From landlords gardening only in an adult nappy to raiding tenants fridges and enlisting spies in the street, Aussie tenants have dished the dirt on their landlords from hell.
One even had a vegan landlord who complained when their tenant cooked a steak.
“Landlords from hell aren’t uncommon in Australia,” Money.com.au’s finance expertt Fi Ahlstrom said.
“But remember, just because you’re renting doesn’t mean you surrender your rights.
“You don’t have to put up with a landlord who barges in, cuts corners, ignores repairs or hikes up your rent unfairly.
“Every state has a government or rental authority where you can lodge a formal complaint.” Ahlstron said the best way to protect yourself was to keep everything in writing, including emails, texts and photos or videos of the property, so if you need to lodge a formal complaint with your state’s government or rental authority, you’ve got the time-stamped evidence.
“If there’s ever a time when you feel unsafe or your landlord’s behaviour crosses a line, don’t hesitate to escalate it with the authorities,” Ahlstrom said.
With the help of money.com.au, and after scouring social media, here are some of the most out-there experiences tenants have faced in rental roulette.
And it is not always about mould and maintenance.
High steaks
Megan, 35, revealed that her landlord would complain about everything from the smell of cooking steak to the glare from her TV.
“I rented an apartment in Brisbane for about three years,” she said.
“My landlord at the time was a vegan and hated that we cooked meat on our balcony BBQ. “He sent me multiple written warnings about the smell of steak drifting into his unit, which he called ‘repulsive’.
“Then he started complaining about the glare from my TV, saying my lights being on after 8pm disturbed the neighbours’ peace.
“It felt like living under a curfew.”
Megan said that the landlord found something new to complain about every few months.
“The final straw was when he demanded my elderly mum not park in the visitor car park when she came to visit me,” she said.
“He told me visitor spots were only for ‘non-family guests’ and that she should park on the street instead.”
When you landlord is a vegan, meat is murder
Vanishing food
Glenn, 43, was living in a share house in Brisbane with three mates when they started to notice that food was going missing from their fridge.
“Then stuff like detergent, toothpaste and toilet paper kept disappearing too,” he said.
“We all started blaming each other and even chucking in extra cash to cover what went missing.
“One day, I came home sick from work in the middle of the day and walked in to find the landlord doing his laundry in our machine.
“He’d just let himself in with the spare key and made himself at home.
“That’s when it clicked he’d been coming in all along, nicking our gear, raiding the fridge and who knows what else.
“Can’t remember exactly what went down after that, but we told him to get stuffed, and broke the lease.”
![Kitty in Refrigerator](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 1280 720"%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Not a real depiction of the landlord
Can’t unsee it
A tenant, who wanted to remain anonymous, shared the jawdropping time she spotted her landlord gardening.
“I saw my landlord walking around the property gardening in just an adult nappy,” they said.
“She drove over to the property and took her pants off to do the gardening.
“It was the weirdest, most traumatic thing I’ve ever seen.”
The only photo of nappies we could find
Dog gone rogue
Another tenant who had moved to a three-bedroom duplex on the Gold Coast, was left to look after their landlord’s dog.
“The landlords (a couple) decided they wanted to go away for a whole year, but they had a little dog,” the tenant said.
“They asked us to look after the dog, and I told them I wasn’t comfortable because it was way too long and too much of a responsibility.
“They ignored my response and left their dog anyway.
“They bought an automatic feeder and said it would be fine, plus their friend would come around and pick up the poo.”
But not long after the landlords left, the pooch never stopped barking constantly and at anything that went by.
“If we put the dog outside to go to the toilet, they would check the CCTV cameras and message us telling us to let the dog back inside because it wasn’t an outside dog,” the tenant said.
“They also had CCTV cameras pointing outside their room, watching you as you walked around the house.”
But it got worse.
“One night the dog got into the rubbish bin, tore everything out, ate something that upset its stomach and exploded diarrhoea all over the house,” they said.
“We woke up to the worst smell ever, absolutely disgusting sh** everywhere, and one of the housemates had already left for work, stepped over it, and ignored it for us.
“I messaged saying it wasn’t good enough to have to deal with this in our own house, and she got mad, saying I had no compassion for the dog that was obviously unwell.
“Anyway, we decided we weren’t going to clean it up to make a stand against our discomfort for the hundredth time.
“When the housemate came back, she thought it would be a good idea to put all the dirty, soiled paper towels and wipes in the backyard under the outdoor table where we sat and where it stayed for a week.
“The dog would piss on the couch constantly, sh** inside every second day, and bark non-stop every minute of every day.”
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The tenant also revealed that “the landlords controlled our every move”.
“We weren’t allowed to use the dishwasher because it ‘used too much water’, we weren’t allowed to use the washing machine on hot wash because it drew too much power, we had to bring the outdoor couch cushions in every night in case of rain, and if we forgot they would check the cameras and tell us to bring them in,” the tenant said.
“They would call us if the dog was outside or if the blinds were shut. They were honestly so crazy.
“When we left, they asked us to mow the lawn. We did, but he got mad at us because we didn’t whipper-snip before mowing.”
The tenant said that while they felt sorry for the little dog, it was the “worst thing in the world being so controlled in your own house”.
“They even listened to our conversations through their cameras so we had to whisper when we were outside,” they said.
“ It was just so crazy. I can’t believe it was real. We have so many bad memories from that house and those people.”
Come on in
A tenant who was renting on the Gold Coast revealed that her landlords just randomly let themselves in.
“I was eight months pregnant and it was the middle of the day and I was having a nap while my toddler slept. I was wearing just undies,” she said.
“I woke up thinking my toddler had come into the room. Nope.
“The landlord and his wife were in my bedroom measuring the windows ‘in case they saw cheap curtains they liked’.”
She said they then remarked: “Oh, sorry, tried not to wake you.”
“I asked them to leave and rang the property manager and her response was, ‘well, they were doing something nice for you, so why do you complain?” she said.
“I changed the lock after that, only to be abused for ‘breaking a rule’ by doing so.
“To this day, who knows how many times they had just let themselves in when I wasn’t home.”
Street warlord
A NSW tenant revealed that while the property was “okay”, it was prone to mould.
But the “landlord is horrendous”.
“And the neighbour at 10 is her little spy and the unelected street warlord,” they wrote on shitrentals.com.
“Given notice to vacate with no grounds after three years because she didn’t like that we had pruned the overgrown garden.
“Didn’t like that we requested maintenance.
“She shows up to inspections with the agency itself and insisted we had changed things in the house which the agent corrected her that we hadn’t done.
“She drives by the property a lot to ‘inspect’, speaks rudely to agents and tenants like dirt.”
Landlord living in garage
Another NSW tenant who rented in Bexley revealed that on the day they moved in, they noticed the garage was locked and there no keys to open the door.
“Garage was not excluded in the lease… day two, find out landlady is living in garage with her pets – says it is only for a month or two,” they said.
“Fast forward a year, still living in there, using our utilities (water, electricity maybe gas too not sure) and they were running a heater, fridge and had a bed in there.
“They even installed Foxtel in the garage and refused to fix airconditioning.”
Street spies
A Victorian tenant said their landlord was the “worst landlord ever”.
“Landlord was an absolute nightmare, so rude, not fixing anything in the house, when he did it was dodgy repairs,” they said.
“He would show up unannounced, ask neighbours who has been to the house and to keep tabs on me.
“Inspections would take 90 minutes and he would pick on every single detail and speck of dust, also letting tradesmen through the house without permission.
“Bullies REA (real estate agent) into getting his way. Absolute worst landlord ever!”
The street has eyes (Photo by Jalaa MAREY / AFP)
Batsh*t crazy
A tenant in South Australia said their “landlord was completely batsh*t crazy”.
“Overly paranoid about every single aspect of living (even had a padlock on the linen cupboard in case anyone broke in and stole his bedsheets),” they wrote.
“Long history of domestic disputes reported to the police, even made death threats over an apparent stolen frying pan.”
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Mentally defeated
A tenant in the ACT complained that their rental house was “mouldy, mouse infested and uninsulated”.
“It was as expensive as some rooms in the inner suburbs, yet has no shops within walking distance and atrocious public transport access leading to 90 minute commutes,” they wrote. “The landlords refused to move out their furniture and would, often without warning, stay over.
“By the end of my time, I was poor, sick, cold and mentally defeated.”
Drunk and disorderly
A tenant who rented in Nimbin, NSW, revealed the owner showed up, with permission, drunk.
“And after seeing that I had removed the last 30 years of rubbish from the yard said “good job” and promptly went back to the real estate to raise the rent by $20,” they said.
“The new tenants tell me that they still have no bins and despite replacing the carpets and a little bit of the bathroom the place is still rotting.”
