Another absolute devil of a landlord has decided to fuck its Marrickville tenants hard by raising the rent after taking a deposit. To make matters worse, when the tenants complained and wanted their deposit back, she point blank refused.
According to News.com.au, Sydney carpenter Juan Martinez thought he had hit the jackpot when he finally found a four beddder in yuppie paradise — Marrickville. At this point in his house search, he’d already applied for over 20 properties (some of which had broken windows), so Martinez felt lucky to have found this house.
After paying the initial deposit of $2800, Martinez was then shocked to find out that his landlord had hiked up the rent from $1350 to $1400. While it may not seem like a lot, it is when you consider Martinez and his friends were already maxing out their budget at $1350.
“We got an email saying we were approved. (The landlord) asked for a $2800 deposit,” Martinez told News.com.au.
“We didn’t know much about real estate laws or anything. We did the deposit and the week later she sent us a rental agreement where, to our surprise, it said we’d be paying $1400 a week.”
Not only that, but another surprise Martinez didn’t anticipate was that he was dealing directly with the landlord, rather than an estate agent. This is through the use of an app called RentBetter, which allows landlords to cut out the middle man.
However, the problem with removing the middle man is that it made the overall experience for Martinez and his friends quite unprofessional. Instead of receiving a receipt for their deposit, the boys didn’t get anything after sending the money.
Then when they tried to negotiate with the landlord to get their deposit back, she said “I’m keeping the $2800.” Her justification was that she could’ve given the share house to “the Chinise [sic] students tenants” instead.
She then offered only $700 back.
News.com.au reached out to the landlord for comment, but she declined. However, shortly afterwards she told Martinez she’d give him back $2150.
Landlords are the devil’s spawn, I swear to god.
