Renting stories. Read these tenant landlord stories to better plan your next rental tenancy.

Renting Stories
Everyone has a terrible room renting story. Most of us just forget them and move on. But some accommodation stories tend to hang around and
really annoy us years later. Here are a few stories about rental accommodation to help warn you against similar situations happening to you.
If you have a renting story that you would like to tell everyone about, whether it is concerning a
real estate agent or a private landlord, please send it to us via our contact form.

J. R. Newtown
I started renting a house in Erskineville with a friend. As this was the first time we were living outside of our parents home we were very concerned about every facet of renting a place and made sure we got everything right. We filled out the inspection form and, as a double check, we recorded every part of the place on video.

When it was time to move out we did everything right and just had to wait for our bond money.

Much to our surprise LJ Hooker in Newtown had no intention of giving us our bond back.

In fact, they accused us of smashing a big hole in the laundry wall.

Apparently the real estate agent who had done the inspection before us had not noticed the hole because the previous tenant still had their washing machine in front of it when the inspection was done.

The tenant had already picked up the washing machine, revealing the hole which we also captured on video.

We tried to talk to them about this but they didn't believe us so I had to take them to the Residential Tenancy Tribunal which is a special court for rental disputes.

This was a very stressful situation as I had never been to a court before, but the tribunal made it easy and as we had dated video tape evidence I felt confident that I had a good case.

The judge turned out to be sight impaired (blind!) He was reviewing every case using braille. I was horrified and embarrassed at the same time. How do I show him my video evidence?

My case came up and I started reading from a prepared statement. The Judge didn't need the video as the representative from L J Hooker did not turn up. The judge ruled in my favour so we got our bond back.

The bond was only $600 but what was important was the principle. We didn't damage the place and we even left it cleaner than it was before we moved in. There was no way we should have been accused of something we didn't do and have this marked on our permanent record.

Needless to say I would never use L J Hooker again.

R. V. Marrickville
My story is quite short. We were offered a half house in Marrickville on a 6 month lease. Not seeing anything wrong with signing a six month lease, as we thought we could just extend it every 6 months, we took the deal and moved in. 5 months later and we were given an eviction notice. We'd been great tenants and always paid our rent on time but the owners actually wanted the place back. That's why it was only 6 months! If we'd known that we would have found somewhere else. So be wary of short leases and agents telling you that you can extend. Make sure you get all the reasons why they're only offering 6 months. Most agents offer 12 months to start with.

N J Sydney
A friend of mine told me of a case where she had to go to court and defend herself against missing curtains because the agent hadn't checked properly the first time. She was asked to pay for the curtains that were damaged even though she never had any! It's a long and complicated story but basically she didn't get all her bond back.