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Pedestrian.tv
Pedestrian.tv
National
Saskia Morrison-Thiagu

A Big Fuck You To This Syd Landlord Who Evicted Tenants On A Lie Before Relisting Apartment

A Sydney couple say their landlord lied to them about the reason they were forced to move out of their north-west Epping apartment, only to discover the same property being listed for a 35% per cent increase. Landlords (aka scums of the earth) are hiking up rental prices left-right-and-centre, with many renters feelings the squeeze due to greedy landlords abusing a rental market that seems to be more competitive than ever. Speaking to 9News, Ankit Mehta said that he was told their one bedroom apartment would increase from $425 to $575 a week. When he asked if it would be possible to negotiate, the landlord said no. He also asked if they could organise pest control seeing as they were signing a new lease, which the landlord refused as well. “I asked the real estate agent, ‘Would it be possible to negotiate?’ and she said ‘No’,” Mehta told 9News. “So we decided to stay. We didn’t want to get into the chaos of finding a new place to rent, considering the situation right now. However, just a few days later, Mehta received a 30-day termination notice to say that he and his wife would be forced to vacate their home so that the landlord’s parent could live in the house as they’d been granted a visa. The couple spent a month searching frantically for a new place to live, telling 9News that they inspected 60 properties before finding one at the very last minute. Then to further add salt to the wound, a day after moving out Mehta’s wife spotted a real estate advertisement pop up for their old apartment. The apartment asking price was for $575 a week, a $125 increase on what they had previously been paying. Mehta and his wife were shocked to say the least, and reckon landlords are using the desperation of renters as a “weapon”. “It’s absolutely a shocker. In this situation, they’re just getting as much as they want because there is a shortage of housing, they’re using it as a weapon,” Ankit Mehta said. “There has to be an upper limit somewhere. “Interest rates are increasing, but how do you justify a more than 30 per cent increase?” Imagine landing in the fiery pits of hell, and instead of the devil it’s just a Sydney landlord holding a termination notice instead of a pitchfork?
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