A couple looking for their new house ended up being very grateful for a warning message left for them by the previous occupants.
Looking for a home to rent in Brisbane, Australia, they discovered that hidden away in a cupboard was a long warning of all the things wrong with the property and landlord.
Finding a place to live is always going to have an element of luck involved as you can't really get a proper feeling for what a place will be like to live in until you're actually there yourself.
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You can read reports and have viewings but you're probably not going to know about the noisy neighbours whose every word can be heard through the thin walls or that the fridge is on its last legs until you've moved in.
That's why getting the honest lowdown on a property from the people who used to live there is so helpful as they can clue you in on the things to be aware of which you might not get from those who want you to become the new paying tenants.
One half of the couple took to Reddit and posted their husband's discovery of the hidden warning.
Hidden safely in a cupboard so it'd only be seen during an inspection, the full list of problems was written thusly:
- Mould in bathroom
- Window hinges broken
- Noisy downstairs - no soundproofing
- Mould + paint peeling in bathroom 2 months after we moved in
- Cockroach infested house
- Owner comes onto property when he shouldn't
- Owner of this house is cheap. Rent was $390 before we moved in, now it is $480 - he won't fix anything!
- Kitchen bench seal leaks
The message signed off by declaring the property the: "Worst rental experience ever! RUN!"
The warning got plenty of approval from the internet as they found it to be 'something every tenant should be doing'.
It's a lovely spot of solidarity that could help to 'normalise warning prospective tenants about c**ty landlords' as one commenter said, though sadly the message isn't there as the original poster claimed that the real estate agent had wiped it off after it was spotted.
Fortunately their husband had taken a picture of it for everyone to see and they can't wipe that away.
Someone else called them 'the hero we need but not the one we deserve', while another said it was a 'massive bullet dodged'.
A bunch of other comments also came from people who'd had previous tenants warn them away from a place.
So if you're about to leave a property and it's got some problems, then please let the next lot know, you might spare them some misery.
Joe Harker