Horror Moving Tales from the Crypt Part II

Recap:  Remember when I told the agent that he said the apartment was going to be professionally cleaned but it wasn't?  Remember what he said... "It's clean, but it's not professionally cleaned."


You have got to be kidding, mate....


As soon as we opened the door to our new apartment, we were not awe-struck, but horror-struck....

Rubbish and remnants of broken furniture, cat food, kitty litter, tuffs of cat fur and cigarette stubs lay strewn all around as if it had been sucked up by a hurricane and vomited back up all over the living room.  It was appalling.  We brought a camera to take pictures of the place, but I was too horrified by the state of the place to remember.  (Now looking back I really wish I had taken a few snapshots as evidence of the chaos)

We wandered tentatively into the bedrooms to find the pro cleaner pair cleaning the bathrooms.  One of the cleaners turned to us with an almost furious look in his eyes, asking us if we were the owners.  We told him yes, we just bought the place and the previous tenants had just moved out.  He went into a fiery rant, asking did we see the apartment yesterday?  Did we see the bathrooms, and how it was a horrible mess, if we thought this was bad, it was worse yesterday, and that he already cleaned out a heap of rubbish from it and yet, there was MORE! 

Then he proceeded to ask have we seen the bedroom?  (shaking his head with disbelieving look, stating "I don't know what the agent is going to do, it's just going to have to come out of the tenant's bond!") He proceeded to give us a tour of our destroyed bedroom and how the previous tenants had ripped off the wall hooks they had stuck on the walls (instead of pulling down the tabs of the double sided tape like you were meant to) and in the process ripped out huge holes in the plaster of the wall!!!  There were also scratches in the door and some weird mark like a large smear of red nail polish in the paint of the bathroom door. 


The pro cleaner looking very annoyed and frustrated, asking "Where's the real estate agent?! He told me he was going to come up now, where is he?"  Um... maybe he was too embarrassed to be here seeing the place looking like such a dump in front of the new owners who he just assured the place was "clean?"

I don't blame the cleaners at all.  I would be pissed off too, if I were faced with such a disaster zone.  How the tenants were planning to clean the apartment themselves without having the pros in was just mental!  I'm only glad I came in time to see the bathroom already 3/4 cleaned and not in all its filthy glory.

There were numerous other things too... the wooden skirting on the other bathroom door was completely destroyed - the cleaner pointed out it was due to the tenants letting water run down the walls, not to mention(as the cleaner stressed) EIGHT replaced lights and some missing power point covers (what in the world would anyone want with them?!).  Not only that, but there were also cracks in the grouting, paint stripped from the skirting in the rooms (not fine flimsy scratches but LONG, thick ones) and chips in the plaster in the wall corners/ craters in one bedroom wall like it had been hit with something heavy at a great impact.  The same went with the front door, a deep long scratch in the paint that went all the way down into the wood and a huge chip in the edge of the door.  Seriously?  What could you possibly do to chip the side of the door like that???


Not only that but there was also a massive rotten table in the middle of one of the bedrooms - the cleaner asked us "is this yours?  do you want it - if not we'll throw it away."  Of course we didn't want it!  It was totally rude and disrespectful of the tenants to just leave junk in the apartment and throw rubbish into the bathroom/bath tub using it as a junk pile just because they knew professional cleaners were going to come.  You can at least get rid of your own junk so that the pro cleaners don't have to do that for you and they can get on with what they're supposed to do!

The cleaners told us later that afternoon that it was too dirty and they couldn't finish on the day, so they would have to return the next day to finish up and do the steam clean.  That was how dirty the place was.  Not exaggerating.  I'm sure the pro cleaners have seen lots of dirty apartments in their lifetimes, but if it was enough to make them so worked up, it must have been on the top of their list of nightmare homes to clean!

And ho, the day after the steam clean we went back to inspect the apartment.  Though cleaner and much more presentable, we discovered more... a huge, green stain on the bedroom floor along with multiple burn marks that looked as though it came from a hot hair straightener sitting on the floor.  And note I said MULTIPLE.  Meaning the previous tenant had obviously seen one burn and continued doing it without any heed to the damage she was doing.  Nice.  Not only that but there was a very obvious white stain (?bleached) patch on the living room carpet that stood out starkly against the dark grey.  Bloody obvious too, since it's smack there when you walk in.  Fan-bloody-tastic.

Sigh.  How can some people treat other people's property with such disrespect, is what I'm wondering.  In my previous rental apartment where I stayed 5 years, our bond was returned in FULL. 

Which brings me to the question of why no vacating inspection was done prior to the tenants leaving?  In my current rental apartment where I've stayed 7 years, the property manager had inspected it three weeks ago and also asked us if there was anything not functioning that needed to be repaired BEFORE we moved out.  (See what I was saying about efficient?  Note this was three WEEKS prior to our vacating.)


It's been over a week now since the tenants moved out, and STILL the repairs are ongoing.  And to make things more frustrating, the Melcorp rental agent from Part I tells me yes, he can arrange for the repairs but it will be at my own expense.

WTF.  Hey, dude, the tenants should already consider themselves lucky - we were already being nice and not complaining about the permanent burns and stains in the carpet and deciding to replace the carpet at our own expense.  So fine, I run this by my landlord insurer Terri Scheer who reply promptly and tell me I can put in a claim form and they can assess it.  So I email the Melcorp real estate agent asking for the required documents for my landlord insurance claim.  Suddenly, he emails me back saying the tenants are compensating us some cash.  Why was none of this mentioned before?  I feel like we are constantly being kept in the dark and things are somewhat dodgy on their end.  Were they going to compensate us all along, or did the agent just throw that in at the last minute because he didn't feel like doing more paperwork???  You have to admit, it is very suspicious.

The Saga continues.  Stay tuned for more horror moving tales from the crypt.

Horror Moving Tales from the Crypt Part I

I was looking forward to the day we finally got the keys to my first apartment.  I bought the apartment from Melcorp two months prior and was waiting patiently for the end of the tenants' contract to move in.  I was assured very confidently by the real estate agents at Melcorp upon settlement that I would receive the keys on the Tuesday after the tenants vacated, with the apartment professionally cleaned.  I had it all planned out.  I had requested several days off from work so I could get someone in to do a measure and quote for the blinds, do a bit of cleaning (de-sanitising!), do measurements for new furniture and maybe move a few things in before the big move in two weeks.

Maybe it was me being naive, maybe I had too high expectations... I didn't bother calling the agent the week before to remind him of the professional clean as I was assured multiple times by two agents that this would already be done on the day I received the keys.

Boy, was I so wrong.  

We had looked at blinds in Hawthorn over the weekend, and the saleslady there had very efficiently called me back the Tuesday, asking if the blinds consultant could come on the Wednesday to do a measure and quote.  (We wanted to get it done asap as we were told it sometimes takes 4 weeks for the blinds to be done.)  It was only for that reason that I called Melcorp, asking if the professional clean had been done.

Imagine my surprise, when I was told by the rental agent that the professional clean would not be done until Friday!  That was THREE whole days from when the tenants returned the keys.  Appalled, I asked why the professional clean was going to be done that late.  Apparently, the rental agent had only recently found out that the tenants were planning to do the cleaning by themselves (hello, "PROFESSIONAL clean" anyone???) and by then it was too late and the earliest pro clean they could book was on Friday.  This was absurd - I asked if we could please have the clean done today or tomorrow!  I was told by the agent that he would try to get pro cleaners in tomorrow, and get back to me in 5 minutes.

Guess what.  I didn't hear back from him and it took two separate phone calls two hours later to finally get through to him.  The agent said the best he could do was the professional clean on Wednesday although he could not tell me when during the day and when it would be finished.  Great.  That's one day wasted of my requested days off that I would not be able to do anything.

After thinking this over, I got more annoyed over this.  It was ridiculous.  I have rented and vacated apartments before, and with my previous experiences with Poole & Levy and IEC Real Estate, they were very efficient and specific about having to arrange our professional clean on the day BEFORE or ON the day we handed over the keys so the next person could move in without delay.  So I asked Melcorp about this policy, since technically, if the apartment is not cleaned, no one else could move in and wouldn't this still be considered "occupied by the tenants"? (maybe not by the people, but their germs!)  So shouldn't they be liable for another day's rent?  The agent was very adamant that nope, they had no policy for when the professional clean needed to be done and they would only pay until the day of return of keys. (So... if I rented with Melcorp, I could hightail it out of there and stuff it, wait till the last minute and get the cleaners in the week after???)  I asked since the tenants were planning to arrange the pro clean on Friday (3 days later) you would have let them without paying me 3 days rent for 3 days? (seriously, what can you do in a dirty apartment???)  BTW he played dumb and just replied "as far as I know, the tenants are only paying rent till Tuesday."

I asked him so who's responsibility was in the first place to ensure the tenants understood and knew they were supposed to get the apartment PROFESSIONALLY cleaned rather than home cleaning?  And the rental agent very forcefully replied "it's no one's responsibility!"  Wrong answer!  Aren't we paying you a fee every month to "manage" our property on our behalf?  Isn't it YOUR job to ensure the tenants are aware of their responsibilities prior to vacating? And he very stubbornly insisted "there IS no problem." No apology, no nothing.  Yeah.  I told him "Yeah, there's a problem for me.  I've taken two days off and I can't do anything now so this is just wasting my time.  You said the apartment was going to be professionally cleaned and it isn't."  Know what his answer was?  "The apartment is clean, but not PROFESSIONALLY clean!"  

Am I expecting too much?  I thought this was standard!  I'm comparing this to the efficiency and diligence of IEC Real Estate, where I am currently renting.  When I went to sign my end of lease contract, the director of the agency told me very specifically what I had to do and when, as well as recommended me people they trusted for pro cleaning.  Not only that, but a week later, when the property manager came for a vacating inspection of the apartment, he personally brought a printed letter with instructions on what needed to be done and checked again that we knew we had to arrange a pro clean as well as recommended people the agency usually used.  Now is this just incredibly efficient, or standard???  ( I know now which real estate agency I would use if I ever want to rent out our apartment next time!)

Anyway, the problem did not end here.  The nightmare was only just beginning as we collected our keys and headed up to our apartment on Wednesday....

Continue to Part II