The Good Girls property management, and landlord Sam Russell give notification of instant dismissal to Anna-Ria Melroy in Christchurch.

A serial rent dodger who owes up to $40,000 to landlords has been evicted from her latest Christchurch rental.

Anna-Ria Melroy, 28 — also known as Ann Marie Smith and Anne Marie Fraser Smith— has been targeting mostly private land lords in Christchurch since 2011. She owes up to $40,000 in unpaid rent and bond money to multiple landlords, including Housing New Zealand.

Her most recent victims, Sam Russell, and Jade Leung, said they would rather their Richmond rental property had sat empty than have gone through the nightmare Melroy had caused.

KIRK HARGREAVES/FAIRFAX NZ Anna-Ria Melroy, pictured in 2013, sells landlords a sob story to live rent free in Christchurch.

They were told a sob-story — which they now know to be fabricated — of how Melroy's home had been demolished, her then landlord had given her no time to get out, she was caring for foster children and was looking after her terminally ill 78-year-old grandfather. On her tenancy application form, she claimed she worked for IRD and gave a fake reference for a previous landlord.

"She came across as being the sort of person who had had a hard life, dealt a few bad cards, and was trying to make good of it," Leung said.

Melroy moved in to their property in November, with the promise of a bond transfer from her previous address.

JOHN KIRK-ANDERSON/FAIRFAX NZ A person connected with Anna-Ria Melroy shuts out Good Girls Property Management and owner Sam Russell, after receiving an eviction notice from them.

She paid just 81 cents of the $1200 rent owing, in her third week in the flat.

"You feel really stupid looking back on it now, but the stupid thing would be to let it carry on. We've got to be the last," Russell said.

Russell and Leung took Melroy to the tenancy tribunal last week, with the help of Good Girls Property Management, after Melroy had clocked up over $2000 in rent arrears.

JOHN KIRK-ANDERSON/FAIRFAX NZ A person connected with the tenants of a house in Christchurch arrives, soon after they were served with an eviction notice.

Melroy failed to appear at the hearing.

Last year Alan Fraser, 61, of Hampden, took Melroy to the tenancy tribunal, where she admitted under oath to going by different names. She changed her name just weeks before applying for the tenancy of his Gloucester St property. The 2014 tribunal terminated the tenancy of Melroy, and she was ordered to pay the landlord over $1700 in rent arrears for his Christchurch property.

"I've never seen a cent and I'm still paying for it," Fraser said.

JOHN KIRK-ANDERSON/STUFF Home owner, Sam Russell, watches as police serve his tenants with an eviction notice.

At the hearing, she "promised" to never do it again, and four weeks later she was reportedly doing the very same thing to a Christchurch motelier.

Jenny Pawson rented her Sumner property to Melroy two years ago, and is still owed $1500 in rent.

Like Fraser, she was told a similar story of hardship involving EQC repairs, and foster children.

Good Girls Property Management managing director Prudence Morrall said the case was a real "wake-up call" for private landlords across Christchurch, who might be desperate to fill their properties.

"There are a lot of properties on the market. The market has softened back so you haven't got the same desperation with forty people lined up willing to apply," Morrall said.

"Ma and Pa" investors, who might not know the law as well, were particularly vulnerable to people like Melroy.

"These landlords are not going to open their hearts to people ever again. It's flagrant abuse of people's generosity of spirit and I loathe that," Morrall said.

Brazier Property Investments principal Tony Brazier said the market now favoured tenants. Immediately after the quakes there were 1600 rental properties, there were now 1847.

"Landlords need to stop believing the market is romping full because we have an over-supply of properties at the moment, as was warned."

Private investors needed to be more vigilant about who they rented to.

Brazier said although the Melroy case was an "extreme exception", it would affect relationships between landlords and tenants.

"Like a nation shuts down when we have a terrorist attack, the landlords will shut down when they are likely to be ripped off."

Tenant's Protection Agency manager Helen Gatonyi called for clearer identification of applicants, to stop people like Melroy slipping through the cracks.

"We've been calling for a register for rental properties but we're not a police state," she said, of a potential blacklist for tenants.

"We don't want to make it so. It's about education and the education comes from day one."