![]() Landlords didn’t get into the business to provide a basic human right, they did it to make money. They don’t get to face the heartbreak of the people who make their money for them. OK, #notalllandlords but too many to mention. Landlords are addicted to profits and not to a sustainable housing model. That should be an independent third party (also promised by NSW Labor but let’s see if it can stand up to Big Landlord). As NSW Tenants Union CEO Leo Patterson Ross says, consumers can’t do the enforcement themselves. But complaint numbers mean little – most tenants are too terrified to complain in case they get booted. Complaints to Fair Trading have increased by 10 per cent in 12 months. Queues at opens are right out the door.Ĭomplaints to the NSW Tenants Union have doubled in 12 months. A three per cent vacancy rate is healthy. Michael Fotheringham, managing director of the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, says rental vacancies are the lowest they’ve been in 20 years. It should be a scandal but states and territories are clearly beholden to Big Landlord (and federal governments are sadly cowed by the “negative gearing is my wealth right” crew). The rules which surround renting are wafty as. Sure, you can ask how the photos are stored and how long they’ll be kept for but if someone can’t get back to you about your broken toilet, doubt you’ll be getting a response on privacy breaches. “I doubt agents are even considering privacy concerns,” she says. Contracts professor at the University of Melbourne Katy Barnett says renters have a right to be worried. Readers have supplied horrific examples of rudeness, of refusal to respond to urgent requests and, creepily, of agents wandering around the rental property taking photos willy-nilly. Then we’ve got the behaviour of the agents. A reminder that improvements to the property remain with the property, owned by the landlord. Comedian Mark Humphries tweeted he was in his second-straight rental property where the owner refused to bear the cost of connecting to the NBN. Ask around for rental stories: homes which can’t be locked, gas leaks, water leaks from baths, showers, toilets, broken windows, mould, faulty wiring, ovens which never work, not even on day one, no insulation.
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