Housing News Digest
Housing News Digest
The Tenants' Union Housing News Digest compiles our pick of items from all the latest tenancy and housing media, sent once per week, on Thursdays.
Below is the Digest archive from November 2020 onwards. From time to time you will find additional items in the archive that did not make it into the weekly Digest email. Earlier archives are here, where you can also find additional digests by other organisations.
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Archive
‘Sims-like’ New South Wales rental pic taken down by Ray White
Grace Ellen Macpherson news.com.au (No paywall)Housing justice campaigner Jordan van den Berg, known by his social media moniker ‘purplepingers’, has outed Ray White for posting a digital bed recreation in one of its new listings. In recent weeks, Mr van den Berg has become well known for posting the addresses of vacant houses for people in need and calling out what he calls “s**t rentals” on his TikTok account. On Tuesday, purplepingers posted a picture of a Ray White listing on Erskine Street in Riverwood, New South Wales, which shows a digital recreation of a bed inside a real bedroom.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/real-estate/renting/simslike-new…
# Hot topic NSW, Rent, Starting a tenancy.‘Freezing my tits off on Liverpool St’: The unfiltered history of Kings Cross
Helen Pitt The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Sex worker Julie Bates moved from Melbourne to Kings Cross not long after NSW became the first jurisdiction in the world to decriminalise prostitution in 1979. The suburb known as “Sin City” was then home to Sydney’s first strip club, the Pink Pussycat, drag cabaret at Les Girls and the Bourbon and Beefsteak, where revellers would party throughout the night. Beyond the neon glow though, police corruption and organised crime were at their peak in the 1980s. Heiress Juanita Nielsen had just disappeared, presumed murdered, and Bates’ friend and fellow sex worker Sallie-Anne Huckstepp was about to meet the same fate. Bates was arrested more times than she’d care to count because a quirk in the reformed laws still made brothels illegal.
https://www.smh.com.au/culture/art-and-design/freezing-my-tits-o…
# History NSW, .A suspicious rash led Brenda's rental to be decontaminated - the answer was inside the walls
Matt Gazy SBS (No paywall)Brenda was only five days into living in her new Gold Coast rental with her six dogs (yes, six) when something started to feel off. She said she started feeling itchy, developed a red rash and felt "dopey". She would soon discover her home was exposing her and her dogs to methamphetamine (meth). "I didn't know that meth affected people who never used it, or [about the] damage meth does to a house after [the people] left," Brenda said. Methamphetamine vapours can absorb into walls and furniture of a home — a 2023 Flinders University study found meth residue discovered in Queensland homes was detectable for months, and in some cases years, after production or use had stopped.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-feed/article/brenda-developed-a-…
# Hot topic, TUNSW in the media NSW, Security and safety.A Syd Man Claims He Was Evicted For Asking For A Rent Reduction After His Balcony Collapsed
Lavender Baj Pedestrian (No paywall)
A 35-year-old Sydney man has launched legal action against his landlord, claiming to be the victim of “retaliatory eviction” from his North Bondi apartment after asking for a rent reduction because *checks notes* his balcony collapsed. Pius Binder claims he was living at the North Bondi property for about four years before his balcony started coming away from the wall of their apartment block in October. “Two people were on it the night before and could have been harmed,” Binder said in the documents lodged with the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal. “Thankfully nothing happened.” After flagging the safety hazard with the real estate company Coastline Agency, he was asked to seek temporary immediate accommodation, which he claims took six weeks to be reimbursed for.
https://www.pedestrian.tv/news/retaliatory-eviction-north-bondi-…
# Hot topic NSW, Rent, Repairs, Security and safety.A ‘Fully Renovated’ $750 A Week Syd Rental Is Being Rightfully Torn To Shreds On Reddit
Rebekah Manibog Pedestrian (No paywall)For just $750 a week, you can rent this Auburn home, fitted with a toilet connected to a hose. Unfortunately, no toot paper is included. Ahh yes. Although it is a public holiday, there’s no rest in calling out the wicked. The wicked in this case are the shitty rentals that are continuously being put up on websites for ridiculous amounts of moolah. Our story takes place on r/shitrentals — a subreddit inspired by Jordan van den Berg‘s ‘Shit Rentals’ series — where a Redditor shared a listing that they described as “nightmare fuel”.
https://www.pedestrian.tv/news/redditors-slam-750-a-week-rental/
# Hot topic NSW, Rent, Repairs.Far too many Britons are at the mercy of exploitative private landlords. I have a five-point plan to fix that
Stephen Cowan The Guardian (No paywall)Sarah faces daily torment. An impending rent rise means she can no longer afford to live in the home she shares with her two children. She has to downsize. That means potentially having to split up her boys. Her youngest is doing his A-levels. Her oldest, just turned 18, is struggling with mental health issues. It is an unenviable problem. “Will I have to say that one son lives elsewhere and one lives with me,” asks Sarah (not her real name). “At best I can try to protect them and say it’s all going to be OK. But I have to say it to myself as well. But we’ve got no stability and could be thrown out in two months’ time.” Sarah’s plight is a story of modern Britain. Where once we were a nation of homeowners and those who rented from their local council, we now live in a land where a staggering 11 million people live in privately rented homes.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/15/br…
# International, Rent.Evicted grandmother now sleeping rough in park
Eleanor Lawrie BBC (No paywall)When Heidi Dodson discovered she was going to be evicted, she reached out to her local council of Thurrock in Essex for help. But it rejected her application for priority housing and said she would cope if she ended up on the streets. Two weeks after being evicted, Heidi is homeless and sleeping in a park. Every evening Heidi Dodson reads her grandchildren a bedtime story and wishes them good night.
Then she quietly packs a rucksack with a torch, biscuits and some toilet roll, and makes a flask of tea, before making her way to a local park to spend the night. “You think about what you had - the safety of your own home, key, roof over your head,” Heidi says. “It’s these things that are going through your mind when you are out in the cold and sleeping on a park bench. The 57-year-old former shop assistant was recently served a section 21 “no-fault” eviction after seven years living in a private rented property she had secured through the council.
Landlord ordered to pay tenant $9k after failing to maintain rental property
Catherine Hutton NZ Herald (No paywall)A landlord who falsely claimed her property met Healthy Homes standards has been ordered to pay the tenant more than $9000. The tenant’s complaint to the Tenancy Tribunal featured a laundry list of problems that included the toilet cistern falling off the wall, unsafe electrical reticulation, a leaking shower, excessive mould because of poor ventilation, and floors that were so uneven they were dangerous. The recently released decision is scathing of the landlord, Xin Ji, stating “in the circumstances, I can only assume the landlord’s motivation to have been to avoid the cost of having those issues properly investigated and of any resulting remediation”.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/landlord-ordered-to-pay-tenant-alm…
# Must read International, Rent, Repairs, Utilities water energy internet.