(no subject)
So recently I found out that my tenants had done a runner without paying rent. They haven't paid rent since the beginning of the year, my property managers, who I pay good money, didn't tell me until it had been 4 weeks since they last paid. From the date they skipped out they had 6 weeks left on their contract (they didn't know I wasn't renewing) before I was taking back possession to move back in. My plan was to give the place a lick of paint and do a bunch of upgrades to things which I can claim on my tax and make the most of the last opportunity to use my unit as a tax break. Of course to paint and upgrade you need money, some of which I spent before I found out about the tenants because I needed to buy it before the lease was up. The rest I was going to do with the last 6 weeks rent, which I don't have.
When I took possession back of the place I was aware some damage had been done. Yeah the kind of damage that happens when you put an iron on nylon carpet or a hot pan on a laminate bench top. So fairly small damage in the scheme of things but the kind that requires the entire carpet to be ripped up in 2 bedrooms and the largest part of my kitchen bench top to be replaced. The idea is to fix, upgrade, paint what I can before I move in but I can't do any if those because my arsehole tenants didn't pay for the privilege of ruining my property.
The damage is being claimed on the bond, the rent on my insurance but of course these take time, and my useless property managers have to lodge those claims for me.
Thankfully for me my brother is a sparky and his housemate a plumber. My brother started doing some work to give me a few new power points and discovered all the electricity in the bathroom isn't legal anymore so he has to fix all that or he can't sign off on his work. So now I have holes all through my walls and so much mess and dust on everything. Plumber told me my bathroom sink is hanging in by 0.5cm of silicone and hope and that if it falls off the wall, which it will, it will rip the pipes out of the wall. We have 1 water meter, for 18 units. 1 persons pipes rip out the wall, 17 other units are without water until it gets fixed. So I gotta replace that, which means turning off the water supply to the entire block for 4 hours while it gets replaced. Hi neighbors I'm back and making noise, knocking down walls and turning off your water.
I haven't put so much as a swatch of paint on a wall, and I won't be for another 2 weeks. Oh yeah I forgot an entire wall had to he stripped because back when it was originally painted they didn't prime the plaster wall, I literally tore strips of paint off the wall without even trying. And then I went to strip the skirting boards of their 36478 layers of paint and they disintegrated because there has been damp in the walls, which has been repaired but they just reattached the water damaged skirts. This extra stuff is not a problem I am glad to fix it all now before I move in. But well no money till insurance comes in. I'm flying by the seat if my pants just to make my place livable again and I'm so angry at my tenants for what they've done to me and the position they have put me in.
It's clear from the mail I've collected that they got into financial trouble. There are a lot of bills and collection agencies and I can't imagine what that's like. But I'm so angry they didn't give me the chance to be the good guy. I wanted to move in to my place in August last year, but didn't want to stuff them around so have lived with my parents but have been counting down the days until the lease was up and I could move back. So if they had asked to be let out of their lease early, I'd have worked my budget and done some negotiating and worked out something that worked for them and me. I'm mad that their financial issues have become my financial issues and not just the money they owe me, the money the owe elsewhere and the debt collectors bugging me now.
I'm so mad and angry and frustrated and I don't forgive them and I don't care what their reason was because you might not think twice about running out in your phone bill or credit cards because those are big companies but I'm just one person trying to make my own ends meet.