As many of you know, I have a 16-room student accommodation in inner Brisbane. Mostly, my tenants have been great - until this semester. I've now got a group of tenants who have turned the place into a filthy party house. The neighbours ring me at 3am telling me that they need to be quiet (like I'm their mother rather than their landlord ), complaining (quite justly) about them parking and blocking the neighbour's driveway (nothing I can do, unfortunately - can't legally tow their cars or I wouldn't hesitate to do so), but most significantly (to me), the place has about 5 or 6 empty rooms, because whenever anybody new looks at the place, it's such a pigsty that they're not interested. (The past few years I've had no significant vacancies.)
The PM has been keeping on top of it as much as she can, issuing breach notices left, right, and centre, and we've been trying to find an on-site caretaker. (Will have this in place within the next couple of weeks, and I'm sure it will resolve > 90% of problems.)
Nothing seemed to improve their behaviour, so last week we took the courageous step of issuing 10 eviction notices. I do risk having significant vacancies, but I don't see any alternative. We've basically accepted that this semester is largely a write-off, and we'll empty it out, take the bonds, clean it up, and try to get better tenants for next semester.
As they're mostly young people starting out in life, fortunately the breach notices - accompanied with a letter advising them that we'll be listing them all on TICA - appear to have gotten their attention. We've received a number of emails asking what they need to do in order to have their bonds returned and avoid listing on TICA.
For those who are feeling sorry for the "innocent" tenants (as I do), the problem is that we've repeatedly asked those who claim innocence to tell us who the people are that are causing the noise, mess, and driveway blocking, and they won't give anybody up. So our attitude is that if they won't allow us to restrict punitive measures to those who are deserving, then unfortunately, we have no option but to take such measures against all of them.
Today I'll email all tenants advising them of the actions that must be taken. It will be interesting to see whether they'll pay attention now that we have the evictions/TICA listing pending.
The PM has been keeping on top of it as much as she can, issuing breach notices left, right, and centre, and we've been trying to find an on-site caretaker. (Will have this in place within the next couple of weeks, and I'm sure it will resolve > 90% of problems.)
Nothing seemed to improve their behaviour, so last week we took the courageous step of issuing 10 eviction notices. I do risk having significant vacancies, but I don't see any alternative. We've basically accepted that this semester is largely a write-off, and we'll empty it out, take the bonds, clean it up, and try to get better tenants for next semester.
As they're mostly young people starting out in life, fortunately the breach notices - accompanied with a letter advising them that we'll be listing them all on TICA - appear to have gotten their attention. We've received a number of emails asking what they need to do in order to have their bonds returned and avoid listing on TICA.
For those who are feeling sorry for the "innocent" tenants (as I do), the problem is that we've repeatedly asked those who claim innocence to tell us who the people are that are causing the noise, mess, and driveway blocking, and they won't give anybody up. So our attitude is that if they won't allow us to restrict punitive measures to those who are deserving, then unfortunately, we have no option but to take such measures against all of them.
Today I'll email all tenants advising them of the actions that must be taken. It will be interesting to see whether they'll pay attention now that we have the evictions/TICA listing pending.