A Brissy tenant has stood her ground against her landlord and walked away with with more than $3K and that’s a win for renters everywhere in my books.
Chelsea Shishkin has won a lengthy battle with her landlord at the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal after enduring living in a property for over two years that had a caved in bathroom ceiling, rotten door frames and an intermittently broken shower and oven.
7News reported that is was shortly after she moved in that the 23-year-old discovered the multitude of issues with the townhouse in Logan, Queensland.
“It was really dirty and had a lot of maintenance issues. The oven didn’t work … the lights were broken, and it took a long time for them to get these things fixed,” she told the 7News.
“Over the next year it got worse … We contacted the real estate multiple times, and it was put off time and time again.”
Chelsea chose the property because it was the cheapest on the market and with the completely cooked state of the rental market right now I can’t say I blame her.
Living in a shitty rental is unfortunately something we can all relate to (my fence fell down six months ago and it still isn’t fixed) but the issues with Shishkin’s rental just kept piling up.
Among the myriad of problems with the house were a leaking laundry vent, a damaged bathroom ceiling that was caving in, discoloured carpet and rotten door frames.
A tradesman reportedly told Shishkin he was concerned the floor would fall through if it was left unfixed for another year which is a completely bonkers way for anyone to live.
After living in the property for more than two years, the landlord decided to finally get a quote to fix the bathroom — but the repairs weren’t due to start until January 2023 which was still two months after the quote was given.
When the repairs did finally start, Shishkin said she was not offered any compensation whatsoever or alternative any accommodation from her agent and was forced to go elsewhere to shower for weeks.
While the agent agreed to reduce her rent, she said no change to her payment was actually made and the agent ended up completely ghosting her.
Completley fed up with the entire situation, Chelsea broke the lease and left the property and good on her!
She told 7NEWS that after relocating, she never got her four weeks’ advanced paid rent returned, or the reduced rent owed, which was a “large sum”.
And the real estate agent continued to ignore her even after repeated efforts to contact them.
Even when she eventually took the case to the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal, an ordeal she described as tedious and confusing, she said the agent did not take part in proceedings at all.
“They had refused to contact us for months at that point,” she said.
But she soldiered through the tedious tribunal and ended up winning $3028 as reimbursement for her partly advanced paid rent, the owed reduced rent, inconvenience compensation and administration fees — and I’m so happy for her.
“It’s so important to know what rights you have and what you can do,” she said.
In an ideal world everybody who has been fucked over by a shitty landlord would get paid their dues — unfortunately I don’t see that happening any time soon.
