Apartment horror story

Hi all,

My name is Yolanda Redrup and I'm a journalist with the Australian Financial Review. I'm working on a story about apartment horror stories - anything from pest infestations, exorbitant rents or sale prices, poor ventilation or noisy neighbours.

If anyone has a story they'd be happy to share about their time living in an apartment, i would greatly appreciate it if you could contact me at [email protected].
 
My neighbours once burnt their toast and I could smell it from my apartment. Is this sufficient a horror story for you to pen an article from?
 
I hope you took the landlord to the tenancy tribunal immediately for a rent reduction, because your apartment wasn't burnt-toast-smell proof.
 
Hmmm, nothing unusual

Flea infestation when I moved in a couple years ago. Apparently I'm really bad with flea bites, ended up with dozens of bites with well... not so pretty boiled looking like spots everywhere. Previous tenant had a puppy without telling the landlord apparently. We told the agent and he insist it's not flea refusing pest treatment until we told him the building manager told us that the prev. tenant had a dog. We ended up bombing the place first as it took several days until the pest people come in.

Annoying smoking neighbours who doesn't respect your rights for fresh air! Common occurrences and the most annoying of all :mad:
 
Kathryn D: Tenant horror stories are certainly of interest!

Equally, EN710: Would it be okay if I used your story about the flea infestation? If you're able to email me with a couple of details about yourself that you're happy for me to use that would be great - name (you're able to remain anonymous if you'd prefer), suburb the apartment was in, and age.
 
We have had major issues in our building resulting from the way the developer set up things in their interests not ours. After heroic efforts by a few members of the OC committee the original managers were bought out for serious money, access to pool and gym still not yet resolved. See http://www.afr.com/p/personal_finance/smart_money/tower_dwellers_take_fight_to_top_KTCJn5HQyDK384c2EYBEdO and http://canberratimes.domain.com.au/real-estate-news/residents-locked-out-in-row-over-apartment-towers-swimming-pool-and-gym-20141017-117m4z.html. The most extraordinary one was a few years back, going into our rear entrance lobby and finding the walls all painted red with adverts on them! The developer explained that us residents had the right to walk on the floor but the walls were his and he'd sold the rights to them. Under pressure he relented.
 
Yolanda, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Datto and I have an IP in the Druitt.

I once had a tenant who spilled his bong on the shag carpet. Rather than clean the mess up, the tenant dried the carpet and smoked a section of it, lol. I was quite amazed at his ingenuity.
 
Yolanda, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Datto and I have an IP in the Druitt.

I once had a tenant who spilled his bong on the shag carpet. Rather than clean the mess up, the tenant dried the carpet and smoked a section of it, lol. I was quite amazed at his ingenuity.
Seriously? My last tenants in Perth left iron marks burned into the carpet in one bedroom. I wondered what type of person irons their clothes on dirty carpet but I've never heard of the bong thing. FWIW mine was a house, so doesn't count :p

Oooh yeah, I forgot about the very strange and gross stains in the carpet in the lounge room. The tenant was a dog breeder and it very much looked like that aftermath of a dog giving birth to puppies on the loungeroom carpet. Where else should a dog have puppies? :rolleyes:
 
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Kathryn D: Tenant horror stories are certainly of interest!

Equally, EN710: Would it be okay if I used your story about the flea infestation? If you're able to email me with a couple of details about yourself that you're happy for me to use that would be great - name (you're able to remain anonymous if you'd prefer), suburb the apartment was in, and age.

Sorry Yolanda not trying to be offensive at all but if the fin review is spending its time trying to seek out and FIND horror stories and willing to use some from possibly from an overseas landlord we have to wonder what the agenda is? How is this news? More particularly financial news? Is AFR wanting to publish negative sentiment to hose down the Sydney bull run or something else?

The average story here is 1 Buy property 2 Own for period of time 3 occasionally add value and/or deal with tenant difficulty 4 make money over time.

I understand this may not be newsworthy but fleas may or may not be also.

End rant.
 
More particularly financial news? Is AFR wanting to publish negative sentiment to hose down the Sydney bull run or something else?
I would have thought buying an OTP apartment only to find the price increases by $100k and is 2 years late would be a bit of a nightmare for the purchaser. I'm sure there are many more nightmare OTP apartment stories.

Equally, a journo could seek out purchasers who did very well out of OTP apartments and publish a story just about them. It would not represent balanced journalism though. Do we still do journalism, or is it all just reporting these days? :confused:
 
Yolanda, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Datto and I have an IP in the Druitt.

I once had a tenant who spilled his bong on the shag carpet. Rather than clean the mess up, the tenant dried the carpet and smoked a section of it, lol. I was quite amazed at his ingenuity.

a methhead i once knew tried to smoke her phlegm/spit because she figured her lungs would be full of gear.

true story, try to beat that one! :D

proper feral thing she was
 
Yolanda, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Datto and I have an IP in the Druitt. I once had a tenant who spilled his bong on the shag carpet. Rather than clean the mess up, the tenant dried the carpet and smoked a section of it, lol. I was quite amazed at his ingenuity.

a methhead i once knew tried to smoke her phlegm/spit because she figured her lungs would be full of gear. proper feral thing she was

ROFL. The best I can do is an ongoing whinge (through 4 years of body corp meetings) from one owner in the complex that "her" tree is being "cut like a hedge"
 
Here's a recent experience of ours. Tenants moved out of our property on Sunday - as it happened, we had new tenants move in that same night. Property is fully furnished, so lots to clean and make good before advent of new tenants - linen to change, pots and pans to check, etc.

I arrive, to an apartment which looks like it hasn't been swept the entire tenancy (6 months). Sigh, and realise that I'll be doing a thorough vacuum to start with.

Anyhow, vacuum both bedrooms without incident (although there was a few dirty tissues under the bed. Yuck!) and move onto the living area. Move the larger of the two couches out from the wall, vacuum, move back. Go to move the smaller of the two couches, but it seemed to be stuck on something. Undeterred, I give it a good shove, so it finally moves away from the wall, to reveal..... a very dead mouse, surrounded by what I have subsequently nicknamed 'mouse juice', a combination of blood, bodily fluids and who knows what else. :eek: And no, I didn't smell it until I moved the couch. Maybe it was too fresh (although the mouse juice was dried).

The only good thing from my perspective was that just before this tenancy, we'd removed all the carpet throughout and put laminate flooring down. Much easier to clean up the mouse bits off laminate than carpet.

Funniest thing was, the tenant had sent me a message that day, saying that she hoped the place was clean enough.

So..... anyone have any advice as to how much I should charge for a mouse disposal fee?
 

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Jen, don't return their bond. Apparently they were keeping pets without the lessor's consent. So not only do you take out the additional cleaning due the the mess which was left behind by their pets as they breached the lease you are probably entitled to burial costs.
 
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