing with one particularly grumpy and inefficient property manager a lifetime ago who seemed to labour under the false belief that being my “landlord” meant she could rock on up whenever she felt like it, and let herself in so she could check out the contents of my fridge and occasionally rifle through my mail. Add to that the fact that the flat itself was a tad cold and prone to mould, and came complete with the world’s dodgiest washing machine that seemed intent on eating every item of clothing I owned, and it wasn’t a fantastic tenancy experience.
However, when I owned a rental property, I got a taste of the other side, with nightmare tenants who were nothing short of feral. Not all of them, of course. To be honest, I had some awesome tenants who were absolute gems. But tenants are much like the little girl who had a little curl in the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow rhyme. You know the one:
I had one tenant who just decided to stop paying her rent and left the property with missing cupboard doors and footprints on the ceiling of one room (yes, really). Another locked his dog inside the house when he went away for a week and once he was evicted by the Tenancy Tribunal, I discovered the dog had tried to scratch its way out through a door and tried to dig its way out through the bedroom floor (both of which needed replacing) and the rubbish left behind on the property filled a tandem trailer 12 times. Another just stopped paying rent, did a midnight flit a couple of weeks later, and returned to the house the following week to steal all the curtains and a toilet roll holder.
Take all types, I guess.