The tenant has always paid her rent in a correct manner. Since she has moved in, the unit has a new dish washer, new sink, new dryer, cook-top and range hood. I believe she has been very well looked after in regards to her surroundings. The unit was clean, freshly painted and new carpet was laid prior to her moving furniture into the unit. The tenant checked off and signed an entry condition report. This happened in mid December 2013. Regarding allegations about the angles of photos, I have a large number taken prior to her moving in and these will stand up to any scrutiny.
In April she started asking for her bed bugs to be treated quoting it's the landlord's responsibility to treat of bedbugs. I obliged by sending in professional pest control in April, then May and early July, then late July. She has been given sixty day notice to vacate the premises, as she was breached in late September for the cleanliness of her unit. In September, we were suppose to carry out the inspection and termite inspection, we walked in and her unit was extremely dirty, Alice said we could not do it as she is not ready. The unit was still very dirty, inside the kitchen cupboards were very dirty, the garage was filled up with bags and bags of rubbish and clutter and old mattresses.
I also noticed one bedroom the mattress had no cover on it and the condition of the mattress is alarming, old and dirty looking and torn. The notice was served because the tiled floor was so dirty and greasy, a far cry from how clean it was from when she moved in. Eventually I issued her with a notice to leave without grounds rather than renewing her lease. So she has to vacate and find another accommodation by end of December. If they can’t keep a unit in some basic form of "liveability" you cannot expect things to run smooth.
Alice did not know there was to be an inspection on that day. This is a clear breach of right of entry laws that require notice to be given.
Ms Van Beek has supplied us with photos as proof of her claims. There's only one problem. They are photos of an entirely different house.
Compare this with photos of the house actually in question.
Ms Van Beek has probably been getting away with this for years. When you go to tribunal, always make sure that you view the photos given to the member. She has also supplied us with pictures of the house being cleaned. But we don't know if they are of Alice's house or if they were taken at that time. Time stamps can be faked.
Dearie me, whatever happened to wear and tear. After two years, any hallway would probably look like this.
This is a really serious issue. Fake photos can be used to cover up fraud. If the money isn't going to cleaning, where is it going? How does a tenant even know if funds have been applied to the property? In practice, the power to breach a tenant for lack of cleanliness can be abused. The real photos show that the premises are in good condition.
We will keep you updated on any developments.
Ms Van Beek has supplied us with photos as proof of her claims. There's only one problem. They are photos of an entirely different house.
Compare this with photos of the house actually in question.
Ms Van Beek has also supplied us with a photo of the garage. Compare it to what the garage actually looks like. I suspect most garages would probably look like this. There is nothing stopping property managers from trying to use old photos of the premises.
Ms Van Beek has also supplied before and after photos of the hallway carpet. She claims this is proof of new carpet being laid down. This is incorrect. The new carpets were installed AFTER Alice moved in and not BEFORE and that's why they got bedbugs.
This is a really serious issue. Fake photos can be used to cover up fraud. If the money isn't going to cleaning, where is it going? How does a tenant even know if funds have been applied to the property? In practice, the power to breach a tenant for lack of cleanliness can be abused. The real photos show that the premises are in good condition.
We will keep you updated on any developments.
Postscript. Ms Van Beek admits she made a mistake "accidentally" forwarding the wrong photos.
Bonnie is incredibly hard to deal with, having been a previous tenant in Riverview Gardens. For any immediate issues that get raised, shes never in the office, does not return phone calls or emails. My cousins lived in the same block for 6 months and we're treated the same way. If you manage to catch her on the phone, twice I was hung up on cos she was too "busy". The one time I managed to catch her in the office, she was talking personal calls, mid conversation. Not only is this extremely rude, but I waited for 15mins while she was talking about what shes doing over the coming weekend??? Its near impossible to get anything fixed even though there is a maintenance guy, there seems to be so grounds for fixing things in a timely manner, I remember we were waiting months before our faulty stove was fixed. The guy said it was in an extremely unsafe state, we explained we had raised this with Bonnie months prior and he laughed it off saying that's usually always the case when dealing with "Bonnie". The impression I got was this was not a stand alone case.
ReplyDeleteAfter some investigating, it seems every tenant I had approached had discrepancies or issues with Bonnie. Whether it be things waiting to be fixed or things landlords should be responsible for, falling in the hands of the tenants to pay/fix because they were having to wait soo long. Some people were waiting over 6 months for air conditioning to be installed when their rental agreement states they have air con and were paying a higher rental rate than others for this luxury. A Luxury were 6 months they were paying for, but never received.
I recommend anyone that has to deal with Bonnie to just walk away, dont give her the time of day. She pushes tenants to their wicks end, dodges up documentation and almost always tries all the tricks in the book to withold your Bond when you leave, even if it includes using photos of other flats (as she has done above). Speak to anyone in the complex and you will come to the same conclusion, she is a kniving weazel. Best thing we could have done was move out of there.