Brits: I know exactly how you felt. My nerves were a mess. They have calmed down a bit now with a new pm. I had a gut feeling when the real estate agent told me she had prospective tenants with a 'great' reference. I don't particularly trust 'great' references and I thought 'If they are so great, why are they moving houses?'. Now I know. I do understand that defence personnel get moved around a lot, but these moves were within Canberra. I should have asked the questions I was thinking in my head, such as, 'Why have they lived in these houses and moved each time?' I know from experience that good tenants tend to stay put in houses (and I don't raise the rent when I have a good tenant). A red flag also appeared when the tenant was telling his bamboo-laying tradesman about how idiotic DHA was and how DHA was trying to put them into a house that wasn't good enough for them. The day after the tradesman complained to me about the tenant and his penny-pinching ways. I will not go into details here. I got an inkling of what I was dealing with, but when they moved in is when they went into WWIII attack mode. The house (although I have receipts for more than $1000 spent on cleaning) 'was not in a reasonable state of cleanliness'; the garage 'smelled like a dog kennel'; there was' dog poo all over the backyard' (I had personally picked up every bit the day before they moved in and thrown it in a plastic bag into the bin); the backyard 'had not been mown' (I have receipts for $1,700 for landscaping and mowing the back and front yard just before they moved in). The comments were really nasty, supercilious and judgemental. They even commented that the 'oven is clean, so it obviously hadn't been used' by the owner. The comments hurt. Kathryn: the agreement had gone through the real estate agent, so I am assuming it was written down on the file notes.