Sewerage Damage - Part 2

The sewer “explosions” only ever seem to happen on long weekends.

I’m not completely certain of all details, as luckily this was not one of my tenants. However it was similar circumstances to our situation.

The main difference being this blockage actually came from council land, which meant instead of the landlord being responsible the council was. This is very fortunate for the tenants, as they didn’t have contents insurance, and the council is covering everything. They have even put them up in temporary accommodation until everything is sorted.







It’s a terrible feeling knowing that all of your belongings have been damaged by faeces, and somehow it’s made even worse by the knowledge that it’s not just your faeces… I’m not sure why, it just is.

Sewerage Damage

This is a more common problem then you might be led to believe, not only does it happen to tenants, but I can also give you a first hand account of what it’s like, as I’ve been victim to a house flooded with sewerage too!

In our instance, we were living in a unit complex. We awoke Easter Sunday to find all our pipes blocked, and after unsuccessfully trying to unblock them, we found out it was a problem with the entire complex, not just us. This was handy as it meant we didn’t need to contact our property manager, the strata agent would take care of it for us.

We went out for a leisurely day with the family, and returned later in the afternoon to find the plumbers packing up, and a small clean up operation happening as there was a good bit of water about the place that had gotten into some garages and the like. We chatted out the front with one of the other occupants of the complex about what needed to be done. It turned out that there was a massive blockage in the main pipe that needed to be pressurised to be removed.

I made my way inside and went to get changed, I walked in through the hallway (barefoot mind) and stopped dead, realising that the carpets were soaked. We’d had a problem with our washing machine previously where it just pored water all over the floor, so I quickly made my way back out to my partner and informed him that “the washing machine has done it again!” I turned back into the unit and could see my footsteps down the hallway. This confused me, as you don’t generally get footsteps showing up in wet carpet.

I slipped some thongs on and made my way further down the hallway and looked into the bathroom. The property was a catastrophe! I’ll let photos speak for themselves.

We immediately tried contacting our property manager, who being on holidays had his phone turned off. So we left a message asking him to contact us urgently.

Without much else of an option we picked up the cat and headed over to our friends place for the night, knowing that this wasn’t going to be resolved by night time.

After a couple of hours we tried contacting our agent again. Still no answer, so we left another message. “Please contact us ASAP, it’s urgent!”

Another couple of hours passed and we decided that clearly our message wasn’t indicating the type of situation we were in, so we called again, this message sounded more along the lines of “Call us now, there is shit half way up the walls of our unit, We need something done now!”

Sure enough a few minutes later we heard back from him. We explained what had happened and he organised to come out and have a look the following day, and bring cleaners with him.

We contacted our contents insurer and went through the process with them, they told us that they wouldn’t be able to get an assessor to the property until Tuesday at the earliest, which we tried arguing with for a while, however there was nothing they could do.

The following day we headed back to the unit and met the agent and his cleaners. The cleaners clearly had no idea what they were in for, as they turned up with a broom, a mop and bucket, and some cleaning products.

Inside, what was brown yesterday, was white today… One of the cleaners pointed to the laundry floor and said with a swallow “Is that white stuff toilet paper?” To which I had the pleasure of replying “Nope, yesterday it was brown”

The agent got the landlord’s insurance on the phone and we spoke to them about temporary accommodation and other issues.

I’ve since learned that the landlord is in no way responsible for temporary accommodation. In these instances where the property becomes unliveable you are presented with what is called a “frustrated lease” which in effect brings the lease to an end. The tenants can move all of their furniture out and stop paying rent immediately without any penalties.*

We were put up in a local hotel for the time that we couldn’t be living in the house.

While the assessors from our insurance company where less then desirable (they took forever to get back to us, they undervalued all of our belongings, they didn’t understand that while they were taking forever, our belongings were steeping in faeces, etc.) The people behind the scenes at the insurance company were incredible. They kept us in contact to make sure we where happy with the process, when we complained about the assessors they got us on a conference call to find out what the delays were – this was great, I got to listen in while the assessor fluffed out some stupid response, and could only manage to apologise.

In the end, the landlord’s insurance company had to replace the carpet and vinyl throughout, pay for our accommodation and reimburse us for the rent that we paid the week we were out of the property and for our excess.

Our insurance company paid to replace our lounge chair, a pine side board, our vacuum cleaner, a stereo that had been sitting on the ground at the time, all of our shoes, our bedside tables and chest of drawers, and they also paid to get all of our clothes dry cleaned. Thanks to our content insurance we really came out on top in the end. I highly recommend it to everyone.

Next up – it strikes again! One of our tenant’s have just gone through the same issue! This time without contents insurance.

*This is the case for leases in NSW. I’m not sure if this is the case in all states.

Tenants and Compensation Part 2

Just an update on the tenant's advocacy problem I'm having.

In the most recent reply I received from Tenant's Advocacy they seemed to have dropped the issues regarding to the oven and the dripping tap - Progress! However they have pushed the fact that due to several rent arrears letters that I have sent to the approved occupant, specifically addressed to him that he is in fact the lease holder at the property, and that due to other instances they can safely say that he has a new oral lease at the property, and is entitled to everything that the original lease holder is.

My concern with whose name the lease was in was mainly to point out that the condition report is 4 years old. Myself, and the landlord are quite happy for him to stay on in the property, and I am even willing to sign up a new lease in his name. This would ensure that he would need to take the time to sit down with me, and go through all of the clauses in the lease. I believe he is entitled to everything the original lease holder is, which includes taking on the original condition report.

They are also still seeking compensation for the time he has been at the property without a working heater. As mentioned previously I stated to Tenant's Advocacy that the condition report states the the heater is not working (In hindsight it should probably say that the heater is unrepairable, but this report was done up before I managed the property.) and that the condition report is part of the lease. So the signed lease indicates that the tenant is aware that the heater is not working.

Tenant's advocacy has told me that this is contracting outside of the law, as all fixtures need to be repaired. They are also seeking a "rent abatement for the withdrawal of services and compensation for economic loss for increased electricity costs and compensation for non-economic loss for frustration, distress, inconvenience and anxiety over the failure of his landlord to undertake the repairs." However we have reminded them that the heater is unrepairable, and as the property was not advertised with a heater and was agreed in the lease that there is no heater then there is no compensation owing.

The unfortunate problem with this situation, is that the tenant is sick, and could really do with a heater coming into these cold nights. His time would be better spent looking for a property that comes with a heater, and not in seeking compensation that he's not entitled to.

The saga continues.

Tenants and compensation

I'm currently going through some issues with a tenant of mine. Now to start off there are some complications. He's an approved occupant of the property, not the lease holder. So in other words he's allowed to stay at the property, but not really responsible for anything. On top of that, I was informed recently that the actual lease holder has moved out...

There are three issues that are being discussed at the moment. The tenant has not been happy with the responses we've been giving him, so he's taken it further to the Tenant's Advocacy, for them to go into bat for him. I'll be going through the issues here.

1. The orginal lease holder has been at the property since 2006, so his condition report is 4 years old, but of course still valid. One of the items on the condition report mentions the heater that is in the lounge room, and that it is not in working condition. However the tenant has put in a request for it to be fixed, and the landlord has declined it, which she's well within her right to do, as mentioned it states very clearly that it wasn't working at the commencement of the lease.

The tenant only moved into the property with the lease holder maybe 6 months ago, so he wasn't aware that the heater didn't work. The loss of the property's heating is classified as an urgent repair, and should be fixed within 48 hours. This of course hasn't happened, which is why Tenant's Advocacy are more then happy to get involved.

2. Back at Christmas time the tenant reported to our office that the oven wasn't working. We sent an electrician around to have a look at it. He did so and sent in an invoice that read "Oven and grill doors needed adjusting, current oven racks are not the original, have supplied some more second hand racks to help out. Due to the age of the unit it could do with replacing." However the oven was still working.

The tenant came back in after Christmas and reported that the oven was still not working. We sent the electrician back out, and he reported that it was still working, the tenant was still having problems with the racks. So we had the oven replaced.

The breakdown of cooking appliances is also considered an urgent repair, so needs to be fixed within 48 hours, however as the oven was still working this did not apply. The tenant of course felt differently.

3. A tap was reported as dripping, so we sent a tradesman out to fix it. A few months later the tenant reported the tap as dripping again, so we sent another tradesman out to fix it. As far as we were aware between these two times the tap was not leaking. He currently owes over $200.00 in outstanding water usage, and is after compensation of $100.00 of that usage due to the dripping tap because he is now claiming that the tap was never fixed. I have explained to him that unless we know about it there's nothing we can do about it.

I convinced the landlord to offer the tenant $20.00 in the way of compensation for the dripping tap. $20.00 equals approximately 18,000L of water, which personally I believe would not have been wasted in the time that the tap was dripping.

While the matter has not been settled, and I have no real way of knowing what the outcome will be, I am confident that the tenant is just uneducated on what is and isn't legislation. He never had the chance to sit down with me and go through the lease, to understand everything that was required of himself and the landlord. I am hopeful that once this settles he will be a better informed tenant.

I'm explaining all of this for both landlords and tenants out there, please be sure you know where you stand with everything. If you do genuinely feel put out by something that is or isn't happening please contact an advisory service. It can only help.

Viewer Discretion Required

As the title recommends, please only view this entry if you have a strong stomach.

Luckily, I didn't experience this first hand, one of the other property managers in the office was called out to a property the other week. The tenant was quite concerned that they had received an explicit threat in their mail box.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.







If you can't tell, it's an animal heart...

When my colleague attended the property the tenant was no longer alarmed, they had remembered finding out that the previous tenants worked at the abattoir, and he know believes that it was supposed to be a joke by someone who knew the previous tenant, and not a threat. However he had still called the police to the scene. They didn't seem too concerned either. They had organised for forensics to come and pick it up, but apparently they never came.

We're not paid enough for this nonsense!!

Another messy one

They come in all shapes and forms, but this one must take the cake, not only was there clothes, rubbish and dirty dishes every where, but this one also had adult nappies scattered about this place. So it's clearly just laziness...




Yes, that's kitty litter on the bathroom floor.

Be happy you can't smell this house, or that you, unlike me on this day, are not leaving this house, now covered in fleas. According to the neighbour, the RSPCA turned up the day after she had moved out, to seize her pets. It's a bit sad that they weren't there earlier to help the poor animals.

The thing that still makes me laugh about this tenant, is she tried to tell me that she didn't clean because she had OCD, she believed if she started cleaning she wouldn't be able to stop...

some back stories

So of course, as soon as I decide to start writing about everything that goes on in Property Management, the worst I have to deal with is piles of paperwork!!

so, here's some old stories that have happened in the past, to showcase some of the nasty things we have to put up with.

For example, here are some photos of a house during a routine inspection.

(Sorry for the bad quality of some of these images)














The sad - and scary - thing is, she had children living with her, and didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with the way she lived...